Unknowns

February 5th, 20██

The vast majority of night shift tends to be monitoring and measuring containment cell conditions, passing along information for day shift researchers to sort through, figure out. Most testing happens during the morning, something I'm grateful for. Not having to deal with the horrors we've got locked away here is a blessing, even if my colleagues disagree. Truth be told, I'm not certain why I'm here. I made the mistake of voicing that to someone I considered a friend, so after this shift, I've got an appointment with the facility psychologist. Amanda Torrez, resident shrink and head of personnel.

I know what she's going to say, and I know I'm not going to pass the eval. Watching 939-19 tear through Doctor Peterson during last weeks containment breach saw to that. I lied and said I was okay to her then. Before that, I was borderline. It's a hard job to undertake, harder to cope with.

You can't share job details with family, Hell, they even disappear you sometimes. Your family probably doesn't remember you exist. They don't let the staff read all the different catalogued SCPs on the database, you have to have specific clearances and authorizations. I get the impression that there are far more dangerous SCPs than 939 or 165 out there, things I can't even conceive of. Not that I'd want to, but the entire concept is enough to make me rethink my line of work.

The containment cell window appears the same as it did last night; an empty room, save for the pylons in each corner and a mound of sand in the middle. I reach over to my coffee mug and take a sip of the lukewarm coffee within, staring at this unmoving pile of sand before me.

I know what I'm really looking at, but when you're assigned to watch an unmoving mound of sand containing an innumerable amount of unseen flesh-eating mites in a room for nine hours straight, things tend to get boring. I look at the clipboard to my left and set it in my lap.

Has the sand shifted?

No. I tick off the plainly printed NO box. I check the clock. 5:31 AM.

Maybe it'd be better to be amnesticized and work at a Burger King, or something. The work I do here is hardly more complex. I barely qualify as a epidemiologist, and even when I got the job, they have me looking at termites. Murderous, flesh-hungry termites, but termites all the same. I re-read the page.

Has the temperature exceeded or fallen below 20° Celsius?

Again, no. I look over at the thermometer just to be sure, then tick off the box.

My eyes wander over the clipboard, reading the various prompts and questions regarding the prevalent nothingness going on. I suppose I should be thankful they're not feeding it cattle tonight, nothing is better than something in this line of work. I lounge back in my chair and look at the gray-paneled ceiling, inspecting it for any sign of something interesting.

I wonder if Claire is going to be free before her shift? I've got about three hours or so before the appointment. Maybe I could grab breakfast with her, dinner for me. I look over to the empty seat beside me, then stand to stretch my legs and pace the room a bit. The walls are still that incorrigible off-white, off-putting and sterilized in all perception. Painfully boring, just like that sand, just like this room, just like this shift.

I look back to the clock.

5:34 AM.

Something's on my face.

I push myself up onto my knees in a panic and grab at my face, pulling at the foreign object. The mask comes up and off and I inhale deeply. I stare at the mask in my hands, black leather, speckled with... best not to think about it. I'm outside. The sun's in the sky. My gear is still on me, and my AK is... it's over there.

What happened? I pull on the rig and my hand burns. I look to my hand and see the bloodied bandages still wrapped around it. The window. Torrez. It hurts, not as bad as it did when it happened. There's grass, beneath my knees. A forest. I'm in a forest. I close my eyes and breathe. The air is fresh, I'm outside, in a forest. Animals, birds. Chirping. Okay. We're okay. I'm okay. I'm hyperventilating. My chest is tight, too tight. Breathe. Breathe! I'm okay.

I'm okay. Am I?

I start crying uncontrollably. I don't even know what's causing it, but my body isn't responding. I slump forward into the dirt. The cries turn into laughter, then back into sobs. I punch the dirt and dig into it with my nails. I'm biting deep into my lip, and I see blood dripping down into the soil as I squeeze. I scream. I stand and I scream. My vision is blurry with tears. I must have done that for ten minutes, at least. The grass is so green, the forest is alive around me. Blue sky, white clouds... a mountain in the distance. It's peaceful. I focus on the chirping, the smell of dew on the grass. The sobs stop and I just sit there, looking at the trees. I see a butterfly move from one flower to the next. The earth beneath the blades, a slight breeze, cool against my skin.

