Static

Static. Static. Static. Static.

Zoe numbly pressed the rocker on the remote.

Static. Static. Static.

There was nothing.

Zoe wasn't sure whether she took comfort in that or not. Sand track roads, shadow monsters, alien chariots and obsidian stables were all somethings - and right then Zoe desperately didn't want to find another one.

She tried very hard not to look at the symbols in the corner of the screen; the channel numbers reduced to indecipherable hieroglyphics in her mind, devoid of all meaning.

Katie's clattering from the kitchen paused, "Anything?"

"... N-no..." Zoe called back, hugging the blanket tighter around herself and scooting even closer to the screen. She perched right at the front of the coffee table, her tail laid out deliberately behind her so she didn't have to feel it.

"What have you got to?"

Zoe stared at the meaningless squiggles resentfully, "I don't know."

There was a long pause.

"Just keep going..."

The naked girl took another steadying breath - it was hard not to feel like she was being kept occupied. Katie was moving around the house with constant frantic purpose - locking doors, closing drapes, taking inventory... while she'd just handed Zoe the remote and told her to flip channels until she found anything.

A few dozen more flickering screens of fuzzy static clicked by Zoe's tired eyes, each with their own impossible combination of symbols. "Katie, there's nothing!"

She stared at the empty kitchen doorway, bouncing a bare foot agitatedly beneath the blanket that engulfed her as she waited impatiently for a reply. She heard cupboards being closed and boxes being moved...

"Katie?"

Something plastic fell, then footsteps. Zoe's tail twitched.

"Katie!"

"I'm coming! I'm coming..."

A moment later she rounded the corner, barefoot beneath her jodhpurs, two small glasses of orange juice in her hands.

She glanced between Zoe and the TV, "Nothing at all?"

"No" Zoe pouted, despondently, "Just like the internet and the phones and the radio..."

"We're alone..."

The blonde stooped, handing her a glass. Zoe bashfully clutched the blanket for modesty with one hand and took the drink with the other.

"Slowly, Zo." Katie murmured.

As Zoe raised it to her lips, Katie’s hand closed around her wrist—firm, steady. Their eyes met.

"I mean it."

Katie released her, and Zoe’s gaze dropped to the cool glass in confusion, "W-what... why?"

The blonde withdrew, taking a small sip from her own drink and tugging at the long sleeves of her polo before she answered, "We don't have any more..."

"Huh?"

Katie glanced at her meaningfully. Zoe frowned, the knots in her stomach tightening, "You mean...?"

"I'm not freaking out okay?" Katie walked around the living room pensively, nursing the glass as she wrung it it her hands, "We have electricity and water and heat, like, everything is still working... but..."

She stopped pacing, sitting on the arm of the couch as she stared towards the window, "We probably only have enough food for like three days..."

Zoe felt her throat tighten, her blood rushing cold as she glanced frantically back and forth between the kitchen doorway and Katie's forlorn frame.

She couldn't escape the guilt of it, again, the gnawing perilous danger the seemed to be lurking always just beyond the periphery of her vision. For all the humiliation and fear the demonic collar had already put her through, the suddenly very real threat of actual starvation loomed like an entirely new, entirely alien threat.

"Wait... But..."

"And that's like, mostly cereal..." Katie murmured, "...we weren't exactly stocked up..."

Zoe's tail flicked again, sending a disturbed tingle up her spine as she tried desperately to forget it. "W-what are we going to do?!"

"We're not going to panic." Katie said too quickly - not looking at her when she spoke, her gaze instead remained fixed on where the living room drapes were closed against the window. Even so, her voice quivered, and again Zoe couldn't help but notice the manic energy in her fingers as they drummed at random against the glass. "I mean maybe the kitchen will get all shadowy next and we'll get some magic food to go with my magic closet and magic chariot and magic house..."

Katie stopped herself with a sarcastic, bitter, cough. "Sorry... I just... I think you're right..."

"I'm... What?"

Zoe watched as Katie anxiously leant towards the curtains, parting them with her fingers just enough to peek out through the narrowest slither.

"It's a game..." Katie said slowly, "I mean it's not but... it is... the tracker was a game. The collar was a game. It's still the same game - it's just that the rules keep getting more complicated. We don't know what they are... but you're still playing..."

Zoe swallowed mutely, trying hard to ignore the way her throat flexed against her collar. Her grip on the cool glass tightened.

"We're still playing" Katie corrected herself, tugging at her polo again.

Zoe risked the smallest sip of her drink, the sweetness flooding her senses as she tried to heed Katie's warning to savour it.

"But..." Zoe shook her head, "I qualified...? This is meant to be over..."

Katie let the drapes fall back, "We still don't know what qualifying means Zo... We don't know how any of this works... except things have changed... really changed this time... I mean, we don't even know where we are..."

"We're still here..."

"Are we?"

Zoe shivered, not wanting to think too hard about the absolutely apocalyptic reality all around them. Or how it was all her fault. Was it worse to have been transported into a nightmare dimension, or to have brought a nightmare dimension to you?

Don't think about it.

"Someone will come right? It can't be the whole world..."

"We don't know that it's not..." Katie's shoulders dropped.

"But... our parents? Our friends... I didn't... They're not...?!"

"I don't know..." Katie sniffed, her voice wavering, "... you saw Mr Peterson..."

"That thing was not Mr Peterson..."

"It thought it was..."

Zoe winced. Part of her frantically wanted to ask again about what he'd said - but again she bit her tongue. Another beat of silence passed between them. "... D-do you think everyone is... like that?"

Katie paused for a few heartbeats too long and Zoe felt her own fragile nerves coming even more undone.

"Without going further... I... I don't know..."

"Going further? I'm not going out there again..." Zoe whimpered, bouncing her knees, "It's like an actual nightmare..."

"I don't think you'll have a choice..." Katie's gaze snapped back to hers, her stare fixed even as she seemed to lose focus, her body trembling, "You think it's not going to make you run again?"

Zoe shrank inside the comfort of her blanket, the weight of her collar ever present.

Good ponygirls just run!

"We don't know..."

Katie's stare killed the words in her throat, "We might as well be stuck on a desert island Zo... We don't know anything... We're cut off... No help, no information, no food..."

Katie lifted her shoulders with **** guilt, taking another sip of her juice before she spoke again, "But we do have a raft..."