Old Fluffy, New World Ch5 [by ChungusMyBungus]

An unknown amount of time later…

Roger creaked his eyes open and winced. The sky was still red. The sky was always red now. Even at night.
He got up and waddled out of his old den, feeling his belly rumble. He hadn’t eaten in a very long time, and although he didn’t need to eat, it still wasn’t any fun to not eat either.
He hadn’t seen a human in a long time either. Or another fluffy pony. Or any other kinds of animals, or any plants either… sometimes it was nice, but most of the time, it was very sad, very lonely, and even quite scary.
Roger walked past where he had left the bones of his herd. They were long gone now, having crumbled into dust centuries ago, and blown away by the wind. Roger almost envied them.

Roger waddled over to the river where he had first met the Smarty. The landscape had changed a great deal since then, but a tiny trickle of water still ran past. Roger slurped up a small mouthful, and recoiled immediately.
It tasted like chemicals, and burned his tongue and stomach. Roger knew it would have killed him, if he was capable of dying. But it didn’t matter, Roger drank at the river every day. He secretly hoped it’d be just like before, that he’d sip the water, hear a twig snap, and turn to see more fluffy ponies, ensconced in a world of rich green plants…

But it never happened.
The world wasn’t green anymore. It was red. Red sky, red sunlight, red clouds, red sand, red water. Everything was a burning, violent shade of red.
Roger looked up at the red sky and saw the black chunks dotting it in the distance. The moon, or what was left of it. It made him sad to think of it.
But then again, everything made him sad these days.

As Roger lay down under the burning red sun that never set, he looked out at the black ocean of sizzling, burning water, and he wondered…
Would he ever die?
He hadn’t ever thought he’d want to… but the things you think about have a funny way of changing on you like that.
He missed Doug. He missed his special-friend. Hell, he missed his entire herd. He even missed Jeni, in a way. He missed them all, he wanted to see them again… even if that meant he had to die. At this point, death would be merciful.

Roger opened his eyes again.
It was no use.
He was still alive, still in a world of blinding red light, burning chemical water and no food.

He picked himself up and dragged himself back to his den, vaguely wondering what would happen next.
The world was silent and still, the moon no longer existed, there wasn’t a single creature left alive across the planet.
Except for one.
The last living creature in the world, all alone for the rest of his life.

Roger, the fluffy pony.

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is this the end of rogers story?

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Pretty much yeah. One of my favourite books is HG Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’, this was all inspired by the finale where he goes too far into the future and sees it as a nightmarish hellscape. A while ago I came up with the idea of an ‘immortal’ fluffy and figured I’d put the two together.

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Absolutely fucked.
Bravo.

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If this were to dovetail with Arthur C Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” … squid, whale, space, fluffy… Anyway I really appreciate the pacing and the scale. Well written, really. It almost implies, doesn’t it, that the researchers also removed the “wan die” loop from Roger as well - or at least that verbalisation in so many words. It seems they can express Wan Die but they can’t ideate actual suicide. Otherwise could Roger begin a quest to find a way to obliterate himself… or come into contact with alien intelligence…

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