《SCP: The Colours of the Rainbow》 Black Ice ¡°Ten minutes, D-1246.¡± The man sitting in front of him said. ¡°And then you¡¯re done.¡± ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± He asked, staring in mild disbelief. The man, a researcher that he wasn¡¯t allowed to know the name of, was rather unpleasant to look at, with darting, bloodshot eyes and unkempt hair. His lab coat, while clean and free of wrinkles, felt bizarrely out of place with its dreadful grey color. A layer of dead skin, brittle after being robbed of its connection to life, yet remaining unshed among the muteness of white that was so commonplace. ¡°Yes.¡± The man shifted around in his seat uncomfortably before tapping on the watch on his desk. And what an ugly watch it was! Large and clunky with a skinny wrist strap that looked as if it would snap at any pressure of weight. Its screen, nothing more than a block of black plastic with red digits beneath it. ¡°Well, nine minutes and fifty-two seconds now.¡± ¡°Why?¡± D-1246 asked. ¡°That¡¯s not a lot of time. Not a lot of time at all.¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s not too bad. I¡¯ve seen a couple poor saps end up with as few as two minutes before. Really, it¡¯s to the whims of the higher ups, know what I mean?¡± The researcher smiled, unconvincingly. He picked up the watch and held it out for him. ¡°Here. Your clock, just to remind you of the time. You¡¯re lucky, you know. If they let you have too much time, then you wouldn¡¯t even be getting the clock at all.¡± D-1246 stared at the watch in the man¡¯s hands. On its flimsy looking screen, the numbers"09:33"stared up at him. He looked up at the researcher, who stared down at his desk pointedly. A large bead of sweat had formed on his forehead. He could only look as it began rolling down his face, leaving behind a trail of wet residue. Finally, he grabbed it from his hands, stuffing it into the pocket of his jumpsuit without a second thought. The researcher exhaled and quickly stood up from his desk. ¡°Now then, shall I escort you to the containment chamber?¡± ¡°Do I have a choice?¡± The researcher looked at him incredulously. ¡°Why, of course! You always have a choice. Did anyone tell you otherwise? I mean, do you not want to go to the containment chamber? If not, you may return to your quarters.¡± ¡°No, I want to go there.¡± D-1246 said. ¡°Please take me there. Quickly.¡± The researcher nodded and walked past him, exiting the office without looking back. D-1246 grimaced and quickly rose from his chair, following him. He stared at the back of the man¡¯s head as he shoved a hand into his pocket, scalp prickling as he felt the pointed stares of the security officers digging into him with deeply regarded suspicion. Figures. They probably weren¡¯t even allowed to know where he was going. Not here. The watch¡­ Thedevicecalled out to him. It told him that he should look. Just a peek, just a glance. Don¡¯t you want to know how much time is left? ¡°No. I don¡¯t.¡±D-1246 thought firmly. He willed his hand to leave his pocket, resisting the urge to just crush it in his hands. With how cheaply made it was, he was sure that it would crumple under any form of pressure. But he knew that if it were to be destroyed, then he would just receive a new one. Yes, and if he were to destroythatone, he would get yet another one. He was sure of the fact that they had trillions of these things in reserve. Why wouldn¡¯t they? People probably took out their anger on the watches all the time. D-Class were a violent lot, sad silhouettes of men left to rot in their indentured servitude to the Foundation until either they died, or were transferred. Oh, who was he kidding? No one survives. The researcher suddenly stopped and turned to look at him, a trembling smile dancing on his lips. A pitch-black door with no windows and a silver doorknob stood behind him. He took out a card, laminated but with absolutely no distinguishing features, a blank piece of hard paper. He tapped it against the door and nothing happened. ¡°Here we are, D-1246. The containment chamber. Its been¡­ outfitted to suit the needs of this experiment. You¡¯re in good hands.¡± D-1246 wordlessly stepped forward and gripped the doorknob. It was cold, almost painfully so. Experimentally, he turned the knob a few times without opening the door. It turned smoothly, of course. Finally, he opened the door and stepped inside, making a point to stare at the floor as he did. ¡°Farewell, and good luck.¡± The researcher said. Before he could elicit a response, the door shut behind him. Finally, he looked up. The walls were coated in a disgusting amalgamation of dark, neon colors that physically hurt to look at. They seemed to shift and fold onto themselves, moving to create new messes of melded mass at every second. Bright, blaring lights shone from the ceiling, applying a white, almost waxy coating on every inch of the room. Assortments of boxes and bins sat at the back of the room along with one other person, who stared at him in near awe. Tentatively, D-1246 approached him. The stranger stared directly at him, visibly trembling and with several pencils clutched in one fist. In his other hand, he held a crumpled ball of parchment that complemented the over-sized brown jumper he wore, which clung loosely to his skinny frame. ¡°Hey there.¡± The person broke into a wide smile, revealing perfectly white teeth. ¡°D-8538, six minutes and fifty seconds. But you can just call me John. Nice to meet you.¡± ¡°Um, same.¡± D-1246 responded awkwardly. ¡°You have a name?¡± John tilted his head. ¡°What¡¯s your time?¡± He shoved his hand into the pocket and felt that the watch was still there. A shame; he was hoping that it would have vanished on its own accord. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t want to check. Is that your real name?¡± ¡°Oh, really? Alright then.¡± John looked down at his wrist, which had a large, clunky device that was identical to his own in every way. Red digits counted down on its screen at a rate that was faster than he was comfortable with. ¡°Ah, down to six minutes and thirty-five seconds now. I¡¯ve been counting down in my head, but it''s reassuring to see it happen with my own eyes, you know?¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t know.¡± D-1246 said. ¡°Why is your name John?¡± ¡°It¡¯s anxious knowing that I have so little time left.¡± John continued, staring down at his wrist with glazed eyes. ¡°Anxious in a good way. I¡¯m also lucky. Luckier than most. I was given fifty-nine minutes and twenty-two seconds at first. Did you know that they only let people who have under an hour in here? I just barely made it. I¡¯m so lucky. You¡¯re lucky too. We both are.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t feel lucky.¡± D-1246 muttered, feeling the watch in his pocket. He turned it around and around, rubbing his fingers on the screen. It felt incredibly smooth, free from any sort of blemish. He wondered if it was sanitized before they gave it to him. Would they go that far for such a cheaply made device? ¡°Oh, but you are!¡± John dropped his pencils and parchment to grab him by the shoulders. ¡°Look around you! We¡¯re the only ones here. In fact, we¡¯ll probably be left alone until our clocks run down. Of course by then, we¡¯ll just be escorted out by those awful guards, but still! Even a second in this marvelous room¡­ Such an experience is incredible.¡± For the second time since entering the room, he looked around. Blistering spots of various colors glared at him from the walls, practically boiling from their cast. It was a great room, there was no doubt about that. He just wished that it didn¡¯t hurt so much to be in it. He was afraid that at any moment, his mind would simply fail and his body would crumple from the overwhelming pressure exerted by the chamber. ¡°Ah, sorry about that.¡± John released his grip on him and picked up his materials from the floor. He then gestured to the various cardboard boxes and tin trash bins around him. ¡°Why don¡¯t you enjoy yourself? Look in the boxes, the bins. You won¡¯t be disappointed.¡± Mutely following his advice, D-1246 timidly moved to open a small box near him. Inside of it, a large stack of blank parchment sat. Next to it, what must have been hundreds of various pencils were piled together. They were each wrapped in plastics of varying colors in a way that resembled the walls. Without really thinking, he picked a pencil up from the box. It was decorated in bright vivid colors akin to plasma. It glowed and grinned at him. Invited him. Spoke to him.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Use me.¡±They said.¡°Why not? It¡¯ll be fun. You don¡¯t have much time left. You¡¯re lucky. You¡¯re so lucky. Use me.¡± D-1246 grimaced and dropped the pencil back into the box, ignoring the quiet voice of complaint that spoke in his head. With a stomach full of dull dread, he peered into a trash bin. Inside of it were several pieces of crumpled parchment. Succumbing to curiosity, he dug one out and read its contents, which were written in a faded scrawl that was barely legible. I wish someone would let me out. I tried yelling at them but they just ignored me. I don¡¯t have much time left. It¡¯s evil. Everyone praises them for this, says they¡¯re doing what¡¯s best for humanity, but it¡¯s evil. I just wish I weren¡¯t alone, stuck writing here. I hate this. I hate everyone here. It¡¯s so boring here. Is this even an SCP? There¡¯s nothing to do. Is this how I spend the rest of my time? My head hurts. The walls are killing me. 00:3100:2700:2100:1500:10987654321 Repressing the urge to vomit, he dropped the parchment. His feet, moving of their own accord, began pacing around his room. His body was no longer his own, rather a shifting array of nerves and wires being jostled around and tangled in a constant state of pandemonium. His chest heaved and caved onto itself, writhing in fear as all of the sudden, everything became too large for its liking. ¡°Is that how I¡¯ll end up?¡± He asked, seeking an answer from no one in particular. He stopped pacing and sat simply on the floor. ¡°I need to get out of here. I need to escape.¡± ¡°Hey, calm down.¡± A voice said from behind him. A heavy hand brought itself down on his shoulder. ¡°Everything¡¯s alright. Don¡¯t worry one bit.¡± He couldn¡¯t calm down. It was impossible. No matter what he did, the walls would appear. They would remind him that no, no he couldn¡¯t escape, connecting to form one singular cube that was hollowed out to keep him. To contain him. To tie a leash to him and warn him that if he were to ever pull too hard, the walls would close. The maddening neon cesspools of color would become a void to swallow him whole. Well, how long had he been here anyway? An age old question, one without an answer as clearly evident by the lack of a watch on his wrist. Again, he brought his hand to his pocket and allowed himself to feel the temptation of looking. Slowly, he turned around, eyes trailing upwards to see John, sporting eyes that were red and swollen. Or were they? It was hard to tell when they were both bathed in the excessively bright lights that filled the room. He felt something cold fall over his hand in his pocket. ¡°What are you-¡± John lunged backwards, letting loose a laugh as he did so. D-1246 turned around and saw that he held a second watch in his hands, one that was identical to the one on his wrist. It took a second longer for him to realize that his pockets were now empty. ¡°Give that back.¡± D-1246 said shakily. ¡°That¡¯s mine.¡± ¡°O-Out of time. I¡¯m running out of time. I need more time!¡± John spat. With trembling hands, he quickly replaced the watch on his wrist. ¡°You don¡¯t mind, do you? I-It¡¯s only fair. Ah, let me out. Let me out. Let me out. I don¡¯t want to be here. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Let me out. Can you hear me? Let me out. I¡¯ll do whatever you want. Let me out! COME FOR ME!¡± Pupils dilating, John groaned and began scratching at his scalp. D-1246 could only stare at him wordlessly as his body violently shook. ¡°No! I can¡¯t keep counting, stop! This isn¡¯t mine!¡± D-8538 screamed, throwing his wristwatch at D-1246. ¡°I have time. Just look! Plenty! More time than anyone! It¡¯s not true!¡± He picked up D-8538¡¯s watch from the floor.¡°00:04¡±, it read. John started rambling incoherently.¡°00:03¡± D-8538 started crying.¡°00:02¡± ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ fell silent.¡°00:01¡± ¡°00:00¡± He didn¡¯t want to look. He looked. ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ was gone. In his place, sat his own wristwatch along with several pencils and a piece of crumpled parchment. As he approached it, he realized that he no longer held the stranger¡¯s watch. What was his name? ¡°What was who¡¯s name?¡± D-1246 asked, out loud. ¡°He wanted this anyway. Was enjoying it, the masochist.¡± No one answered. He picked up his watch from the ground and, without really meaning to, glanced at the display. ¡°02:28¡± Grimacing, he attached it to his wrist before kicking away the various pencils scattered around it. He then picked up the piece of parchment left behind by someone.
