April 30, 8:29 AM

“Wait for Peter to come back. She could search the book again for more on Cutie Marks.” 70%

Of course, Wayfinder didn’t want to sit around in this mysterious place and wait for others to make her decisions for her. Since the first days of the outbreak, she’d been the one to decide where they ended up. Whether she’d done a good job making those decisions was a matter for debate—but she’d kept everyone alive. Apparently that couldn’t be said for those who tried to walk down that tunnel before them.

Security booth, automatic turrets, programmed to kill people who try to escape.

Maybe there was some truth to Peter’s belief that the powers that be planned to stop an initial outbreak with a nuclear device.

She couldn’t keep thinking about it forever, though, not with Hazel staring at her. The insect’s huge eyes showed little emotion, but the flicks of her tail could.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on me,” she said. She reached towards her forehead, running her hoof along the length there. The skin at the center was sensitive enough to mirror the abilities of fingers, albeit with only a single axis of sensitivity. She had to touch her horn separately from different angles to confirm what she felt there. Scorch marks near the tip, maybe a burn? The sensation made little sense to her mind, since, of course, a bone couldn’t burn. Was this a layer of skin over it, or something else?

“You didn’t have to wait around. I’m sure you have… places you’d rather be, now that we finally made it to the isolation zone.”

Hazel moved past her, settling onto her haunches, and stared up at the basement steps. “Not really. I hate it here.”

That gave her pause. Wayfinder abandoned her thoughts, taking a few nervous steps towards the child. “It’s that bad in here?”

She glanced over her shoulder, then nodded tearfully. “T-there’s this… big, scary place in the center. No one goes there… has to keep it from getting bigger. People wanna throw me in there. Some think I escaped. Or like the people who died when they got infected.”

She sunk lower, head down and ears flat. “I’m not a monster, though. I don’t wanna hurt people. It’s not my fault I look this way.”

Wayfinder shouldn’t be distracted by the suffering of one kid, when she didn’t know anything about where they were, what danger they might be in, who might be upstairs, where she’d get her next meal. Hazel wasn’t even family!

She couldn’t just sit there and listen to a kid cry, even if her voice did echo strangely and make her coat stand slightly on end. Wayfinder took a few slow steps towards her, then rested against the kid, wrapping her foreleg around her. Something about it being a kid made it easier not to feel self-conscious. Maybe a little nervous about her hard shell and those holes in her legs. “It’s not your fault you look like that. Anyone who treats you differently because you got sick is an asshole. It’s not on you that they’re mean.”

Hazel didn’t reply with much of anything at first—a strangled sob, her body touching up against Wayfinder, burying her head against her leg. Been a long time since I had to do this for anyone. Ruby was too tough to need comfort like this. And her little sister—she was too old, too independent.

Eventually she stopped crying and just fell silent, her body shaking strangely with the way she breathed. Way remained silent too, and didn’t even realize her horn was glowing to light the basement.

“Besides, if it gets too bad—we teleported in here, I’ll just help us teleport back out again.”

Hazel said nothing to that, a faint chuckle lost in the other sounds. Her movements slowed, until her breathing was no longer desperate and terrified. “Thanks, Way. I wish James was with me. But I’m glad he waited until a girl like you came to rescue me.” She lowered her voice, as if afraid to be overheard. There was no one else in the basement with them.

I would’ve been upset about being called a girl before. Now it only made her thoughtful, brushing the little blue frill out of Hazel’s eyes. “Sorry I’ve been too out of it to help over the last few days. Maybe you could catch me up on what I missed.”

Hazel’s tension returned. Her tail flicked up, her eyes lingering on the steps. But there was no one coming Wayfinder could see.

“It… sucks.” She finally said. “For everyone else too. Not enough food, not enough water, electricity only a few hours a day. Sick and hungry and weak. More and more of the space is getting swallowed by this… darkness, taking away more houses and safe places to live. It’s the worst place ever.”

Exactly what we were afraid of, she thought. The feds were completely unprepared for an outbreak on this scale. From what little they got out of other states, Colorado wasn’t the only state on the brink. The rest of the world had effectively locked down trade and immigration overnight. This was probably worse than the Great Depression by now.

“What about Ruby and Sam?” When the kid didn’t respond, she continued. “My friends from the car. Sam’s the bird who drove us here. And Ruby’s the yellow and orange pony from the backseat.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Not sure. I’m guessing… it didn’t go well, if we didn’t see them by now.” Her wings opened, briefly vibrating on her back. She nudged the wall next to them with her foreleg. “This is one of the… intake blocks. We stay here until they know we won’t die. Then we get shoved somewhere else, probably just as bad. Dunno.”

“What about Peter?” She sniffed, and found his scent on her again—it led to their shared sleeping space, and touched a dozen other things in the basement with them. He was clearly living there. “What’s he up to?”