My skin. Mine. I'm still me.

"It's me, see?" It's in the back of my mind. It's not real.

I take my face into my hands and shake my head. I pull them back to look at them. Worn, dirty. Damaged. Look at my hands. What I've had to do with these hands, just to survive. I should be dead. I wasn't cut out for this. Oily, greasy... blood, sweat.

I'm sure I smell awful. My shoes have seen better days, dark brown leather torn in some places, the shell scraped off and discoloration near the soles. I wipe my eyes and fish the crucifix out of my pocket. I press it against my head in wordless gratitude. Relief, pain, despair, joy. I'm feeling all of it, and I don't know how to sort through it. If Torrez was here, maybe she'd have a plan. Maybe I should start praying. But what God could do this? No atheists in foxholes, but no holy men in the craters.

My mouth is dry, my body and head ache, my hand's banged up... but I'm alive.

Is that a castle hanging off that mountain? Waterfalls. Blue. Am I in Switzerland? If so, how did I get here?

That castle isn't obeying the laws of physics. I'm too far away, can't see much detail, but the way it's hanging there shouldn't be possible. I see gold, white? There's no support columns, but I'm no engineer. It doesn't look feasible, but maybe there's an explanation. If not...

It occurs to me that I have no clue where I am. I have no idea if there are biological hazards here, contaminants, hallucinogens. I better keep the mask on to be safe, find civilization. Maybe there are still survivors out here? Contact with our European facilities dropped in April, but maybe there's someone out here. GOC?

I'm not going to find out sitting on my ass. I've come too far to sit on my hands in the middle of a forest, dirty as they may be.

I sniffle and stand up, taking inventory of what I've still got. I grab the rifle and check the magazine. Empty. My jaw tightens and I remember why. Stop. I can cry later. I swallow with my painfully dry mouth, take another magazine from the vest and replace the empty one. Okay. I have one flare left, the Beretta is... missing. That's fine. Alcohol's gone, that's right. Dad's watch isn't ticking anymore, and that crack on the glass looks worse.

"One thing at a time," I mutter to myself.

I sling the rifle over my shoulder and my hand throbs in response. Need to disinfect it, need medical attention. I'm not a doctor, but I can tell I need sutures. Likely dehydrated, head hurts. Vision swimming. Come on, Webb, you've got this.

I walk unsteadily towards the edge of the clearing, turning back to nothing.

There is no going back, only forward. I push through the brush.

These woods are dark.

It's only mid-day, but it feels like night walking through this forest. The canopy above is thick, trees stretch high into the air. Every now and then, I catch movement in my peripheral vision. First few times I almost shit my pants, but it seems to be normal woodland critters. Deer, rabbits. Not infected, no mutations. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I don't know if I should keep this mask on. If this is some European country, it'd explain the castle, but it could be anomalous. I haven't done much research into dimensional SCPs, but they all seem to have more drastic differences from this place. Mushrooms as tall as men, trees that walk around, etcetera so forth. There's a stream here, but I know better than to drink from it, at least for the time being. I don't want to die of dysentery before I see another face... if I see another face. One that isn't a mask for a dash-two or dash-three.

I walk into another clearing and spot camping supplies. They are fairly rudimentary from outward appearance. I hesitate to touch any of them, but find myself a canteen. There's liquid in it. I have no idea how long any of this has been here, but the fire must have been put out this morning. The grass here is tall, but the campsite seems well-traveled. Everything's dirt and sand here, must be a routine spot. There's a trail heading through the woods, and the forest seems to be thinning somewhat. The old trees are petering out in favor of younger bark. I look back to the canteen and open it, experimentally pouring some liquid out on the ground.