Spinning, turning, bleeding. Down the wall, a clock is ticking, a steady spin, turn, bleed. Dash the clock, the keys, spinning, turning, bleeding. The keys, twisting, locking, never stops the crushing. Locks on locks, walls upon walls, the steady dripping. Loud lights, bright screams, the many outweigh us. Scorn the ones who hate, water holds shape, only those you need. Counting, clicking, never stopping, pouring down a wall. The clock boils, gleaming golden keys within the throats of dogs. ¡°Disgusting. What garbage is this?¡± He said to himself. Unable to resist the urge, he tore the parchment up, letting the pieces scatter beneath him. It felt wrong. All of it felt so, so wrong. Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Much less, by now. Should he write something? Do something? Try to leave? He wanted to leave a message. To tell the people exactly what he thought of them. To leave something behind. But what? Butwhat? He could feel it. The walls breathing down his necks, molding into a dome to crush and suffocate him. Laughter, dancing, invitations. They wanted him. They wanted him so badly. He tried to reject it, but their insistence continued. He could feel his mind fill with static, his body yearning to merge with them. ¡°No. Come on. Just let me have this one.¡± D-1246 whispered, afraid that the walls would respond. He picked up a pencil from the ground, wincing as it squirmed and burned in his grip. His body trembled from an imaginary earthquake, turning his vision into a shaky mess of colors and lights. Despite this, the parasite clinging to his arm told him a clear message. ¡°01:57¡± Red lights, evil lights, bleeding splatters on a screen. Dark, dark screen, all-encompassing forever here. Which is it? Assimilation or oblivion? The color beckoned. They swirled, these plastics and colors and paints and walls and floor and pencils, they yearned for him, called to him. And oblivion, and void, it stared up at him, a part of him sleeping. An iron mantle, with he, the willing chained, counting down the minutes(01:21)until he crosses the finish line. No need to do anything, D-1246. Just sit back and relax. The clock, the time, it will do the rest. ¡°But the walls! The color! It wants me, it calls me!¡± He moaned. Tall, skinny shadows with dangling limbs danced around him. The shadows, along with the lights of the room kept growing until they both enveloped the entire chamber. The colors thrashed and screamed savagely from within its confines, begging to be let free, begging for him to join them. Voices shattered his eardrums. He felt darkness envelop him as its shadow draped(00:48)over his body. The walls bent backwards, burning in a radiant dark glow. His body basked in it, trembling and shaking in the cold. But the plasma! But the searing, sunny plasma! It flowed, counting, clicking, never stopping down the walls of his throat, coating him in it, searing his flesh and searing his lungs and pulling at his soul and breathe D-1246, just breathe. Your mission is simple. Confront the anomalous object as if it were sentient and then ask it the questions we¡¯ve written down for you. No, it won¡¯t answer. Yes, you should write that down. Void eternal, a soulless plague, it sapped the blood in him. Redness, dooming digits, looming over him,(00:26)terrible, even if it''s just plastic, because itisjust plastic, it¡¯s just cheap copper wires, cheap plastic, cheap production, they don¡¯t care. Can¡¯t you see? Just write it down. He lifted his (arms? appendages? limbs?) and wrote. But the pencils were no more, the room was no more. Nothing(00:19)made sense, suspended in twilight and bleeding soul. ¡°¨€¨€¨€¨€!¡± He screamed at the researcher. ¡°His name was ¨€¨€¨€¨€! He wanted time! He wanted(00:14)time!¡± ¡°D-8538? I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t recognize the designation.¡± The researcher replied. Only, he was never a researcher, was he? Probably had nothing to do with their kind. He offered a horrible, fake grin and tapped on his rotting-grey lab coat. ¡°Please, do try to calm down. Don¡¯t you want your(00:08)time? I¡¯m afraid I cannot give it to you in your current state, D-1246.¡± He blinked and at once, the not-researcher was crushed under billions of particles of oblivion. Color(00:07)spread, trying ever so desperately to reach, to grow, to hold ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€. It was ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€ within a pool of black, within empty space, within(00:05)smoke. Bad idea. Did it have a(00:04)choice? No. Because he never had a choice. Oh, John. Ten minutes? That was(00:03)plenty. Can¡¯t leave anything. Can¡¯t leave imprints. He was stuck now, stuck within a vortex, along(00:02)with John and all of his past mistakes. Who would remember you? Who would talk about you? Take the gift D-1246, take it and decide. Smother the color, smother the melting pot of memories, of words,(00:01)of life. Smother it and never look back. Smother it and forget(00:00). White Light Item #: SCP-XXXX Object Class: Safe Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX and its surroundings are to be fenced off and constantly monitored. Any civilians or non-Foundation personnel found to be within the vicinity of SCP-XXXX are to be questioned before being administered class A amnestics. Due to the isolated nature of SCP-XXXX, no other containment procedures are necessary. Description: SCP-XXXX is
Jeremy blinked heavily, a barely restrained yawn pushing against his chest as the monotonous words on his laptop slowly deteriorated into incomprehensible babble. Shifting forward in his seat, he reached back to push a knuckle into the base of his spine, straightening his posture with a painfully satisfying pop. Next to him, a middle-aged man, stout and dressed in a generic suit and lab coat of drab white, shot him a cursory glance. A small, sudden twinge of embarrassed, irrational anger sparked briefly; he''s running on fumes here, with exactly zero minutes of sleep in the tank and about a liter of coffee that he poured into himself for that bit of an extra boost. What right did anyone here have to judge him? To look upon him with slight? None, he thought. They didn''t know anything about him except for his name (Jeremy Smith) and his position (Senior Researcher). Of course, there were exceptions, such as Researcher Day who sat three seats to his left, who occasionally helped him with certain assignments. And of course, the all-mighty, all-seeing O5 council, the omnipotent beings they were. He blinked once more. A sluggish, leaden blink that brought with it a dull throb that took its place at the back of his skull. With a shaking hand, he dipped his spoon into the bowl of soup next to his laptop and lifted it to his mouth. He didn''t know what it tasted like, or what it even was, only that it was warm. It was as if his mind had gone numb enough to be rendered incapable of even grasping the concept of taste. Looking up from the table, he managed to find himself staring at the coffee machine, which was situated at the back of the room, tucked away along with the microwave and refrigerator. He was in one of the older breakrooms, a moderately sized room that offered only the slightest of reprieves from the constant reports, papers, busywork, and experiments that he and the other staff had to work through. As an added bonus, the Junior Researchers almost never went here; they would rather take their breaks at the cafeteria, or one of the newer, shinier breakrooms with their sleek designs and vending machines. Not that that was an issue at the moment. No, they were all probably still in bed, resting with their blankets tucked to their chins within their Foundation-issued dormitories. It was four in the morning after all, and it was only due to sheer incompetence that he was still awake. Incompetency, of course, from his brain, for not giving him the rest that he wanted. It wasn''t exactly an enthralling experience, laying on his bed with his eyes closed and waiting for sleep to come. For about six hours he waited, but he just couldn''t do it. There were a few times when he started to drift off, but those moments were quickly rectified by the inexplicable bursts of pain that flared in his head, stealing him away from even a minute of sleep. Eventually he figured that if he couldn''t bring himself to sleep, then he might as well try to get a good start with a recent SCP that had appeared. One new enough that it didn''t even have a designation, yet. "You doing alright there, buddy?" The person next to him from before gave him a small tap on the shoulder. Jeremy recoiled from the touch, instinctively flinching at the sudden physical contact. "Woah, sorry to startle. It''s just that you''ve had four mugs of coffee in the past ten minutes, and I see that you''re considering another. And Foundation coffee at that. Sure, it''s free, but I''d say that''s still too costly." Someone behind him snickered at that. "Fine. I''m fine. Just¡­ can''t sleep. Want to, but can''t." "Hm. Need to catch up on some stuff?" He asked. "Or just plain old insomnia? Oh, I''m Ben, by the way. Site Technician. Pulled out of bed to fix a ventilation issue for the D-Class lodgings. Took like twenty minutes to fix, and now I''m too awake to bother with going back to sleep." "Jeremy Smith. Insomnia, I guess. Just laid there for six hours, couldn''t get a single wink of sleep. Got some weird headache that flares every time I''m about to nod off." Ben frowned. "Huh. Should probably get that checked out. Why don''t you give the infirmary a visit? They''re always open." Jeremy looked down at his bowl of half-eaten lukewarm soup glumly in silent contemplation. It wasn''t as if he were getting anywhere with the SCP report anyway, his addled brain failing to produce the words necessary to properly describe the anomaly. Most likely, he would have to completely revise anything he typed up anyway, lest he should submit a report riddled with typos and inaccuracies. Murmuring a few words of assent, he folded his laptop and secured it safely in his briefcase, placing it between several mind-numbingly lengthy articles and papers before dumping his foam bowl and plastic utensils into the trash. "They''ll probably just give me aspirin, or some sort of sleeping pill." He thought as he gave a small wave of goodbye to technician. He found that a slight sense of unease had settled on him though, a creeping absence of weight that made him feel somewhat light-headed. "Or, or maybe it''s something more serious. Signs of a hemorrhage. A brain tumor." "Oh, shut up." He muttered under his breath. He closed the door to the break room behind him and began walking down the hall, expansive and with a vague emptiness that would have been odd, were it not for the fact that it could barely even be considered morning. As he could recall, the infirmary would be on the opposite side of the site, just adjacent to the Euclid containment chambers. He groaned internally at that; perfect that he worked at a site small enough to not warrant monorails, but large enough that traversing the area would be time consuming. That had been the worst part of his transfer here. Even ten years later, he missed the small confinement of Site-39, where he had easily memorized the entire layout, where the on-site security force had been small enough that the anomalies there were relatively harmless, where he knew the names of all of the personnel. Perhaps it was nostalgia talking, the sense of good old days and familiar comfort blinding him with their grey lens, but¡­ He stopped walking. Where was he? He looked around and realized that he had been walking in a straight line for the past several minutes, deeply entranced in his thoughts. In that time, he had not encountered a single branching path, doorway, person, or window of any kind. Indeed, he had been walking through an infinite hallway, barren of literally anything of note. He resumed walking forward, though with an air of caution as he began to consider the possibility of some sort of containment breach. