Fallen

As he walked away, I felt just a bit better. The news that my fate to be grounded was now sealed dragged on my heart like a weight, but the fact that somepony cared lifted my spirits just a tad.
I looked around again, seeing as there is nothing else to do. I saw the edges of my paddock, which resembled the pens ponies kept pigs and sheep back in Equestria. I could definitely have jumped the fence with my wings tied behind my back normally, but in my current weakened state, I rather doubted that I could have jumped it now.
I wonder if Wither is watching this. I bet he’s having a laugh at my predicament. The bastard! I hate him! I hate him!
But, seeing as there was literally nothing else to do, I laid my head down, throwing mental abuse at that son of a bitch and dropped into a fitful sleep.
When I awoke, the sun was just about to set. I remembered how Wither told me how the laws of physics were so much different here than in Equestria, and, as I looked at the sunset, I wondered just how the celestial bodies were moved in the sky. I looked around, and found that the moon was already high in the sky. How is that possible?
As I mused, I came to an uncomfortable conclusion. I recalled how the air currents and clouds were so unpredictable because they acted on their own. I gulped.
The sun and moon here move on their own accord as well.
How can humans stand this? Knowing that so much is out of their control? I guess because they’ve lived like this since the beginning, they must not know any other way. They must be used to it.
I knew I never could. It made me wonder whether Equestrian physics, if showed to a human from Earth, would make them shudder as much as Earth physics made me shudder.
I spent almost the whole night just looking at the stars as they slowly twinkled into sight, one by one. I found myself reliving the moments when I took flight into night skies just like this. I missed the way the moonlight turned me into a shining silver comet as I hurtled through the velvet sky. I dreamed the night away, almost forgetting about my plight.
Until I remembered. I’d never be able to ever do that again. Never again will I streak across the stars… Falling into depression, I sighed, then closed my eyes. Eventually, I fell asleep again.
The next morning, I stirred to the sound of the human Dr. Placard’s arrival. He set down a bucket of oats next to me. The night’s sleep I had eased a little of my depression, and I found that I was ravenous. After all, the last meal I had was two days ago, with Green and Adamant. I lunged into a sitting position and buried my face in the bucket, all dignity forgotten.
Dr. Placard laughed a bit, and I twitched an ear in annoyance. But he apologized quickly and began to speak about something intriguing.
“I’ve arranged the transport of you to another facility.”
I pulled my head out of the bucket to look at him strangely. Licking my lips to remove them of oats, I said, “So?”
“I have an idea for how to put your soul at ease. It will only work once, but I think I can give you the satisfaction of flight one last time.”
When I asked how, he told me. I was a little suspicious at first, but I considered it. I looked down at my feet, never to leave the ground again. I realized that there really was no decision. I was going to get that satisfaction, even if I would never again see it.
“I’ll do it.” I told him seriously.
“That’s what I thought. Just remember; pretend to be listless and unintelligent, or this plan may backfire.” Dr. Placard rose and started to leave.
“But wait!” I exclaimed, “What about you? If we do pull this off, you’re gonna face some repercussions for this.”
Placard stopped, and sighed. “I know. But… I don’t know. There’s something about loss like this… that you just have to do something about. It’s not like you’ve always had to live like this. You know how it was to live with the thing you lost before you lost it, so it’s always at the top of your mind, unless you find a way to cope.
“And I’m not sure you can learn to cope. I mean, you’re being contained as an SCP. I doubt you’ll find much moral support here, because the researchers and personnel are mainly focused on, well, research. There’s this one SCP we just now acquired, a young boy, who has the ability to remove and take on the injuries and sicknesses of any who touch him. The directors strongly forbid us to call him by name or comfort him at all. They say he’s just a tool, not a real person.”
He turned away, and, was it my imagination, or did I see his eyes glisten with tears?
“It’s probably just as well. They’ve experimented with him curing mental diseases, and now he’s got the mental capacities of a toddler. He doesn’t know, or care, about the state he’s in.”
Placard knelt and looked me in the eyes. “I do this, because I know first-hand the suffering you’re going through. I had a colleague who was placed in a similar situation, and I did nothing to help him, or even comfort him. Now he’s dead, preferring the grave to merely existing with a fate worse than death.
“There’s a different SCP, numbered SCP-591. It’s a painting that, with the right requirements, will cause sensory loss in whoever looks at it for more than a minute. After we tested it with Class D’s, the expendable delinquents we recruit, some idiot left it out on the table after they left the area.
“Needless to say, after the blind and mute Class D’s left with the researchers, my colleague walked in, not knowing that the painting was an SCP. Seriously, the security was really lax that day. He took a minute to admire the painting, when I walked by. I knew that it was an SCP, so I yelled and rushed to stop him. But it was too late.”
Placard sighed. “The effect had already set in. I saw him scream and clutch his ears as I wrenched the painting off of the table. I saw the outline of his face in the wood, which meant that the painting had done its work. It only took a second for us both to realize that he had lost his hearing, as well as feeling in his right hand.