Looks like water.

Fuck it, if I die, I die.

I pull my mask up and take a swig. It's cool on my tongue, crisp. My shoulders sag in relief and I take greedy gulps. I pull it away from my lips and wait. A minute goes by. No adverse effects? Another. No adverse effects, I'm keeping this canteen. I bring the canteen back to my lips when I hear the brush move behind me, tree-line. My heart leaps. I instinctively pull my mask down and stuff the canteen into the front pouch on my vest. I slide the sling off of my shoulder and I spin around with the rifle raised.

That's an SCP if I've ever seen one. A chicken with reptilian features, tail and spines. Red accents, blue coloration, scales. It's got the ugliest look on it's face, pure malice. It screeches at me and expands its wings. It flaps a couple of times and takes some sort of stance. I think it's expecting something. It almost looks confused for a moment, then it flaps it's wings again. I'm not taking any chances and squeeze the trigger. I even remembered to put it on semi-automatic this time.

I get it right in the neck. It fills me with a morbid sense of satisfaction to watch the thing get thrown back into the dirt, legs kicking in the air wildly for a few moments. It twitches, and I don't know if I should get any closer to it. It looks dead. I look back to the campfire and over to the chicken-monster. I take a few steps forward and look down at it's headless form. I glance back to the campfire.

"... yeah."

It's some time in the late afternoon. I'm pulling pieces off of this dead chicken-thing and cooking them over the fire. Using some roasting sticks I found in a bag by the stool I'm sitting on. Looks like whoever was here was roasting marshmallows before they left.

Peeling the scales off is a bit of a task. They're almost like fish scales in thickness and structure, kind of reflective up close. This is the first real meal I've enjoyed since... June? They had us eating MRE's when we initiated lockdown, but the vending machines were still stocked. Guess they had a lot in storage, just nothing good.

Sure enough, it tastes like chicken.

I wonder what designation it would be assigned, but it's more-so just to keep my mind occupied. It's hard to keep myself from thinking back to what's happened. Maybe I should be thinking on a more practical level. The sun will be going down soon, and I don't know if I should setup for the night here or keep going.

That castle is at least two days, maybe three days away. I never joined the boy scouts, but I can tell the thing is far.

I need to get out of this forest. I have no clue if there are any predators in these woods that have yet to show their faces. This tasty avian is a testament to the fact that the ecosystem here is different. I look down to the decapitated head of the creature and inspect it more closely, but it's surface observation. Inside the beak are sharp teeth, so it must have been a carnivore, or maybe omnivorous. Red eyes, reflective film over them. It's an ugly damn bird. I lose my appetite the longer I look at it.

I hear something. It sounds like... hoofbeats? A woman laughing. Someone on horseback? A group. Talking, it's in another language. Okay, this is it, I guess. I stand from my position at the campfire and hang the rifle down near my chest.

I can't eat much more anyway.

Whoever these people are, they're getting closer. They come around the bend, or maybe it's just their horses.

Horses. Not horses... what's the word? By themselves, on the trail. They don't look normal. I'm much taller than them. They come up to about my stomach. No owners to be seen anywhere. There are saddles on their backs with bags attached, no riders, they look more like vests. Rigs? Blue, yellow, orange... the orange one's wearing a hat. Blue one's mane is all sorts of colors, yellow has a pink mane. Their coats are colored in pastels, so maybe they've been dyed. Blue and yellow have wings.

Wings.

Their eyes are huge, and I can spot that emotion anywhere. Fear.

Anomalies? Pegasus. Pegasi?

The blue one and the orange one whisper to each other. They don't look away. They must have been the ones talking. If they're talking, they're sentient. If they're sentient and they're talking, they have a society. The ramifications are mounting. This entire situation feels like a failure of a joke, but here I am.

The yellow one is staring at me, frozen in place.

No one blinks. Someone has to do something and it might as well be me.