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cellphone; unsurprisingly, there was no signal. "Well, shit." Jeremy muttered to himself. He only hoped that he was caught in some sort of projected hallucination rather than having wandered unwittingly into an alternate reality or dimension. Better to be making a fool of himself than to be caught in a self-perpetrating cycle of mind-numbing infinity. For a moment, he considered trying to walk back from where he came from, only to dismiss the idea; that was how you got disoriented, wasn''t it? At least, in these situations. He continued walking, occasionally tossing glances behind him for no other reason than a sense of justified paranoia. All the while, the hallway remained exactly the same. Two white walls, about three meters apart and perfectly smooth, free from imperfections in both colour and texture, a black vinyl composite flooring, tiled with thin lines in a checkerboard pattern that was nonetheless uniform in appearance, a flat white ceiling with repeating lines of white LED lights. The details of it practically burned themselves into his mind, especially as there was quite literally nothing else to look at. "At least I''ll be able to write up a decent description after this, when I get out¡­" He paused to kick his legs, knee joints popping loudly from within the slight veil of silence that had settled, previously interrupted only by his own breaths and the metronomic click-clacks of his footsteps on the unnaturally clean floor. "Though that''s assuming this is an undocumented anomaly." Looking forward, all he could see was the endless stretch of the hallway extending, a daunting sight that taunted him with its blandly consistent appearance and apparent infinite length. The unflattering curse of middle-age, the decrepit and corrupt thing it was, clung to him like a foul odour; already, complaints of fatigue had begun to rise from his body. Again, the possibility of turning back arose in his mind. It wasn''t too late, was it? At most, he would lose¡­ what, twenty minutes of progress? Has it been twenty minutes? Has it been an hour? No, that couldn''t be. At most, thirty minutes, at the very most surely. Better to try it now and get it over with. He would be fine, perfectly fine.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. He checked his phone again. There was no signal, and the time had not changed. Because of course it hadn''t. He turned around and began to walk again, though only reluctantly. There was no shift in perspective, no shifting details, no change in atmosphere, just the quickly tiring sight of an endless hallway that provided with it a small pith of doubt as to whether or not he turned around at all. The briefcase he was carrying around felt cumbersome, serving as nothing more than three and a half kilograms or so of extra baggage, as if his legs weren''t hauling enough weigh as it is. Not for the first time in his career, he considered the possibility of leaving the Foundation. It was a generally straight forward procedure; he would be administered amnestics and given the tried and true faux backstory of working in government facilities. Some retiree''s got to get away without having their memory reshaped; that was one benefit of having a low security clearance, at least. But someone like him, who''s been with the Foundation for well over a decade and with access to some of the more classified files? There was no chance that he would escape with his memories fully intact. That didn''t bother him so much though. No, he was sure he''d survive without the various horrors of the Foundation plaguing his mind for the rest of his life. He was compensated well for his work, enough so that he nearly had enough in savings to retire from working altogether, though he wasn''t there quite yet. That was the main driving force behind his continued career here. Encounters like this, however, always made him second-guess himself. The stitch building up at the side of his stomach, the slight burning spreading through his knees and calves, the possibility that all of this was for nothing, it all gnawed at him with their intoned whisperings of doubt and anxiety. He had to sit down. He had to sit down. He sat, cross-legged and with his briefcase on his lap, the cool surface of the floor seeping through his clothes to provide some measure of relief. Without thinking too much about it, he opened his briefcase and found with mild surprise that the multitude of papers he had been keeping in there were all completely blank, empty sheets of pure white that matched perfectly with the wall he was propped up against. Perfectly empty, perfectly immaculate. Hands shaking, he placed the papers aside and pulled out his laptop. He opened it and tried to turn it on. It was dead. He brought out his phone and tried to turn it on. It was dead. "Okay. Sure. Fuck me, right?" He groaned, running his fingers through his hair. For a few moments, he sat there in quite contemplation before standing up again, worn joints creaking as he straightened himself up. He continued walking again, sans briefcase and laptop, which were left by the wall where he sat. He didn''t feel any lighter. He shoved his hands into his pockets and dug around. There was his wallet, which contained various denominations of bills, some identification, and his clearance card. His phone, of course, which was dead. A black pen, nearly out of ink. A balled up napkin. In his breast pocket, a photograph with an aerial view of the anomaly he had been working on. A red pen, barely used. He looked down. One after another, they went. Plop plop plop. Should he be walking faster? With heavier footfalls maybe? Or quieter? He didn¡¯t like how his footsteps sounded. They were obnoxiously loud, at least within the dead silence surrounding him. What if his footsteps were to be broadcasted into a library? They would be annoyed too, he thought. Quieter then. With his heel absorbing each footfall before smoothly passing the load over to the rest of his foot. It worked, kind of. Better anyway. Maybe all of the non-existent folk in the library listening to his every move would be less annoyed now. Not that he cared. Step after step after step after step. It was an endless loop. Well no, not endless. He slapped his own wrist. Not endless, not at all. There had to be an end, there had to be a way out. If not, someone would come. He would be pulled away. Someone would notice his absence and a low-level search would be conducted, before they find that he was missing entirely. Then, they would start to search harder and then, he would be rescued. Or maybe an entity occupying this anomaly would appear, some bizarre humanoid speaking in cryptics would introduce themselves and he would find the chance to perform an on-site interview. Or, or, he was going crazy. Mad with hallucinations about an endless hallway, and he would be submitted to the psychiatric ward and undergo a study and therapy. They would fix whatever the hell was wrong with his brain and he would go back to his work. Everything would be fine, there was a solution no matter where you looked. Perfect. Had it been hours now? The gradual buildup of dull aching in his legs began to tip-toe the breaking point, ravenous in their incessant shouting. There was no doubt that enough time had passed where he had traveled further backwards and forwards, though in this 2D-esque plane of existence, did that really matter? Or, had he? It was entirely possible that he hadn''t traveled very far at all, of course. He recognized that the dull task of walking in a straight line in this bare-bones hallway would stretch time into taffy. It was decided that he would start counting. Not out loud of course, that would get tiresome. No, he would count in his mind, one by one and keep going until he reached infinity. Or until he got out. He would count as fast as he could, and if he happened to lose his thoughts, then he¡¯d just pick up where he thought he was. It was a great way to keep time, at least he thought so. Each step was about three counts. Sometimes it was four, sometimes it was two. That didn¡¯t matter though. Three was good, three was enough. If nothing else, an average. At six hundred and eighty-two, he noticed that his throat had begun to dry.
- - - At two thousand, four hundred and ninety-seven, he was walking in contemplative silence. At two thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine, he fell. In the blink of an eye, he was on the floor and grabbing his right leg with both of his hands, mouth open in a sudden silent scream. He quickly lifted up the pant leg to reveal a bundle of skin and muscle and hair and color. Giant, agonizing pain crawled and shivered all over, nixed flesh caught alight in a violent seizure. Muscles were visibly clenching and unclenching, knotting his skin and nerves. "Damn it." He whispered through clenched teeth, hands working quickly to massage the cramped muscles. He coughed a few times and drew a large, gasping breath that did nothing except dry his mouth further. Squeezing his eyes shut, he did his best to ignore the overlay of static that had become all-too present. The pain subsided somewhat, though he kept his grasp firmly on his legs, massaging it as his mind raced to recall what number he had left on. Was it two thousand five hundred and eighty? That sounded right. And even if it wasn''t, who''s to correct him on it? He was all alone. All alone and with no one to care.
- - - At nine thousand, one hundred and one, he did his business against the wall opposite to the one he was walking next to. The coffee wanted out.
- - - At thirty-one thousand, nine hundred and eleven, the sense of collapse in his lungs began to heighten, a shortness of breath combined with the electric shocks running through his esophagus through the sensation of falling. Maybe he was going the wrong way. Maybe he should have never turned back in the first place. But was it too late? Now was it too late? At thirty-two thousand and thirty-six? He could turn around again, but what if the exit was just there? Just beyond his reach, only a few thousand steps forward. And again, the possibility that this was the wrong way. It tore at him, the two options. He hated that feeling, the feeling that his life depended on a coinflip, with the chance that neither option would lead to salvation. What else could he do though? What else could his mind, the very same that had written up countless reports and containment procedures, focus on besides counting? Counting and nurturing that growing resentment festering in his gut, directed towards the Foundation and all of its anomalies? There was a brief moment of understanding, kinship even, with the GOC, though that moment quickly left him. God, he was just so damn thirsty. He hadn''t had a single drink of water, only subsisting on half a bowl of soup and several cups of coffee, which had already left his system. Already, a persistent itch had formed in his throat, refusing to leave him be no matter how many times he cleared his throat. "I''ll die here, won''t I?"
- - - At forty thousand, five hundred and eleven, his eyelids regained their weight. The complete and utter boredom that had overtaken him, boredom only alleviated somewhat by the agitation in his lungs as well as the constant worries of a slow and painful death, was dragging behind him, a ball and chain. At forty-three thousand, six hundred, he sat down with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. Despite everything, sleep came easily. There was no pain.
- - - When he woke up, he found himself in an endless hallway that looked identical to the one he was in just before his nap. Which way had he been walking in? To his left, or to his right? He couldn''t quite recall. What number was he at? Well, he''ll just round to a nice and even fifty thousand. It won''t make much of a difference anyhow. He began walking again. He brought a hand up to his neck and began scratching with ragged fingernails, uneven and with a thin layer of grime underneath. His nails dug around his Adam''s apple with a serene sort of urgency, something that desperately needed to be done but without much care or worry as there would be no consequence either way. It would just be such a relief, such a relief, if¡­ if only, the dryness went away.
- - - At ninety-seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-two, Jeremy sat down in the middle of the hallway and started to cry. Precious, precious water. Gone without a purpose. He hadn''t shed a single tear in years. The counting was involuntary at this point, a monotone voice that droned on and on as unimportant background noise. At ninety-nine thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, he got up and began walking again. His legs felt terribly weak, and he had suffered three more cramps since the first one. He held an irrational belief that at any moment, they would simply disintegrate into ash, grey ash that would scatter everywhere and dirty this perfectly clean hallway. The walls would be dotted with his mess. He stopped to check his phone. It was dead. He threw it at the wall and watched numbly as it bounced off with a dull thud and landed at his feet. He picked it up and began walking again.
