What Once Was

I walked through the halls of my facility. My heels clicked loudly as I walked sullenly through "Doctor, Doctor Torkivich!" Newton ran over to me. "Sir we need you now, subject seven's out of control!"

I let out a long groan as I walked steadily towards the seventh room. I waited at the door with Newton while the occupant continually rammed the walls and clawed at the door. "Disgusting.... Dosage?"

Newton poked his hoof with his right. "I uh...one and a half standard dosing for a changeling that size sir."

"Time in captivity?"

Again Newton fumbled about. "One and a half years total, three months with us."

I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. "Any signs of recovery?"

Newton looked into the room. The changeling quickly headbutted the window, threatening to break its own skull in the process. "Sir...I think you can tell."

"Da...I know...." I tucked my hand into my coat and wrapped it around my pistol. "A shame...but at this rate, killing them would be a mercy." I had Newton get ready with the door and steadied myself. "I know little one, you're afraid...but Doctor Danila is here to send you to rest." I charged into the chamber, slamming my weight against the rabid creature, and forcing my gun between its plates. "Go to your god little bird, be free." I fired, sending round after round through the creatures flesh, shredding it and leaving it dying on the ground. I held its head underfoot and finished it, leaving a half eviscerated corpse laying in the padded white room.

I stepped out and whipped the rancid black ichor on my legs. "Get a cleaner in there, subject seven is now gone to god." I holstered my pistol and pressed my hand against the window. It hurt, it hurt like killing my own children. I knew there were people trapped in these broken evil forms, but not all were strong enough to break past, and sending them to rest was all I could do.

Newton looked ill as I left the door open. "Sir...how the hell do you do it?"

I looked back at the bloody mess I had left. "Eh...unwavering belief in god, absinthe, and the ever looming thought of suicide." I closed the door. "How is subject two-two-eight?"

"Uh..., good actually. Do you want to--"

I cut Newton off. "Clean this cell, I know the way."

Newton looked squeamishly back at the bloody room. "Yes sir...right away."

I walked down the pristine white halls of the facility. Humanity had brought one pure thing with them, white tile and the smell of antiseptic. I was nearly blindsided as a troop of ponies ran past, hurrying a gurney along and heading towards the recently passed.

I felt sick as I heard the plasticy sound of a body bag being prepared. The sound was very tactile, horrid, bleak. I didn't like my job, but if I could save just one, it would be worth it. I thought back to Newton's question and decided that must be it.

I hurried past the dead and found the cell the recovering patients were settled in. I found the room in question and pulled the thin door open. "Privyet Juniper, how are you?" I asked the room, Juniper walked out from behind the bathroom wall.

"Who's there?" she asked in no particular direction, "I can still smell you."

She looked awful, the bug like carapace slowly peeling away, revealing pink flesh with the beginnings of a ashy brown coat coming back in. "Is Doctor Torkivich, how are you feeling?"

"Oh...I thought it was you. My eyes are feeling better, I still cant see, but they're better." she walked carefully around, eventually bumping into me and feeling around my legs. "You're here to talk right? Would you mind carrying me?"

I leaned down and picked her up. "Of course. How are your legs? Any complications since you lost your wings?"

Juniper shifted around in my arms. "Cold...I feel cold."

"I fix." I carried her into the small seating area provided for the recovering patients. I wrapped a soft cotton blanket around her and sat her down across from me. "Better?"

"Yeah." She smiled, her rounded teeth finally making a appearance behind the sharp changeling set. I spotted something strange with her eyes.

"Juniper, can you see light?"

"A little." she tucked her head into her blanket and rubbed her eyes. "Yes, yes I can see light."

I reached over and rubbed the blue shell over her eyes. I scratched the surface, it flaked against my touch. "Juniper...close your eyes, and tell me if I'm hurting you."

She agreed and I could see her eyes shut behind the lightening film. I pressed my hail against the film, shattering it and sticking my finger behind it. I slowly peeled the thin film and cleared her left eye. "I- I see light! I can--" she froze as a bright green eye stared petrified at me. "Monster...."

I held her shoulder tight, letting my gloved hand hold her bare flesh. "I am human...you have missed much since your change, but we fix in time."

Her eye darted around like mad as she sat speechless. "Doctor...I'm scared."

I took the back of her head in my hand and held her over my shoulder. "I know little one...but you are safe now...you are safe now." I rubbed the her half cracked head, chunks of the once hardened carapace falling apart around my fingers. "Through it all, I promise you are safe."

She started crying into my jacket. "Blood...our blood...why are you--"

"Shh shh shh... We are not there, we are here, now, safe and sound." I clutched her head into my shoulder. "I promise to you, on my life, that you are safe." I held her for what felt like ages before letting her draw away from me. I managed to peel away the rest of the changeling carapace on her face, revealing her soft pink skin and stunning green eyes. I surpressed a smile as long as I could before breaking down and crying.