I start to move my hand when the orange one moves forward. I stop. It stops and its eyes narrow. She says something over her shoulder to the other two. The yellow one is still staring at me. No. It's staring at the chicken, what's left of it, next to me. Its eyes creep to me. The blue one takes flight and hovers in place. I'm covered in dirt, blood, viscera and other dried bodily fluids I don't want to think about. There's a carcass next to me, and if these horses are herbivores, I likely look like a massive threat.

I don't think this is gonna go well.

Orange moves steps forward again, hoof stomped in the dirt hard. I raise my hand and she stops again. She snorts and says something. Blue is on edge. Yellow is terrified. I didn't read the first contact manual, but I can tell this is all kinds of screwed.

"Stop, wait," my voice is muffled. Holy shit, I'm wearing the gas mask. I must look like a God damn monster.

Orange tenses at my voice and glances at the Yellow. Yellow whispers something. I raise my other hand slowly, then gently grab the end of the gasmask. Yellow takes a step back. I move my hand again in what I hope is a disarming gesture.

No one moves and I gently pull the mask up onto my forehead. The air is chilly against my sweat-covered skin. No one moves, but they can see my face now, and I'm hoping that does something for diplomacy. I'm sure the gas mask is as creepy as I think it is. I let in a breath nice and slow.

I speak slowly and calmly.

"I mean no harm. I need help. Help."

They speak with each other. From what I can gather, they're all females. At least, they sound like it. The yellow one seems downright horrified, but the sheer terror has diminished somewhat. She says a few things. The language they're speaking is almost like English flipped on it's head, interspersed with soft whinnies and general horse noises.

It is mildly off-putting, to say the least. Let's try again.

"Help?"

Based on their reactions, they definitely recognize that as a question.

Orange says something quickly to Blue and she flies off over the trees. I step back in surprise at the speed of it, Orange and Yellow both tense. I shake my hands slowly, side to side. I bring a hand to my chest and inhale, then push it outward with an exhale. We're all stressed here, please understand what I'm trying to communicate. I repeat it twice, then I point to Orange.

Her eyes narrow. I do the breathing again.

She... follows along. She takes a deep breath in, then releases it. I nod, and do it with her. She makes an exaggerated show of it, but I can't tell if it's agitation or stress. I look over to Yellow, and slowly point to her. She breathes in raggedly and exhales in a shudder. She's shivering.

Okay, time for a gamble.

I raise both of my hands again, slowly, and make a show of setting one on the ground. They're both staring at me intensely. I slowly shift my weight back and sit. My arm shakes when I put my weight on it, my hand is screaming at me in protest, but I can't afford to mess this up. They watch me intently and I bring my trembling hand back to the ground, setting it on it's base. I remove my mask and set it on the floor. The yellow one is looking at my hand, blood seeping into the dirt.

They watch. I wait. Yellow sits back on her haunches like a dog, a horrified and shivering dog, but a dog. Okay.

I look to Orange. She looks at Yellow, eyes narrowed. Does the same. The sun is setting soon. If I can communicate, even simply, I might be able to get shelter for the night, maybe even a horse doctor to look at my hand. It's still shaking.

Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey teach...

I hear a low growl far behind me.

Monkey screwed.

It's deep, reverberates in my chest. It sounds like it crawled out of hell just to slither into my ears, and I know the other two heard it as well. I can see it in their eyes. I turn my head slowly over my shoulder. I see two eyes glowing in the shadows of the tree-line, green. Predatory. Another pair, and another. There's one out of my vision, somewhere in the back left. Wolves. Green-eyed wolves. A howl.

I'm up on my feet at that, facing the pack. I can't see them in the dark. The horses are moving behind me, no idea what they're up to. I was right; this didn't go well. Not at all. Flare. Last flare. They don't like fire, right?

"... MTF teams highlight fire as an effective measure for removing infestations on the ground level."

Not now. I thumb the fire-select. I have a feeling fully-automatic is the way to go in this scenario. They're creeping forward, whatever they are. I reach into my pouch for the flare and grab it tightly in my left. My right hand shakes when I pop the cap. Bright red fire, and I see them.