- - - At one hundred and forty-four thousand, seventy-two, he sat down and took another nap. When he woke up, it took another count of two hundred before he could stand up again. He made it for about one hundred more counts before he had to stop again. Why did these numbers have to be so long? It made for a ratio of two steps per count. He hated it. It felt like was making less progress. Like everything was becoming slower. When he looked up, he saw that there were vast, sprawling shapes making up a hexagonal grid, dotted with that familiar static and ugly splotches of bruised purple. The lights were blinding him. The lights were burning him. At one hundred and eighty-eight thousand, five hundred and fifty-four, the counting stopped. Thank god for small miracles. He thought. He would have said it aloud, if he were able. He couldn''t stand. He couldn''t walk. The itchiness in his throat had vanished. It was hollow, it was dust, it was breaking. He laid down and closed his eyes. Red Box To be bathed in a sea of emptiness, graced with the presence of red and¡­ The red light was his anchor. A curse of immortality, so to speak. It kept him here, prevented his complete and total assimilation to the numbing sludge of dark emptiness that had enveloped this dimension, that was this dimension. Light, red light, red beautiful light that kept his body together. He loved it. Hated it. It was all he had, and he was all it had. Robert Scranton shivered, nonsensical mutterings filling the nothingness around him in a way that made his voice felt physically tangible. It was their existence that kept this place from collapsing in on itself, he was sure of it. 0.04 Humes? You could thank him for that. Him and Red. Existence itself depended on their presence, for without them, he believed that there would truly be nothing. There would be no darkness, no pain, no twisting of the flesh no red no movement no air no blood nothing you hear nothing there would be nothing and you can''t feel nothing. How could you? If nothing existed, then there would be no consciousness to comprehend it. No consciousness to pretend otherwise. That was the issue with non-existence. In the empty void, there wouldn''t be an eternity of black, mute silence and numbing cold. There would be nothing. Truly, and truly nothing. How could it be? Robert laughed and tasted blood. It was all he could taste these days, a sickening flavour of uncomfortable warmth and striking saltiness, leaving behind that foul aftertaste that clung to the back of his throat like a thick musk of copper and bile. It was how he tasted, so brashly vile that the taste overrode texture and scent, not that those aspects were particularly pleasing. And no matter what he did, it seemed like he couldn''t quite get just the skin¡­ To think! They were the gods of this world! Their life, their breath, their blood, it was all that made up this dimension, they were everything. And yet, they were in hell. Because the universe was greedy. He''d given up so much, and still, still they wanted more. He knew. They wanted Red, didn''t they? They wanted to take his anchor away. They wanted to consume him fully, to kill the golden egg laying goose and eat the entrails. He moaned as his body began to thrash, a terrible tremor overtaking him as he tried to hold himself together. He could feel it. The invisible tendrils of terror wrapping themselves around him in an attempt to contain him. This wasn''t how it worked. He was supposed to contain it, he was supposed to be an observer! This was all wrong, everything here was just wrong. Why was it so hard to move? Why was it so hard to live, to die, to exist? There was a small spark of almost childish anger as he contemplated the unfairness of it all. He hated this place, and yet, it wanted him. It lusted for his existence. Greed. "Can''t, can''t, you can''t do that. R-Red? They¡­ can''t do this to us. No, we''ll show them. You¡­ me¡­ We''re unstoppable t-together. Just you and me against the fucking world. Because they think that they can get the drop on us. They think that I''ll just fall apart¡­ Well maybe I will! Maybe I will fall apart, but I''ll just put myself back together." Robert giggled and reached into his body, grabbing a rib. He pulled it out of himself with relative ease and held it up to his eyes, squinting in the dim red light. "See? I told you, Red." The rib fell through his hand, phasing through his intangible skin and flesh and bones and veins and hairs and blood. To live as a dead man, trapped in a plane of solitude where Death itself has turned a blind eye, away from the malicious intent of¡­ ¨€ years, ¨€¨€ months, ¨€¨€ days, ¨€¨€ hours. "What? What are you saying? Stop speaking nonsense. Red, you''re drunk. Red, you''re going crazy. Are you okay? Calm down Red, have some food. See? Meat off the bone! It just falls off. Just¡­ f-falls right off, oh my god Red it just falls off why doesn''t it hurt it should hurt I need to just fucking DIE-" "¡­" "S-Sorry. Shouldn''t lose my temper. Can''t afford to lose it, actually, haha. That''s¡­ why. That''s why we''re being hunted. Because we can''t afford to lose¡­ anything." Robert sighed and dragged his palm against his cheek, cringing as about an inch of flesh and skin peeled off of his hand and stuck to his face. He coughed twice, two bursts of blood and empty air being expended from his lungs. Did he still have his lungs with him? Or were they thirty kilometers above him? Whatever, it wasn''t important.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. "Red, after we get home, I should totally introduce you to Anna¡­ She''s lovely¡­ Anna bo banna, Anna bo banna¡­ Just lovely. You two would get along¡­ Yes, you two would be great friends¡­ Anna¡­" Robert found himself staring into Red''s eye, the anchor, the constant in his life that stood unblinking and bright with its alluring, slightly sinister glow. He reached forward to touch it, arm stretching and thinning in a grotesque fashion. It took a while, but he did. Such a thin layer of skin, spread thin over a league of distance over bones turned malleable¡­ He couldn''t even feel the warmth. There were no nerves. If so, why did it hurt so much? Why did Red rebel against his touch with that shuddering wail of quiet agony, rebounding waves of illusion, of something, that pierced through the veil of darkness to strike him down? To be smote by a god, to be thrust into the inextinguishable flames of¡­ "Of nothing, right? Ha, I see now. Red¡­ You genius. You fucking genius. I-I love you Red, we''re just the perfect pair." Robert grinned widely, a crescent mouth with red teeth and a red tongue and red gums and¡­ "Okay, Red. I''ll show you. I''ll show you just how much I need. For¡­ Red? Your glow, your words, they''re just amazing. When you put the dots together, they form an image¡­ an image of cloth, cloth wrapped around a head. Is that my head? Red, are we getting close? I know you can feel it. The end of reality, where nothing meets nothing." He wrapped his bony fingers around Red and squeezed. It was a second of acute agony, a second separated from time and matter and any sort of possible reality, counting down independently from the nonsensical laws governing this dimension, acting purely through willpower to extend itself to monstrous lengths. A single second; yet in the pure abstract void of red, it was millennia. It was the absence of everything and anything, an indescribable sense of pain in its purest form that pulled him from the grave and rubbed salt on his gangrene. "Red, STOP IT. STOP IT, you''re HURTING." Robert said silently. His mouth had melted and folded onto itself, forming an ellipsoid of amalgamated flesh and teeth with the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. Somewhere along the line, his arm had been severed, and yet his grip held. And yet, the illusion (not an illusion it hurts it really hurts please listen just listen to me) of pain cast its shadow over him. And yet, he felt it. Red, his warmth. A soft glow, real heat, unlike the ambience temperature that had remained ever so constant with its blatant lie of warmth over the past¡­ "How long have I been here for?" ¨€ years, ¨€¨€ months, ¨€¨€ days, ¨€¨€ hours. "Hold on Red, I''m trying to think." Robert''s grip slipped away and he found himself coming to a stop, wretched body floating listlessly amidst the great gel of void. It struck him dearly that he would have such freedom, such agency over himself. No longer was he bound by strict Foundation regulations, by the rules of reality, by gravity. Even death itself held no power over him, not here. In a way, total freedom had been granted. Only now, he had relinquished some of that. The freedom that came with his death-defying pseudo-intangibility. He could feel the labour of breathing, he could feel the pumping of blood throughout his body. It was disturbing. A wicked sin made in vehemence, the equivalent of flipping the bird to the turned back of monsters and men. "But I''m still fucking stuck here. I want out, you hear me? OUT. Ever think about that? Y-You prick, god damn it Red when are we gonna leave? Let me out, please!" Robert reached into his chest and grabbed his heart. It pulsated strongly against his fingers, drumming loudly in uneven beats as it strained itself against his hand. The high pitched screams of tinnitus filled his ears as a cold sort of burning enveloped his entire body, sending him tremors strong enough that he nearly dropped the beating organ. There was no hesitation as he tightened his grip and pulled it out of his body. To suffer in a fruitless endeavor, surrounded by bloodshot eyes that stared with¡­ There was a blinding pain, searing and all-powerful in its ferocity. It had been so long, almost too long since he had felt it, the twisted paralysis overtaking him as his mind struggled to comprehend the exploding neurons crying in anguish. What little amounts of meat and muscle that remained on body drew taut as his veins seemingly doubled in size. Robert tried to say something. What came out of his mouth were indecipherable babbles. "Anna, oh beautiful, oh beautiful red Anna. When will I see you again?" Eyes rolling back slightly, he managed to extend his arm further outwards, and his heart with it. There was a sharp tearing noise, akin to the ripping of Velcro, and then a wrangled mass of arteries came loose. Still, it was not enough. His movements were animate. His brain still worked. He could still see, still hear, still understand that it was not enough. He became enveloped in a spell of dry heaving, flecks of blood spewing from his mouth as he broke into a fit of harsh coughing. He pulled his hand further away. More tearing, and dozens of thin lines, veins, broke free from his brittle skin. "oh but it''s not enough never enough nothing goes right it''s not real nothing is real anna red where are you please help me i need help i''m not strong enough oh god oh god oh god i can''t do this I" He made a feeble attempt to bite the bloodied cords connecting his heart to his body, but his mouth wouldn''t open. The strength in his grip ebbed, and at last his fingers opened from their lock. It was dark, but Robert could still clearly make out the image of some sort of mass floating above him, with tendrils of blight and a rapid-fire pulse. Taunting him. ¨€ years, ¨€¨€ months, ¨€¨€ days, ¨€¨€ hours. To have a beating, glowing heart¡­ Orange MInd It pleaded with her. How could it make her understand? What words were there in the vast, yet limited English language that could properly communicate how it was? How it felt? The pure ecstasy of near-omniscience, a mind powerful enough to know that everything will be okay and a thousand different reasons as to why. And the warmth, the warmth. Praise be Sol in all of her glory, the provider of life, of fire, of all things good in this beautiful world. She was a goddess, and she was extending her powers to those who did not appreciate, to those who did not deserve. And yet, she smiled. So brightly, she did. Golden grin. Bask in the warmth, bask in the Sun''s light. To let go of mortal perils was to let go of everything bad in the world. To truly free oneself from the shackles of reality, to transcend mortality and become one with nature itself. Why couldn''t she just understand? For a world where no one harbored evil intent, for a world without anomalies, where everything and everyone was understood perfectly, it was true paradise. It knocked on the door once more. It pleaded. In return for his efforts, she screamed at him. A shrill, ugly sound intoned with the heavy drags of despair. The way her voice cracked, the rawness in her words, it conveyed to it her limits. Why would she continue to suffer like this? Weren''t they bound by love, an eternal promise of devotion? Despite everything, there was so much that it didn''t understand about her. And of course, she didn''t understand it. She didn''t understand anything. If only she would come out, then. Greet Sol in her majesty so that they would finally understand each other. Perfect minds in harmony, wouldn''t that be ideal? She should realize this. Wasn''t she always the logical type? That''s how she got on-board with the Foundation in the first place. The Foundation, which kneeled in death underneath the glory of Sol. There would be no more shadows. No more hiding. Just the blanket of purity. It was better for everyone this way. Even during the dark dredges of the night, when Sol and her rays laid to rest, her power remained. But of course! She would extend her arms of flame to the corners of the universe if needed, because she loved them. She loved humanity; even when they would spit on her offerings, even when they would curse her boundless love, even with their numerous sins against nature, she would love them. And so, warmth remained. It knocked on the door. There was no answer. It moaned and pressed its body against the door, a half-meter thick gate of solid steel. Frantic cries arose from it, pleading and desperate. There was no answer. Why did she not join it? Was the company of death preferable to an eternity of bliss and prosperity? Of warmth? The mortal mind truly was a frail thing, wasn''t it? Its memories were fractured and smudged, nothing more than faint memories of memories, an adult trying to remember their third birthday. It supposed that it too, would have once preferred desolate emptiness to assimilation. Back when it was unwise, back when its knowledge was a thimble of water compared to the vast ocean of flames available to it now. It shuddered, misshapen mass of amalgamated flesh trembling as it knocked on the door once more. Dull thuds rang out in protest, filling the barren silence with its heavy cries. It pleaded. "Won''t you join me? Sweetheart, please. It''s warm. The Sun, it''s beautiful. Please." Heaving once more, it made another attempt in breaking the barrier between it and its love. However, this time, the door opened without protest. On the other side, her. It rejoiced, mouths contorting into joyful smiles as it lumbered in to embrace her. At last, she had seen the truth in its words! The pleads and cries it offered, she had accepted! Now, now, it could finally be complete. They would be complete. And the world, and Sol, they would all be one step closer to peace.