“You have to understand. This man was an avid musician and connoisseur of music of all sorts. His very life was music, and song was in his soul. He was not the same man afterwards. He was detained by the officials and watched, because an SCP had affected him, so I was unable to see him. But I read reports that said that his request for an electric keyboard had been approved, and all he would do was just listlessly sit at it, turning it on occasionally and pressing random keys, crying all the while.
“His sanity deteriorated. Eventually another lapse in security brought him the opportunity to escape his room and make his way to the holding area for a Euclid SCP he knew was memetic, meaning hallucinogenic. He opened the door to its area and locked it behind him. We found him dead in the room an hour later, a smile on his face. We all figured that he had one last momentary state of bliss until the SCP killed him with its effect.
“I decided, that day, that if I had the chance in the future to deal with some poor soul in the same position, I don’t care if I get fired or worse. No one should have to exist like that. I’m helping you.” He stared at me solemnly.
“But why…?” I stared back.
“Because I was the fool who left SCP-591 unattended. I was the one who dragged the man down into that state of utter despair. It’s all my fault. This way, I’ll be able to make amends to his memory, and put myself at ease. Please let me do this!” Placard begged, eyes glistening.
I stared in shock. These humans, I had discovered, were so inconsistent and beastly within their core. But here was this one human who was so determined, so dead-set, to provide a poor creature with one last moment of joy. Even though the others in this facility would just turn away from my suffering, this one would sacrifice so much just to ease it a little. Kind of like how Green and Adamant saved me that one day…
“Alright. Placard… I… thank you. Thank you so much! I’ll go with your plan. Thank you for caring, when no one else here will.” I bowed my head to him, out of respect for this generous soul.
Placard laid his hand on my head, and I didn’t even care. After a few seconds, he removed it, then strode out of the paddock and into the buildings.
I felt a warmth in my heart. Some faith in humanity had been restored with this act of Placard. His sacrifice would allow me to have one last feeling of freedom before fading away. I rested my head on the brown scratchy grass…
Wait a minute. Why is it so scratchy? It was lush and green just yesterday, so how could it have dried up so quickly? While I thought this, I was surprised by another abrupt visit from Wither. This time, he didn’t appear by walking up to the paddock. He just materialized out of thin air as a snake in the grass.
“You!” I hissed. “You’re about to hijack Placard’s plan, aren’t you! I knew it. Just as I’m about to have a last moment of happiness, you have to stomp on it, right?”
Wither just stared at me with a bored expression. “Of course not,” he scoffed. “What would be the fun in that? I think that it would be more boring if I tried to do that. Letting it unfold, I think, would be much more amusing than halting it. What would there be for me to watch? Just letting you melt into that brown grass like a useless blob?
“Oh, speaking of which,” Wither pointed with his tail at the grass underneath me, “you might be wondering why the grass dried up so fast. It’s a simple matter of the side effects of reality-transportation. You see, most times, different realities don’t like to mix with each other. They kind freak each other out, if that makes any sense.
“So, even though the Foundation personnel fools have been watering the grass as per normal since you arrived, the grass has died. The reason? The essence of Equestria lives inside your body. Inside your very being, in fact. The grass, being of Earth, reacts poorly to the essence of other realities, thus it is adversely affected to the point that it sickens and dies.”
Although I rather doubted him, remembering what Dr. Bright had said about Equestria being just a made-up story, the dying grass beneath me was still unnerving. I looked at him in horror. “Does that mean that I’ll die too if I stay here too long?”
“Oh, no. You as a life-form are too advanced for it to affect you too harshly. You might be mildly sick after awhile, but it doesn’t really affect you that badly. But it has hampered your regeneration. Take a look at your wing stumps. Beneath the bandages, they’re just as raw as when you tore them. You’ll find that they have stopped bleeding freely, as they’ve clotted a little, but it’s still severely decreased. Also your health will very slowly deteriorate over time, but it’s not really enough to kill you straight out.
“So you see, separate realities are separate for a reason. Equestria and Earth were never meant to mix. So, you see, everything Equestria will be antithetical to everything Earth, and vice versa. This doesn’t really matter to you, just thought you should know why you won’t be healing for quite awhile.
“But this isn’t the reason why I’ve appeared before you. After your little plan either succeeds or fails, I’d like to make you an offer. Let me take you back to Equestria, in return for the entertainment you’ve provided me. I can do nothing about your loss of your wings, but when you get back, you can at least heal. And you will be able to see your friends again.”
Adamant. Green. “I’ll consider it.” I told him.
“As you wish,” he said, then winked out again.
I didn’t trust him. On the other hand, he hasn’t really lied to me yet, just told me half-truths and watched without helping me when I ran into trouble. Still. He could definitely lie to me and leave me in a worse situation than I’m in right now. But what am I talking about? It’s the option between dying or living completely flightless inside of a pen on this alien world that’s poisonous to my very being.
I decided to wait on it, and think some more.