They're made of wood. Twigs, logs, branches, twisted into the shapes of wolves. What?

Are these... timber wolves? I'd laugh if I wasn't so fucked.

They recoil at the light and regroup. One of them tries circling around my right and I yell at him. He dashes back into the shadows. I start walking backwards. They're advancing. One of the horses says something, she says it with urgency. I look to Yellow, her eyes wide in terror. She shrieks.

I hear it before I see it.

The fucking wolf went straight for my left arm. Bit down deep. I turn and I hear something crack inside. Agony rockets down my spine. I scream and it tries to pull me down to the ground. It's tearing my arm apart. I swivel the rifle under its head and pull the trigger. The gun explodes into its chest five or six times and the grip loosens significantly. The light in its eyes disappears and it falls from my arm, leaving wooden teeth embedded in the flesh. Claws scrape down the back of my right leg, ripping deep into the muscle. I groan and kick at it, pushing it back. I shift my weight onto that leg when I spin and collapse.

It's there in front of me, fangs dripping with green ichor.

His head shatters with a burst from the AK. My vision is blurry. One of them grabs the rifle in it's teeth, trying to yank it away. My left arm is in tatters but it's what I've got, and I punch at it, screaming. It holds on through my assault and another one jumps over it to position itself near my legs. It bites at my feet but my shoes take most of the damage. I kick at it with my good leg and send it back in a daze. I feel like I'm going to vomit.

It's all happening so fast.

The one on the gun won't give up. It's gaining ground, but I see the red glow beside me. I grab the flare from the ground and jam it into it's eye. The inside of it's skull is illuminated, and the structure is loosely put together. Fire spreads out it's maw and into the lower chest cavity. It lets out a sound like cracking wood and it frees the rifle. It wheezes and whines and collapses into an inferno. The one I kicked is back.

It bites deep into my calf on my good leg. I go to shoot it but it dodges my fire. I miss again and it repays my mistake with gouge in my thigh. Jumps on my stomach, tries to rend my guts but it's on the vest. I drop the gun and grab the wolf by the ear. It snaps clean off and the thing yelps, jumps off, then dives in to bite my throat. I roll over and it pounds into the dirt.

It has me now, I'm on my belly with sand in my eyes. I roll onto my side and try to defend myself, but I'm out of gas. It growls, lumbers forward. I see the fangs, my blood in its mouth. Claws sharpened to points scraping up dirt as it closes in.

"F-ffuck y-you," I gasp.

Then, Orange kicks apart its head in one blow. The skull fractures and explodes into tinder. I'm certainly dying, mauled to death by these fucking wolves, but the sight is welcome. I'm bleeding out. I have to be. Everything feels faint, distant. Time doesn't seem to move at the same pace anymore.

The fire's going out. Flare...

Orange and Yellow are speaking to me, at me and to each other. My vision is fading in and out and they're conversing over my soon-to-be-corpse. Yellow is panicking. Orange is frightened. I must look like a mess. There's blood on Yellow... hope it's mine. They've got big eyes. Their voices are getting quieter. Yellow is crying.

I just remembered the word.

"Ponies... you're... p-ponies..." I whisper.

It's cold. I feel the ground shake under more hoofbeats. Lots of them. Light is coming over from somewhere. Blue. Ponies in armor, plate armor... one is taller. She's looking at me with bright eyes. They glow in the dark. She says something and I...

Princess Luna stands vigilantly beside the human, a myth made flesh, scanning his features intently.

The various wounds he has suffered are grievous, and the staff informed her that survival is an unlikely outcome. She trots towards the edge of the bed, her eyes drawing in the strange shape of the legs, the cast upon the arm and the bandages encasing much of the flesh. They have yet to wash him, having only had him for two nights. He smells, a bitter and disgusting scent heavy with iron, fire and smoke. Blood and sweat, the dirt of the Everfree and the vapors of the wolves.