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. She stood there, staring at him with a look of tired resignation. And yet, was there something deeper in her eyes? A glint of¡­ No, no. She was close, so very close, close enough that it could taste her. Elegant and smooth and sweet and lovely and oh so beautiful, almost like the Sun herself. And yet, they were not together. Not yet. It still didn''t understand. She still didn''t understand. She took several steps closer to it. It lurched forward. It opened a mouth to greet her. There was no time to react as she tossed something at it. An almost insignificantly small red pilll that went into its mouth. There was no conscious attempt to spit it out, to swallow, to crush it with its molars. There was no attempt of anything of the sort; it simply ingested the pill. There was a sense of tartness, deeper and richer than anything it had tasted before that spread itself through its mass. It felt denser, more real, somehow. A prickling of want touched its mind. But there was guilt too; a child stealing cookies from the jar, knowing that they will get caught. But caught by who? By what? And why? Something inside of it began to stir, a foreboding sort of rumbling that make it grow uneasy. What had it consumed? Why was- She backpedaled, retreating deeper into the confines of their chamber. It made a low, grumbling noise and started after her. So she had second thoughts then? It supposed that was somewhat reasonable; perhaps she didn''t appreciate its newly made form. Perhaps, perhaps, she couldn''t see through the thin surface layer of its subjective monstrosity and look, really look at the beauty blessed upon it. Only¡­ Was it beautiful? Something was wrong. The taste wouldn''t leave. Voices of dissonance rang out from within him, mere mutterings that it could barely recognize. It was unsettling. A thin veil of doubt draped itself over its eyes, and all at once, that unfamiliar sensation of uncertainty returned. That hated, dreadful feeling of not knowing what to do, what was happening, that feeling of vague terror. A steel gate closed down in front of it, severing the short distance between it and her. Through a plexiglass window, she stared. Why did the air press down on it? Why did the abject look of anxiety on her face bring it such dread? Such feelings were behind it. In Sol''s bask of light, there was only comfort. Joy. Warmth. Wasn''t that why it requiesced its mortal form in the first place? Shed the pale, tearing skin. Become whole. Become warm again. Become something greater. Yes, it had once been a singular organism, hadn''t it? A part of the on-site ''Mobile Task Force'', a guard to the researchers who knew so much yet so little. That was how they acted; scrambling around with their ideas of containment and anomalies, wasting so much precious time and effort on complicating things that did not matter. Ideas of budgets, of ethics, of the greater good, everything¡­ Just a willful distraction. No one could understand what the real world was like, not until they accepted her. The Sun, and all of her blessings. It He used to be so miserable. Confused and lost in a melting world, she was all he had left. They loved each other. But the voices ended up being too much. It was too much effort trying to keep up a fa?ade of bravado. He loved her and hated himself for what he was planning to do. God, he didn''t even bother to leave a note, did he? Not a single word. But he was just tired. Hopeless. After over a year of living on canned rations and drinking water that tasted gritty even after being filtered, with no word from any survivors and pure static from the handheld radio¡­ He decided that maybe, he should listen. They sounded so content. Even human, if you could ignore the faux sense of content dripping from their voices. He would have told her, were it not for the fact that she would have held on to him as he dragged himself outside. She wouldn''t listen to his pleas, wouldn''t acknowledge the fact that he wasn''t strong enough for all of this. That despite the training and the heart-felt promises made in pools of tears, that he couldn''t go on living like this. It was painful. He could remember now, all of the humanities and doubts he thought he abandoned in favour for peace and wellbeing. For a bit, it was an eternity of agonizing pain, the sheer burn of his skin as they melted his form. The unbearable heat of internalized flames licking at his organs, burning him from the inside out. But they helped. The Somethings, the grossly disformed masses of skin, blood, and flesh. They enveloped him and sang their thanks, and then¡­ It was all okay again. He. He felt sick. The voices grew louder. From the other side of the gate, she was saying something. He couldn''t quite understand what she was saying, but her tone gave him pause. It made it, him¡­ Her voice made him feel afraid. The Sun''s grace vanished. Sol vanished. They grew cold, separate. There was nothing left except for that tartness. Only now, it was an overwhelming sweetness. He started to scream. Blue Clouds "Shhh. It''s okay, honey. Here, look, have some more of your cake! Chocolate frosting¡­ That''s your favourite, right?" Parker smiled weakly, her lips wavering as she held the plate of leftover cake to her daughter''s mouth. She watched unblinkingly as Jemma pushed herself forward to eat, greedily gobbling at the frosted devil''s food as if she hadn''t eaten in weeks. She could see her esophagus working, pushing the cake through her elongated throat, all the way to her stomach which was several meters away. Large crumbs tumbled off the plate and onto the floor; she was such a messy eater. She couldn''t even use utensils herself; no, her fingers were much too sensitive for that. Initially, she had just fed Jemma herself. Stab at the food with a fork or scoop it up with a spoon, and watch the stuff vanish down her daughter''s gullet. But then she grew. And the complaining, the pain in her voice, she just wanted more and more and more. She couldn''t do it fast enough. And then Jemma, oh she was a growing girl, she needed her nutrients and she needed those calories and it hurt her more than anything else in the world to watch helplessly as the walls of her house shook from her rumbling stomach. Her new job, it paid¡­ okay. Enough to satisfy the needs of her daughter, at least initially. She was so big now¡­ Growing¡­ Needed more. She wouldn''t have her daughter live hungry. She needed to be a parent. She sold everything. Eventually, she had to sell the silverware too. All of it, except for a singular fork. The rest of it had gotten her $25. Enough for five pounds of ground beef. Eventually, Jemma''s appetite grew ravenous enough that one day, she had a bit of a tantrum. Children sometimes, they could be so impatient! It was just such a shame that her daughter decided to take her anger out on the last fork. She''d bitten the head of it off and swallowed it whole. It was embarrassing to her, but they both cried after that. She was supposed to be someone strong, someone Jemma could look up to, but she couldn''t help it, really. Her bed, frame and all, had gone for $80. That was enough to get a large cake and a wide assortments of fruits. The old CRT television that she had initially lugged into her car from the sidewalk, she had managed to sell for $3. Oh, and her car. Yes, that had gone for $3,000. She sold it just before her daughter''s eleventh birthday, and it had been enough for a used bike and just about three months of food. And of course, all the furniture in the house had gone, all of her clothes save for a few sets, her grandmother''s ring, the laptop, her phone¡­ Her daughter''s room was untouched. A crib, a queen-sized bed, and a closet full of clothes meant for a toddler. "I''m hungry, Mama." "Honey, I''m sorry but we don''t have any more¡­ You''ll have to wait for just a tiny bit, okay?" "No!" Jemma cried out. Her face scrunched up in an ugly expression, her eyes half-closed and with her teeth bared. Parker winced as bits of plaster fell from the ceiling from Jemma''s sudden outburst. She had never bothered to get the ceiling repaired after she had fallen through. "Mommy, it hurts, please! I''m just so hungry, my back hurts, Mommy, please I¡­" "Honey, Mommy won''t get paid until Monday, then we can get you a whole bunch of food! Doesn''t¡­" Parker choked back a sob. "D-Doesn''t that sound great?" "But Mommy, I want my food now. Please, I''m hungry." Jemma sniffed noisily. "Anything¡­" Trembling, Parker cupped her hands on the floor to scoop up the crumbs of cake that had fallen from the plate. Her fingers were covered in brown bandages, heavy with old blood after Jemma had bitten her those few times; she tried hand-feeding her, but Jemma oh she was just so famished and who could blame her, the poor girl was growing and she needed every single calorie to be a healthy girl and surely it was all an accident, Jemma was just an angel, wouldn''t hurt a fly and she would cry afterwards and she could never get mad and god, she was just the worst mother in the world, wasn''t she? Jemma looked up at her from the hole and opened her mouth, wide. Parker shuddered as she peered into her cupped hands; bits of loose hair and roof plaster made up more than half of the pitiful pile, but¡­ that''s alright, wasn''t it? It was better than letting her baby starve. She dumped the pile back onto the plate and held it up to her daughter, who lapped it up enthusiastically. "Mommy, I-" "I know honey, but really, there''s no more food." "But I''m hungry. I''m still so hungry¡­"Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. She took a shuddering breath, kneeling on the floor with her hands placed limply on her lap. She looked up at the decrepit ceiling, at the horrible, warped spine and thinly stretched skin that ran through the room. "Okay." Parker said, finally. Jemma brightened up at this, mouth contorting into a wide grin, a grin full of browning teeth and dark, sticky stains around her lips. "I''ll¡­ Mommy will get some food. It''s o-only supposed to be for emergencies, but¡­ Honey, you''re sure you can''t wait any longer?" "Yes!" Jemma cried, her spine dancing with tremors. The loud crackling of bones contorting, bending reverberated through the house. "Mommy, my back, my stomach, they hurt. It hurts so bad." "Okay, okay, just a little while longer. Mommy will get you your food right now, okay honey?" She offered her daughter a weak smile before standing up and turning around. Emergency food? Well, that was one way to put it. At first, she had told herself that it would never come to that. She wouldn''t let her daughter commit such acts of¡­ of sin. Just the thought of her precious child eating¡­ Parker doubled over and began dry heaving, both hands pressed fiercely into her stomach as flecks of spittle dribbled onto the floor. Her body worked mercilessly to push out the nothing that was taking up space inside of her stomach, the nothing that made it seem like her chest was giving out. She gasped, once, and immediately began retching once more as she inhaled a mouthful of the rancid, stagnating air that had filled her house. It was a permeating sourness that worked to corrode her lungs from the inside out. "M-Mommy? Are you okay?" The genuine concern in her voice nearly broke her. Parker straightened up and covered her mouth, tears already forming in her eyes. "Y-Yes. Yes honey, everything''s¡­ fine." Without another word, she continued walking. Her daughter was just so pure. It hurt to see how badly she was in pain, knowing that none of it was justified. The hurt, the hunger, the indecency, it was torture for the both of them. Knowing that it had come to this¡­ Well, it was too late to ask her family for help now, not that she would. They wouldn''t love her daughter. Not like she loved her. It was never meant to happen. Still, she thought about it. The emergency food that is. It''s just that when you lived in such an empty neighborhood, people would start up rumours; She knew of the tales that had spread about her. her and her daughter. The whisperings of people disappearing once they entered her house, of the almost imperceptible crying that could be heard at the dead of night, the way that sometimes, if you looked closely, the walls seemed to move¡­ Frankly, she was lucky. Lucky that the rumours hadn''t caught the attention of the police. As of yet, anyway. They didn''t come to this part of town too often, which was largely abandoned. No, they were much more concerned with other matters that were considered more significant, at least when compared to tall tales of breathing houses. Even the missing people could wait. There was an indifference by the law enforcement that she would have been upset about, perhaps if it was a decade earlier. But now there was just a guilty sort of relief. She couldn''t help it. Some of them, some of them really, really pried. They were curious. They wanted to know the truth behind it all. Behind her. She opened the door to her basement and walked slowly down the stairs, careful not to step on any of the loose nails. The handrail was nothing more than a rotting piece of wood that would crumple at the slightest grip. And the stench, the stench was the worst part. The harsh metallic scent, coupled with a rotting sweetness, like honeyed meat being seared over a blue flame. Oh, there it was. There it was. Grabbing