I pressed my eyes against her bare forehead and cried openly. I had done it, whatever curse or hex this was, I had beaten it.

I held the mare for a long time, eventually scooping her blanketed form up and taking her out of the room. I found Newton coming out of the restrooms, pale as a ghost. "Sir...who's that?"

Juniper turned her head to meet Newton's. "Newy?"

Newton froze in place. "No."

"Newton?" Juniper asked hazily.

"June? Juny?!" Newton bolted over as I ducked down and set the wrapped up mare on the ground. "Juniper!?" He ran to her, taking her in his forelegs and crying loudly into her side. "Oh dear Celestia I thought I lost you! June, Junie, oh god...oh dear god...dear god." he broke the greatest rule I'd ever seen ponies adhere to, he called out to his god.

I sent Newton home and saw Juniper to her quarters. She was exhausted from the little bit of strain I put on her and I didn't want to risk having an issue. The treatments I had put each and every changeling on made them highly weak and unstable, so this was an extremely slow and delicate process.

The following day

"No!" Newton was clawing at Junipers door. "Don't fucking touch her!" a pair of grown human guards were having trouble restraining him. "Get away from her!"

I hurried over and pulled Newton free of the guards. "What the fuck is happening!?"

Newton tried to get free. "They're taking her! They're taking her away!"

"What!?" I tossed him back and charged into the room. A pair of ponies was slowly forcing Juniper towards the wall. I charged in and kicked the ponies in the ribs. "Get the fuck away from her!" I tossed one into a wall and threw the other into a table. "She is fragile!"

I reached Juniper as she gasped for air. "Juniper, you look at me, look at me! Focus on me!" I held her tight and felt her chest, the already weak beat was now overworked and straining. "Sedatives! Sedatives now!" I screamed as I held the quickly failing mare in my arms. "No no no no, fuck!"

Juniper's eyes were dilated, her beat irregular and strand. I set her down and tried to do everything in my power to keep her heart going. "One, two, three." I started compressions. "One, two, three!" little by little her panicked expression faded. "No, no no no no fuck, fuck! One, two, three! Please god, hear me now, please. One, two, three." I continued futily as more personnel flooded the room. "Fuck you! One, two, three! Please...please...please...." I gave up and laid my head across her motionless chest. "Please...don't leave."

I heard a loud clicking sound draw closer as I pulled a blanket over the now passed on mare. "What the hell happened here!? Where's the subject!? I sent for her an hour ago!" I turned and found another doctor, a man I had worked with on trying to undo the poison that infected their bodies.

I stared at the human in the coat like mine. "Why, what point did your intrusion make?" I grabbed him by the collar. "Was my patient, not yours!" I screamed with righteous indignation as I shook him. "You send your people, send them into my building, to take my subjects, for what?!"

The man threw me off of himself. "You had results! We needed to capitalize on said results immediately!"

I contemplated shooting him. "You killed her.... They are isolated for a reason, I leave them separate for a reason, I make them take time for a reason!" I dropped the body and lunged for his throat. "They need time! She needed time, you fuck, you pig, you animal!" I was slowly strangling the life out of him as he pleaded his last.

I was moments away from ending his pitiful life when the depression washed over me. My rage was washed away as I realized all that work, months of extremely measured doses of highly expense medicine, years of research. All were wasted through one man's inability to keep to himself.

But killing him would do nothing. I picked up the body wrapped in a blanket and walked outside. I don't know exactly how far I walked or how long, but I ended up in the middle of a street holding the body to my head. "I could have done more." I explained to god. "I could have stopped him...I could have saved her, she was going to live!"

I felt a hoof on my shoulder, but didn't bother to look up, I knew Newton's voice well enough by now. "It's not your fault."

"I could have done something!"

"You weren't there, it's not your fault."

A crowd slowly gathered around my as I sobbed into the blanket covered body. "I could have done more, I could have saved her, I would have found a way." I chanted to myself. She had come so far, farther than any other, just to have her life plucked away by a weakened heart.

I ended up being arrested and later discharged. The doctor that had involuntarily killed my patient was deported, but I never saw Newton again. My work continues as others slowly start to change back, shedding their thick hides for more fragile forms.

But now, each day I walk past the door to Junipers room, there is a large red X on it, and a vase with a pure white lily.

She was the one, save one, and save them all. She was it, and I couldn't save her.

My next twenty hours were spent with a gun to my head, and after a dud round I returned to work. Between sessions of monitoring dosages on patients and checking vitals I would mutter a phrase to myself endlessly. "Save one, just save one, just save one, save one and save them all."

In the coming days the patients experienced a thirty percent death rate due to infection, organ failure and trauma. But I continued to chant. "Save one, that's it, just save one."