'What struggles hath this creature endured in his travels?' She thinks to herself.

The rags he arrived in, the tunic and the trousers, they have been set aside on a nearby table. They are strange in design, but have notable features not too dissimilar from what she had seen of modern fashions. She looks them over and they are in worse condition than he is. They are torn and tattered, frayed cloth at the edges. The tunic is a tan garb with opal-like buttons in the center, thin and lightweight with a collar. She imagines that the attire would look pleasant, were it not in the condition it is in now. The trousers are black, a silky texture. They hide much of the stains that the tunic shares.

The hospital wing is near silent, dimly lit with frosty white light. The creature is foreign, unlike anything she has ever seen. Vague ideas of minotaurs and primates come to mind here and there, but they are all shallow comparisons. The doctors, informed of the potential danger of the creature, had insisted on restraints for the limbs.

From the signs of battle and debris of the timberwolves, he was certainly capable. There is no doubt in her mind, however, that he would not be alive now had it not been for Rainbow Dash returning to Ponyville for help. A strange creature, with armaments foreign to ponykind, adorned with a mask for an unknown purpose.

No dreams wander into his mind for much of the night. Luna had hoped to glean some information from his mind, something to unravel of his nature. She sits upon her haunches and looks out upon Equestria, bathed in the pale light of the moon. Her moon. She sighs softly, and stands to leave.

Then it comes. Not a true dream, a fragment... loosely constructed in his mind. His wounds are too severe for his mind to create complex dreams, but Luna can take the chance to see something. Maybe a framework for a translation spell, at the very least. She moves closer to him, slowly, and gently sets her horn upon his forehead.

Then she sees.

Luna is dizzy from the entrance. The thoughts come together loosely within his head. They do not form true dreams, but fragments of information and memories. Much of what she sees does not make sense. The strange pendant within the pocket of his trousers, sitting in his hand. Gloves. The mask.

Screaming. It endures and seems to come from everywhere at once, all from nowhere. She recoils in surprise and attempts to stabilize the mind. The screams wind down, shushing into a faint breeze. There is a lot of red, before the plane becomes a tranquil darkness. She heaves a deep sigh of relief.

She can see a memory forming together, the pieces creating an elaborate stage before her. She watches intently.

It is the creature.

He walks slowly in-between shades on the floor. They do not have much detail, but the closer he approaches, the more becomes visible. They are humans, like him. They are not alive. Their flesh is sickly, pools of crimson on the tiled floor. Water drips from the ceiling onto these tiles, not unlike the tiling in the hospital. Some bodies move and twitch, even buried under others.

She feels his fear, the adrenaline coursing through his body.

Small metal shells litter the floor where he walks. They are smaller than the ones at the campsite. She smells smoke, and a doorway arises from the shadows. He leans over and peers through the doorway, where two figures are obscured by the fog of his mind. They are facing away from him, twitching and shaking. One is crouched above what appears to be a body. She can hear an unnatural gagging noise, the crouched figure pulling handfuls of vague meat from the corpse. It appears to eat them.

"What are these horrors?" Luna whispers in terror.

There is a bottle of clear liquid on a metal table, flanked by two glasses.

'Fire is good for putting these things down, right?'

Luna jumps at the voice, and realizes it must be coming from him. These are his thoughts from this moment. He sounds scared, tired. His voice is raspy, even within his own mind, like rolling gravel behind a carriage.

He knocks something to ground accidentally. It clatters against the floor and drowns out the sound around them. She can feel his heartrate quicken as hers does as well as the one in the distance turns to look at them. The closer one, standing bipedally, does not turn around; the head lulls back and distends downward, looking at them upside-down.

Luna screams.

Author's Note

Hello everyone, hope you enjoyed the read! If you liked it, give me a bookmark and a like if you're feeling generous, I have more on the way so sit tight! If you didn't like it, let me know why! Criticisms are appreciated, I'm kinda rusty at all this stuff!

Have a good day/night!