a broom from the wall, she shooed away some rats that had congregated around the body. It was half-decomposed, skin and flesh tinted with a pale, off-green colour. Meat. Meat soft enough that it looked like it was melting. A lake of thick, half-coagulated blood surrounded it; some of the rats had been licking it. Others were nibbling on the fingers, which were now small twigs of bone, albeit with some flecks of meat still attached. Swatting at the cloud of flies buzzing around it, she bent down and dug her arms under the corpse in a bridal carry. She tried to ignore how soft and malleable the flesh felt. She stood up. She tried to ignore how some parts of it fell off. She began walking. She tried to ignore the dozens of maggots worming around inside of its mouth. She carefully ascended up the stairs. She tried to ignore the frigid blood seeping in-between her fingernails. She tried to ignore how she was carrying a boy, no older than eighteen, who had simply wandered inside of her house once when she forgot to lock the door. Who had heard of the rumours of a living house and a crazed lady who lived in a ghost neighborhood and bought more food than someone who was living alone could ever eat. She tried to ignore the look of awe-stricken terror that had been plastered on his countenance when he met her daughter. She tried to ignore the way he sobbed and pleaded as she loomed over him with that rusty shovel she kept in the toolshed. She tried to ignore how for months afterward, there seemed to be a slight uptick in curious visitors, in teenagers sent on a dare to talk to her. Once, there was a threat of calling the police. But they didn''t come. Why didn''t they come? They should have arrested her, then. Did anyone see him come in? Did he have friends or family? Was there suspicion? Did his disappearance only add fuel to the fire? Did anyone even notice he was gone? Was there evidence? Did the boy even tell anyone where he was going? Perhaps she could have asked him and spared herself from the nerve-wracking anxiety that had taken place afterwards. The sleepless nights of anxiety, the uneven drumming against her ribcage and the sharp pains of fear that stabbed through her chest at the slightest shadow. The guilt. Murderer. Monster. No. Don''t think about that. None of that matters now. She couldn''t waste time thinking about the past, not anymore. She was a rotten failure of a person, a terrible mother, a murderer, a runaway. But she still loved her daughter. She still had a purpose. Her daughter was hungry. And she would do anything to provide for her. Pink Dreams The air was palpable. No matter how much time passed, no matter how many breaths she took, she could never find it in herself to adapt to the sour musk of air that perfused the space around her with that thick, pungent scent of rot. Every breath she took, the rancid oxygen would gleefully rush into her lungs, as if the air itself were looking for an escape from the disgusting atmosphere that it inhabited. Her cell was overcrowded, somehow. Every movement she made was a struggle, limbs wading through the clouds of stench that clung to her skin. She couldn''t see around her, but if she were to hazard a guess, she would say that she was in a basement of some sort, one rank with the rusty metal of decayed piping and with incomplete and uneven flooring that was old and brittle enough to flake at the touch. She didn''t know if it was lit or not, but she was leaning towards the latter. It was a little late for guesswork, but that was the image her mind so kindly provided for her. That was the worst part, wasn''t it? She had no idea. She had not a single clue as to where she was, who was keeping her here, or if she was blind or not. For as long as he could remember, there was naught but inky darkness. Crying for her parents, spending every waking moment rending her vocal cords as she got thirstier and hungrier. She stopped, eventually. Didn''t know when or what changed, but she was made aware of her exhaustion. All of that youthful energy, ripped out of her with vehemence, leaving nothing behind but a tired, whimpering shell of a girl trapped in perpetual darkness, and that disgusting smell. She didn''t even know who she was. Her entire life up to this point, seemingly, had been the exact same. It felt wrong, of course. Her subconscious whispered fantasies of joy to her, a life living inside of a spacious house, with her own room and with her own bed that was softer than anything she could imagine. A fruitful life of going to middle school, talking with other people, memories of taste. What an alien-like concept that was! Never a bite to eat down here, despite her body insisting that it was a necessity. Always hungry, but never starving. Even in heaven, she was blind. There was a sense of knowing, of sureness. She could feel and taste and hear and smell all of the wonderful things that her mind promised was real, but she couldn''t believe any of it. Everything, everything was black. How could she even know what any of those things meant? How could she know of "school", of "family", of "happiness", when all she knew was this? Just an eternity of cold void, with a head filled to the brim with depressive memories of sitting for days on end in this oubilette. And yet, her mind teased her. So cruelly it did, with illusions of content and meaning. Sometimes, she would try sleeping. Certainly, she would get tired at times. Enough so that she would be willing to pass out against the harshly cold walls, with her back pressed straight against splintering rust. Any sleep she had would be dreamless; at least, she it might as well be. There was the distinct possibility that all of her dreams consisted of this. Of her reality. Was it really a dream, then? When the lines between sleeping fantasy and cold, hard reality overlapped, when sleeping and waking were two faces of a one-sided coin, what was the point in distinguishing them? Mostly, she would just sit there. Sit there and cry. Occasionally, she would get a burst of motivation, enough to shout for help or scream at the person blocking her from her escape, that cold, unfeeling statue of a man. There were times when, she would question if he was even a person at all. As far as she knew, there was only one exit out of the room, and that exit was constantly blocked by the frigid body of a tall, imposing person that refused to speak to her at all. Of course, she didn''t know what he looked like. She didn''t know what he sounded like, or who he was, or why he was doing this. A few times, she tried tackling him. Several thrown punches, kicks, and even an attempt at biting once. The man never reacted to any of it, only continuing to stand there as she exhausted herself in trying to attack what might as well have been a brick wall. Her attempts at assault never lasted very long. There was something deeply unsettling about touching him. His skin was extremely taut, to the point that she could feel thee strong outlines of his long, wiry veins trailing along his body. There was a sort of fullness to him that made him seem as if he were completely solid, with no space inside for any organs or cavities. Above all, he was cold. Covered in a brutal frost that laid in uniform throughout his entire body that left her numb by just standing in front of him. Besides, she had to concede that he wasn''t doing any harm to her. In fact, he might not even be responsible for her imprisonment in the first place. If someone was powerful enough to trap her in here for so long, and take away her needs for food or water, surely they didn''t have the time to spend just¡­ standing there, right? When she wasn''t caught up within the grief of her own thoughts, she would talk to him. At times, at length. She learned to grow used to his company, even if she did harbour that deep-rooted fear of his unusual stillness and frost-bitten touch. With no one else to talk to, what choice did she have? It might have been her imagination but when she found herself deeply enthralled in talking, in venting all of her frustrations to the inanimate person in front of her, the air around him would get warmer. More comfortable, somehow.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. She wished that she could see him. She wished that she could see at all. Sometimes, he would move. She had no idea how frequently he did this or why, but every once in a while, if she were laying completely still and holding her breath, she could hear it. The soft, almost imperceptible sound of a person walking away, footsteps trailing out from silence into nonexistence. It happened rarely; oftentimes, it felt like entire years would pass in between each of his absences. And every time, she found herself too scared or shocked to even do anything. Was it a test? A trap? Would she sprint forward with her arms spread open to welcome the warm embrace of freedom, only to crash headfirst into a locked door? Would she find herself half-way out, only to be grabbed by the hair and yanked back into her cell by the man? Perhaps worse. Perhaps she would step on some piece of sharp metal, or on a pile of shattered glass. Fall into a deep ditch and break her neck. Or¡­ maybe it was his way of communicating. Maybe the man was on her side after all, and was giving her windows of time to escape. How frustrated must he be that she''s ignored his outstretched hand time and time again? Unexpectedly, a bubble of guilt rose to her gut at the thought. Yes, of course, that made much more sense. That man must have been a prisoner once, much like herself. Withered by time and isolation, he would find himself in servitude to whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes! That had to be it, had to. As she kept her ears perked against the murky darkness, she found herself determined. She would escape from her prison, even if that escape was death. Countless hours of crying, of screaming for help, of pulling at her own hair as her mind imagined bugs and rats scurrying about her feet, it all culminated into a single desire. Absolution from her stay in hell. There was no passage of time here. A wild guess, derived from nothing but intuition, told her that two months had passed since the man''s last take of absence. He had been gone for no time at all. She knew that it could have all been a dream. All of the times he left her alone, it could have all been conjured up from her mind. Like the vaguely familiar imprints of faces that she sometimes caught looking at her from the darkness. Like the sudden, bombastic explosions of sound that never echoed. Even the ghost of warmth that sometimes radiated from his figure could have been a dream. But as her ears twitched at the sound of trailing footsteps, as her body involuntarily shivered at the sudden rise in temperature, she found herself thinking, believing that they weren''t dreams. That this wasn''t a dream. And even if it was? She would grasp it. Unsteadily, she rose to her feet, wincing as her joints crackled and popped at the effort. Chest beating erratically, she trudged forward with her arm outstretched. Ready to meet a closed door, wall, or even the man himself, having never left his post in the first place. It took ten steps to reach the other side of the room. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven¡­ How old was she when she first realised that someone had been watching her all this time? Eight¡­ How old was she when she first realised that he was more of an immovable object than a human? Someone who''s sole purpose, seemingly, was to keep her trapped down here, with plastic skin and vines for veins? Nine¡­ Ten, eleven, twelve. She was out. There was disbelief at first, both in her mind and body. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She kept walking automatically, expecting to run into a wall. Sixteen, seventeen. She doubled over in a sudden fit of unexpected coughing. Her lungs wheezed and cried as it forcefully expelled the rancid, metallic air out of her lungs. In return, it brought in something wonderful. There was a distinct sourness to the newly introduced air, as well as an unpleasant scent that made her throat ache, but it was amazing. Her body pleaded, demanded for this new fresh, crisp oxygen. "Oh god," She thought as she kneeled there, not half a meter from her room and with her fists pressed firmly against her stomach. "It tastes so sweet. Taste. This is sweet. Love. How?" She vomited, then. An expungement of toxic waste from her system, brought upon by the sudden intake of freshness that her body could not have been acclimated to. Warm, painfully sour bile poured forth from her mouth and onto her legs, spilling over her skin and dripping onto the floor. She didn''t care, only continuing to inhale the beautifully fresh air with enthusiastic gasps. Her body was up in static, pinpricks and dots blistering all about her arms and chest with a vivid intensity. Something warm began trailing down her cheeks; she was crying. For the first time however, it wasn''t out of fear, frustration, or anything of the sort. It was out of hope. A convict sent to the chair hearing the phone ring. Trembling, she rose once more and took a few more steps forward with an arm outstretched, wincing as her bare feet stepped on the warm, slimy puddle. Eventually, her blind groping found something; a rail of some kind. She grasped it with both of her hands and pulled herself towards it. It felt cold, solid. Nothing like the flaking bits of metal that stuck out from the walls in her cell. Her hands ran over it greedily, nearly overwhelmed in the new, fascinating senses being brought upon her. As she huddled closer to the thin rail, her feet collided with something; a large outcrop of rough cement. They were stairs. A way out. Her heart hammered against her chest with renewed vigor, her cheeks becoming flush with excitement and wonder. She could do this. She could actually leave, once and for all. Holding back giddy laughter, she quickly started ascending the steps, still-wet feet pattering against the dry steps. As she squinted in the darkness, she thought that she could make out the faint imprint of light. Almost invisible, but bright all the same. Mumbling a prayer under her breath, she climbed. About an hour later, she found a new, unexpected sensation overtaking her body. She was getting thirstier.