“Dunno.” Hazel paced her way over to the window, then nudged at the high curtains. They parted a crack, revealing a shaft of bright orange from outside.

Wayfinder had been wrong if she thought it was late at night. Closer to morning. “What about…” she winced. “Something to eat? I feel weak. Head is spinning, body still feels weak. Probably because I haven’t eaten anything.”

Hazel retreated towards the blob of blankets they’d been sleeping in, and retrieved a cardboard box from inside. She pushed it forward, exposing various identical, flat pieces of cardboard covered in block letters. Wayfinder lifted one towards the new patch of light using her magic. She didn’t bother reading it though—just tugged, separating the plastic so she could expose its contents. Some kind of peach dessert in a rich, sugary syrup. She swallowed every bite, squeezing the container dry. She did the same to a stale-tasting rice pilaf, then a foul-tasting vegetarian “stew.”

“MREs,” she finally whispered, tossing the empty plastic into the trash corner. The trash there overflowed onto the floor, and a number of flies circled the space, filling the air with a drone she hadn’t noticed while she recovered. “The flavors didn’t get any better since I was in high school. Great.”

Even so, at least now one pain had faded.

“Your boyfriend is gone most of the days. Comes back with food and water at night. Keeps telling me to watch you. Doesn’t want you to die.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, without thinking. Then the bug was staring, her expression doubtful.

“We thought about it, but it never worked out. Not sure if that changes now.” There were a lot more people around them now. He hadn’t seemed optimistic about their chances if Wayfinder didn’t accept him last time. “I’m grateful he’s helping us. There are other people here?”

“Mostly at night,” Hazel said. “There’s a curfew, so. Everyone’s stuck in here, waiting to be able to leave. Not enough space, too many people. Everyone’s angry all night, makes it hard to sleep.”

“We’re not going to wait around for bad things to happen to us,” Wayfinder said. She dug around in their blankets, prodding them away to reveal their makeshift saddlebags, still heavy with various things. She couldn’t say how much of their communications gear and other computer junk was still there. But the most important item was there: a heavy, worn book, tucked down near the bottom. She levitated it into the air, then flicked through the pages.

Light was real, unlocking things was real—apparently teleportation was too, though that one had cost her. “Are they looking for us? The… guard did try to kill us when we got here.”

She shook her head. “There’s rumors about when we came in. Some infected who tried to get out, and learned that when they shoot you in your horn, you disintegrate. There’s supposedly this little crater where it happened, but I didn’t go out to see it.”

“That’s some good news.” She glanced up at the steps. “Except that Ruby and Sam probably think we’re dead too. Won’t make finding them the easiest.”

She flicked through the spellbook on the floor in front of her, skimming through its contents. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular—maybe some detail about Cutie Marks she’d missed, or maybe some spell she could use to improve their situation.

Most of it didn’t seem useful. A few healing spells near the back, and one charm that could purify water. But growing food was apparently a very challenging task, beyond the scope of one volume. “And a superfluous field of study for most unicorns, with earth ponies so abundant.” The ones without horns apparently had some skill with that.

The notes about Cutie Marks were in the front, and were as minimal as she thought. This section wasn’t to tell her about them; rather, it was a word of caution and motivation for ponies who picked up the book for the first time.

“Many a unicorn has been discouraged from pursuing their birthright purely because they lack a Cutie Mark to grant special mastery over the thaumic arts. The reverse is not true, as anypony must use their special talent to receive their mark.

“Go forward with full confidence that a unique gift for these powers is not required to learn even advanced manifestations and spells. Yes, the swirls and sparkles of the world have their advantages. But if you study diligently and practice often, you can follow in their hoofsteps just the same.”

There were a few other useful details in there—like about her present condition. Wayfinder had likely “sprained” her horn, language used frequently despite the absurdity of the term. It could happen to any unicorn who pushed their magic too hard. It could be much more seriously damaged, usually by physically breaking the tip of her horn, and requiring surgery. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened.

I can’t actually teleport us out of here if it sucks. I don’t even know how I did it the first time.

Time passed. Minutes, hours—long enough that Wayfinder began to grow nervous with the delay. She couldn’t keep hiding in a basement forever, hoping for Peter to come back. Wayfinder stretched, hid the book away in her bags again, then gestured up the steps. “We’re allowed out of here during the day, right? We can…” She lowered her voice, nervously. “Who enforces the rules, anyway?”

“Ponies,” Hazel said, trailing after her. “Wearing military uniforms. Don’t fit real well. Most of them aren’t really military. A few are. There’s this tiny little one with wings like a bat, about the same size as me. But she can look so mean that everyone listens. Most of them just wave weapons around.”

Wayfinder started up the steps, and Hazel followed, taking them two at a time. “Where are we going?”

She would track down what happened to all of them, eventually. But there were many people in Denver she wanted to find right then, and she had to start with one:

To Find Ruby and Sam.

To Find Peter

To Find the pony who wrote that book.