Fallout: Equestria - Rising Dawn

Chapter 8 - The Out-and-Out

Chapter 8

The Out-and-Out

"I found out the hard way that the closest thing to being cared for was to care for someone else."

"You couldn't save me."

She glared through me, my muddled reflection glistening in her chilling, gray eyes. The agony in her words bled me out more than the bullet holes across my chest. I lay at her hooves, my life blood pooling across the snow.

"YOU COULDN'T SAVE ME!" she wailed as a blizzard engulfed us both.

I held out a hoof to her but she swatted it away. "I'm sorry ... DD ... I ..."

"Failed. You sorry little fuck up ... you failed us all. You ran ... I saw you run. You let us all die."

"Dew Drops ..."

"YOU LET US ALL DIE!"

The blood drained from my face. "DD... w-why? I tried ... please ..."

She craned her neck to the bloodied, shivering heap at her hooves.

Dew Drops murmured, her voice trembling, "You tried ... you tried ..." A cruel grin stretched across her bloody lips. "Just like how you tried helping those slaves... or how you just stood there and let those all those zebras die."

I froze, my heart skipping a beat as her words sank deep into my heart like a frozen blade driving into my chest. I could do nothing but whimper and sob as the agonized screams of zebras, and ponies, and my friends coalesced into Dew Drops' gravelly voice.

"You ran."

I shook my head as if my life depended on it. "N-no – please, it wasn't like that ... I ... I ... I didn't ..."

Her chilling breath choked away my words, like a bed of icy needles pressing against my throat. I could smell the stench of spilled innards and rotting death about her.

The dead mare whispered into my ear, "You're a coward ... a fucking coward."

"I'm sorry ... Dew Drops ... I'm so sorry," I sobbed. "If I had another chance ... I'd ... I'd ..."

"Fail. Again." She reared up on her hinds and dropped her hooves onto my face. I cried out weakly as they slammed into my muzzle – "Again! AGAIN! AND AGAIN!" Blood trickled down my forehead and out of my nose, freezing against my bruised, shivering flesh and staining my coat black.

I struggled to my hooves, gasping a raspy breath only to collapse pathetically into the snow before her.

"Dew Drops ... why ... why are you doing this to me? This isn't like you ... stop ... please ... I ... I love you..."

She levitated an icy, warped machete, lifting the blade over my shivering form.

"Dew Drops – please! I love you –"

"No,"she whispered, "You failed. You couldn't even save the ponies you cared about. You couldn't save me. You can't save anyone. Not even our stable." The grin she wore upon her ghastly, corpulent face squeezed the air from my lungs.

"Heh..." she chuckled as I let out a pathetic sob. "You can't even save yourself."

"No ..."

She swung the machete into my neck.

"NO!"

I flung my hooves in front of me, gasping for my breath as sweat froze against my forehead. I lay there for what felt like hours, rocking back and forth in silence.