It found her huddled with her back against a padded door, crying and muttering to herself incoherently. With its presence, a sudden chill overtook her, a sensation that she was entirely too familiar with. She looked up and stared into the darkness. No luck; she was still blind to her surroundings. Taking a shuddering breath, she tried to say something. Anything, to the one person she''s ever known. To the one person who, intentionally or not, kept her company. But her dry throat refused to make the motions. So hungry, so thirsty. Why now? Why not before? She couldn''t move. Every muscle in her body sagged, begging for her mind to do the same, to give them some reprieve. Fine then. She was getting tired anyway. Under a new blanket of warmth that she was too numb to notice, she fell asleep. For one last time, she dreamt of the life she never had. Green Basilisk "Doctor Berryman, we may have gathered sizable funding over the past year, but I must remind you that it isn''t infinite." Berryman scowled and tried to ignore the unfaltering stare of the suited man in front of him. They''d known each other for many years now, meeting before the Foundation even formed. In fact, perhaps one of the only reasons why he was kept employed here was because of his connection with him - O5-8. "C-Come on, David. I -" "Please don''t refer to me as such. We''re in a work environment." Well, that was the thing, wasn''t it? He''d just gotten so damned cold recently, it was hard to believe that he was the same person that Berryman used to hit pubs with. They had been roommates at Cambridge, sharing the same dorm over the better part of six years. They knew each other so well, and then the Foundation happened. A disappearance without a single word left behind, followed by a three month gap of silence. Then, an invitation in the mail. A job offering, for the position of Researcher at a recently founded organization, the SCP Foundation. "I''m close¡­ sir," Berryman managed to choke out. "You''ve seen it. You''ve seen how it works, I told you, the potential, the potency. It''s so close. I¡­ I just need to work out the kinks in the.. the¡­ oh, the¡­ thing. It''s, the, the machine." "Algorithm?" O5-8 suggested. "Yes! That!" Berryman spat. There was an unbearable itchiness in his scalp that made it hard to sit still. His hands trembled terribly, digits twitching and tapping on the cold tabletop in front of him as he tried to ignore the prickling in his skin. "Machine, machine logarithm. Algorithm. It''s so near complete, just more time. You know me, I know you, this is my life''s work here." How could he explain such a concept? An image, entirely non-anomalous in nature, something rooted in the explainable, in science, being able to maim or even kill at a glance. There were flaws in the human brain, thin cracks spider-webbed across the pulsating wall of neurons. It had been the subject of his Master''s thesis back at university, something he was in the midst of planning out before the invitation came. A handwritten letter by his old friend, and such a high paying job, a career for life, it was, it was¡­ Unbelievable. A dream. Inexplicable. Illogical. Something more than a research paper or thesis! The chance for him to prove his theory in the field, protected behind government funding and the greater good. O5-8 sighed, a deep exhalation that was close to deafening, at least within the closed space they were in: a closed metal cube that stank of deep sanitation, as if the whole room had been scrubbed down with rubbing alcohol. It had been used as an interrogation room for employees suspected of abusing anomalies for their own gain, though Berryman couldn''t fathom why anyone would do such a thing. If someone had the clearance level necessary for stealing anomalies, he was sure that their salary was high enough for money to be a nonissue. "Doctor Berryman, I can''t keep this going for much longer, I''m afraid. Lack of results aside, your mental state has been deteriorating. You refuse to meet with psychiatrists, you barely interact with your colleagues¡­ This cannot continue." Unbelievable. "Don''t you see? Dav - Sir, they can''t see the things that I do. The patterns, the recursions, they all meet to create this one, big, looping puzzle. Something that the brain can''t help but follow. Except, it only works if it''s¡­ ah, it''s¡­ what''s the¡­ forever?" "Infinite," O5-8 said. "Infinite!" Berryman jumped from the table and slammed his hands down on the table, flinching at the resounding echo it produced. God, there was that headache again. "Infinite, infinity, I hate it. Do you know how hard it is to produce infinity? Even an image, a kill agent that''s possible of conveying the mere concept of the¡­ the forever, it''s agony. You can''t have forever in an image, because that image would have to be at a forever size, don''t you see? It''s impossible, but¡­ the meaning, the meaning is there. I know it is." "You''re unwell." O5-8 frowned. "I must remind you that these conversations are recorded. A mental evaluation may-" "Because!" Berryman exclaimed. "The brain, the human mind isn''t capable of truly comprehending it. So what can you do? What can you do but entice the brain with the message of forever¡­ infinity? It''ll use all of its resources trying to figure it out, and then, and then, and then, it¡­ That''s it. Don''t you see? I have all the fundamentals, I just need the execution. I can produce the images myself, you know. By hand. Only, it''s imperfect."This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "You what?" O5-8 shifted uncomfortably in his seat, an unsettled look dawning upon him. "Berryman, what have you been doing? What you''re describing¡­ Yes, I understand it. You''ve been telling me about it for years, after all. But drawing it out by hand, that''s lethal. You would suffer from the very same kill agent you''re trying to produce, would you not?" There it was, the crux of the issue. Berryman almost felt like laughing at how ridiculously absurd it all was. It was impossible for a human hand to produce a truly perfect memetic kill agent, at least not one based upon the level of recursion he was aiming for. But the idea, it was there. It was a manifestation of his own thoughts, themselves manifestations of an idea that was entirely out of his control. Every waking moment had begun to consume him. His subconscious had been erased. All in the name of mapping out infinity. There was simply no room. No room for sleep either of course. Such were the symptoms of his proposed kill agent, though it was too slow. How could he put it? His fingers began tracing something out on the table. They left no markings of course, but his fingers made the figures and shapes nonetheless. Round and round they went, leaving behind invisible lines amidst the blankly reflective tabletop canvas. There was so much joy to be had at the destruction of perfection, but he could not find it in himself to revel. Look at that: intermittent spots of imperceptible black, mixed with pitiful puddles of thinning red. It was nothing, and would be nothing by the day¡¯s end. Only that it was likely to be an hour. Perhaps a minute. Would it be a month? Who was he to question infinity? "Alright, alright." O5-8 grabbed his hands, forcing his mimic sketch to a halt. "Two more weeks, with funding as you require it. That should be sufficient if you''re so close, yes?" "Yes, yes. All''s well and good." Berryman snatched his hands away and began raking through his scalp with his uneven fingernails, scratching vehemently at the fields of static that had overtaken his skin. "Thank you¡­ you. The machine, it''s great. It can almost produce the Basilisk, but not quite, like an off-brand if you will. It''s almost like drawing it by hand, the effects are much too slow. But you''ll get it, and the inoculation, of course, it''s all in the papers. You just have to refuse your mind from seeking out the forbidden fruit. Never infinity, never." "Inoculation¡­ So you''re producing a vaccine as well?" O5-8 asked. "Off the record, Berryman¡­ I''m worried about you. The reports you''ve sent back are borderline nonsensical, and the other O5''s are doubtful of your capabilities. They wish to assign a new head to the project." "Oh, yes, a vaccine. F-Far too late for me to use it, but it''ll serve its purpose," Berryman said. How would that pattern lead again? Into itself, with tails of glowing orange? Or would it just be another loop? "As for the other O5''s, they can assign whoever they want. I''ll keep working, with or without f¡­ what? Oh, for¡­ funding, it''s all fine. It''s, it''s just that I need you by my side, David." "I can''t do this without you, really."
"Damn thing''s overheating. But it w-works, huh? Like I said, everything. Works. Everything, all of it, I''m so god damned tired." Berryman tapped on the digital timer on his desk. Thirteen days, sixteen hours, thirty six minutes, and one second without sleep, has it? Really, it was nothing. Hard to feel sorry about losing sleep when your brain refused to acknowledge its own ability to sleep in the first place. Far too busy plotting out disgusting, imperfect loops. Close enough, though. All he needed to do was draw what his mind came up with and then feed it into the computer''s¡­ the¡­ what? What was it? He wished David was here, he''d remind him. There was a thin layer of translucent red over the world, creating a slightly warped image of reality that overlapped with his vision. By his own diagnosis, nothing more than a popped blood vessel in his right eye. That was fine, it wasn''t¡­ what? It wasn''t death, that was all that mattered. He was no fool; his fate would lie in the very thing he just created. Tears trailed down his cheeks as he sat back and reveled at the completion before him. It wasn''t an emotional reaction, rather just a natural symptom of his wrongness. His body cried too, crying and crying with warm, salty tears that popped up all over his body like beads of - Sprawling, infinite plains of geometric patterns. The static that haunted him so incessantly had evolved into grids of pulsating blots, stained dark dots of bleeding purple. Disturbed, he finally closed his eyes, only to flinch backwards as a flood of blazing light rushed to fill his vision. The expected darkness was instead a bold, blurry sort of light blue, as if a holographic tint had been painted over the room. Mouth gaping, he opened his eyes and looked around as his heart became heavier in its metronomic beat. It felt like his eyes were melting out of his sockets. Where had it gone? The numbness? There was hardly enough time to think it over. Berryman hastily opened up a new tab on his computer and typed up an email:
I finished the project. I will be in my room, dead. Probably cardiac arrest, but possibly a seizure. Thanks for everything. Vaccinate yourself with the attached image before going into my office. Hope you use it well. Sorry that I don''t have enough time to do all of this formally. - Berryman
. . . . . . . . . . . . . > Access SCiPNET Email? One (1) New Message!
