Fallout: Equestria - Rising Dawn

Chapter 1 - Cradle

Chapter 1

Cradle

"But it was only a matter of time before their precious little world fell apart ..."

The water level was rising. Bubbling. Boiling. My skin prickled. I could feel its heat radiating against my flesh.

A rivulet of sweat ran down my face.

I knelt beneath the railing over the stable's water purifier, staring into the churning, turbulent waters below.

'Something's wrong.' A tremor rumbled through the catwalks. Engineer ponies froze on their hooves. I felt the metal beneath my hooves begin to shake.

Then the catwalks - the purifier - the chamber -

My entire world began to quake.

"RED DAWN!" someone shrieked.

Hearing my name, I jerked upright and slammed my head into the railing above me. I hoofed the throbbing pain beneath my cropped, red mane, a curse at the tip of my tongue.

But my curses were lost beneath everybody's screams.

The brown of my coat was lost in a flood of brilliant white as a blinding flash engulfed the teardrop-shaped chamber around me.

Ponies screamed for their lives. The metal shuddered beneath my hooves. The catwalks that spiraled around Stable 91's water purifier shook violently below.

I reared upon my hinds, covering my ears with my forehooves as sirens wailed over my muffled, pounding heartbeat. Every single console in the chamber was screaming for everybody's - anybody's attention. It was like the whole world was about to explode – the only world that I had ever known my entire life.

My eyes darted frantically to the rumbling water purifier at the center of the chamber. I cringed as my pupils contracted to the blazing outburst of another star gone supernova.

"Why the fuck is it doing that!?" I screamed against the howling sirens as I felt something wet trickle out my ear. In the ensuing chaos, hooves clopped frantically around me. Ponies rushed to flashing consoles and terminals. Others stopped to diagnose the engorged pipes that wove into the walls around us.

But there were too many pipes, too many terminals, and not enough ponies to fix them. We weren't prepared for something like that – we weren't prepared for so many things to come apart at once.

Because something like that was never supposed to happen.

Everybody dropped what they were doing and swung their heads back to the purifier. My pupils shrank in horror amid the scarlet irises of my widening eyes.

The machine let out an ear piercing shriek, and every single one of the pipes in the chamber began to rumble and screech.

I doubled over as the deafening metallic scream tore through my already ringing ears. I winced, darting my eyes left and right at the swelling weave of pipes that spiraled around us.

They popped and hissed with steaming jets of vapor.

'Goddesses. We're all going to die.'

If we weren't going to be cooked alive, I was sure that the entire room was going to collapse upon itself.

A familiar voice shook me back into focus, calling my name from across the chamber.

"Red! I need you!" My ears perked at the mare's voice. I swung my head over my shoulder and saw her slamming her hooves desperately into a flashing console.