To: O5-8 From: Researcher Berryman Subject: Untitled
DAVID Image is .,what please vaccinate do not go in office, DO NOT. Vaccinate first, image is. Finished, thank you I''m so happy, finally done. Finished, everything is ././ ¡ªBerryman Interlude: Worship Death In the thralls of Death, existence was forfeit. A faceless entity, something all-consuming in its presence. To think about it, to even begin to try and comprehend it, was in itself an act of vandalism to its very nature. Something that takes life, something that brings sentience to the edge of nothingness. I could not speak as to its control over the dead souls it collects, just as I could not speak to the conscience of Infinity. If I had to wager a guess, I would be no more than a month old. I felt and saw and thought and tasted and cried and did all of the things that a baby would do when confronted with such an incomprehensible scene. I was an infant, though my consciousness was at least aware of the fact that I was nothing more than an impaired spirit, fumbling with loose grasps and broken buttons for a useless vessel. A useless vessel that balked at the jaws of Death''s precursor. With the role of a spectator, I felt much more aware of the infant''s senses, though perhaps it was more appropriate to say that they were my own. Dry straw rubbed against my soft skin, scratching and itching as I jostled about in a tantrum. My throat, strained to its limits as my lungs expended gasps of air for frightened screams and tears. Through it all, I could make it out; a large, bulky man with a thick chest of hair and dressed in nothing more than a loincloth. He stared down at me with blinking eyes and a pointed rock held over his head. A thin layer of red blood coated it, light droplets falling from its tip. I could hear screaming, somewhere. Screams that were not my own, that brought with it candid suffering, images of a savage death, much like the one that I was about to experience. The man grunted, the rock swung down, and there was a bright sense of //redness//. It dissipated soon after, leaving behind something a bit more sensible. A single moment passed, and I was staring at a large, brown mass of meat and fur, a mammoth. I suddenly understood that it was something that I''ve hunted many times before in the past; floods of memories rushed into my brain, a lifetime worth of experiences. The mammoth was a huge reservoir of meat, something that symbolised many days of survival, gifts of warmth and food. Only, this one was different, somehow. Pale patches of naked skin jutted out from it in swollen lumps, some of which were wet with yellow pus that brought with it clouds of flies. Blood steadily leaked from its body from various wounds, some caused by members of my hunting group, some that were there when we found it. I looked around myself, along with my vessel. I shared with it feelings of pounding anxiety, heart thumping against my rib cage in its tribal drum rhythm, as if it was trying to escape. Bodies, eight in total. With limbs bent in awkward positions, with crushed torsos and fountains of red, with the sense of //it//, Death, in the air. The mammoth''s eyes were bloodshot. I could see bits of flesh and skin sticking to its legs, clinging onto its fur as it slowly approached me. A scream expelled itself from my chest, and I drew back my arm, which held the shaft of a broken make-shift spear. It charged, then. An overbearing mass of brown that slowly turned black as it expanded and expanded and expanded and expanded and... I could not breathe. I could not move. There was only a numbing across my chest, and a faint sense of prickling in my legs that made me desperately want to itch it. Alas, I had not the strength nor means to do so. Death had come once more, and it was onto the next. ------ Most of my deaths were not so interesting. At least, not after the first few million. There was an uncountable number of lives to go through, to witness the ends of and truly //understand// the artistic works of Death. Yet, there was an infinite amount of time to expend. I was kept suspended within an expansive black ocean of sorts, fully submerged and paralysed while my mind wandered in fragmented pieces. I could recognize myself; a corpse awaiting the next stage of life. It had been a foolish accident, as many deaths in the modern era were; I''d been driving down an empty highway during a night late enough to be considered morning. My body was running on fumes, a meager meal of instant ramen from two days prior and about thirty minutes of sleep. I didn''t know how long I fell asleep for, but when I woke up, I became aware of what I''ve become, and what I must endure. That one death would not be enough. Ahead of me, the endless staircase of anguish, with its rich history of violence, bloodshed, and pestilence. It was a Death-given task, only meant to clean the vestiges of corruption from my soul so that I could properly move on.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. So I suffered, as I should. There was a time where I found myself being carried through the air, a strong scent of blood and gore permeating as a red mist. Frigid burns marked my belly, where two spears had pierced through my flesh. A pair of soldiers, dressed in clunky steel, were holding me up, jostling my soon-to-be corpse around in the air as they sang loudly into the dead air. I could not blink. I could not speak. There was only the magnitudes of black pain coursing through my body as every part of me turned rigid with shock. I was marred with splatters of blood, some of which were not my own, and there was only but a mere dagger hanging loosely in my grasp as I was paraded around the battlefield. An endless desert plain of war, of suffering. Thousands of dead bodies. And there I was, high enough to see it all as the last vestiges of life left my body. There was another time where I found myself lying on the dirt floor of an old, rundown cottage. The rancid stench of vomit and diarrhoea made it nearly impossible to breathe. I could only lie there, sobbing and whispering nonsensical ramblings to God as sharp, gnawing pains wracked my gut. Gangrene rot had developed on my hands, and whenever I tried to crawl, my arms would only flail about uselessly, scratching at the ground with black fingernails. Every drop of sweat felt like a bead of lava, making its way down my taut skin with a terrible slowness. Impaled through a wooden stake and left out in the open, drowned at sea after a fishing accident, caved in and forced to starve in the dark... Once, I was walking through cobblestoned streets of London with autumn''s chilling wind nipping at my cheeks. My body trembled as I took step after step through the veil of night, my skinny frame feeling the full effects of the cold through thin layers of cloth. I had just about made it to viewing distance of my residence, a run-down lodging house within the decrepit slums of Whitechapel, when a pair of gloved hands reached out from an alleyway and pulled me in. I found myself staring at an impassive face, barely visible in the dim moonlight. His mouth was drawn to a taut line and his eyes were entirely unfeeling, more akin to glass marbles. He shoved me roughly against a wall and produced a large knife from underneath his sleeve. I tried to cry out, but the blade quickly found its way to my throat, effectively stealing away my breath. Again and again, his knife went, penetrating through my abdomen in rapid succession. Every time he pulled away, small spurts of blood would dribble out and onto my clothes. With every thrust, he would exhale through his nose and twist the knife within my body, the pain of which my brain struggled to comprehend. I tried to scream, but it came out as a gurgle, muffled by a mouthful of blood and foaming spittle. Unfortunately, I didn''t have the luxury of dying of old age too many times. The pain never got better. Each death was experienced as if it was my first. I often found myself calling to God. To Death, sometimes even the Devil himself. Anything to take me away from this trial of eternal agony and suffering. There was no response, of course; I could only imagine how many pleas they must hear on a daily basis. But more than once, I found myself thinking: //If only.// If only there was nothing after death. If only my consciousness could cease to exist, if only I could spend the rest of existence //in// non-existence. I think I would prefer it that way. I wouldn''t have the means to process it anyway. It would be immortal bliss, an infinite amount of lifetimes extinguished in exchange for pure, unadulterated //nothingness//. No more worries. No more suffering. I couldn''t possibly fathom Death''s motives for such a macabre ritual. Perhaps there was a bigger reason to all of this, something that an insignificant speck such as myself couldn''t even begin to understand. There were no thoughts in my mind about reason, however. Only the desperate wish for it all to end. If I had the choice, I would have likely refused the gift of new life altogether. It wouldn''t be worth it, at least not with the ever-expanding chain and ball that so firmly gripped my leg. One death in particular I could recall vividly. I saw myself through the eyes of a woman, screaming and clutching at someone''s trembling hand as an unbelievable knot of pressure strangled my lower half. Red, sticky blood painted my inner thighs. Somewhere in the background, a doctor shouted in an incomprehensible tone, which only served to elevate the raw hurt coursing through my body like a current. I pushed and pushed and pushed, each and every single contraction sending me deeper and deeper into the bottomless spiral of radiant lights, blinding me, deafening me. I could feel the rushing current of blood through my veins, practically boiling as my body collapsed onto itself. I recall, with burning intensity: //"Worship Death."// My subconscious had said it with such clarity, that it temporarily broke through the scene, leaving me numb. That numbness was a gift of grace, though it only lasted for a mere second. I took it as a sign. Something parted unto me by a higher being, something that told me that I was on the right path. Of course, I was not in the right state of mind to accept anything as a fact. I was desperate, reaching the end of my line with nothing to face but the face of hell. I would have taken any rope thrown, no matter how thin, no matter how barbed. No matter if it was just a piece of string conjured up by the thoughts of madness. And so I finished my task. So, so many deaths. And I lived through them all. The last death I experienced, was, of course, my latest. I felt cool, calm, collected. I was in my car, driving down a road that I''ve driven down hundreds of times before, and I knew exactly what awaited me at the end. Although part of my mind was crippled by hunger and sleep deprivation, the other part of me knew that it would all end well. When my eyes began to fall heavy, I did nothing to resist it. When I felt the dull threads of sleep pull me away from reality, from everything wrong in this world, I felt nothing but peace. I knew, then. I returned to the black, inky abyss of Death''s embrace, though this time, there was warmth. I found myself slowly burning away. Only it was pleasant. A nice, buzzing feeling that enveloped my body as I prepared to, at last, take part in life once more. Of course, once I die, it will be yet one more death that I would have to experience, one more flight of stairs added to Infinity. I only hope that I''ll handle it better the next time around. Violet Ashes D-CLASS PERSONNEL PROFILE Designation: D-6831 Description of Character: 173 cm, 59 kg. Shoulder-length black hair, black eyes, pale skin. Of Indonesian heritage. No history of substance abuse. Background: Born "Annabeth Miz", June 4th, 1988 in Canyon City, Oregon to Indonesian immigrants. Graduated from Green Oaken University with a bachelor''s in Ecology. No living relatives. Sentenced to death December 28th 2020, for the murders of three unidentifiable persons. Brought into Foundation custody March 1st, 2022. Projects Involved in: N/A Additional Notes: Likely innocent to crimes accused. Foundation investigations lead to little to no evidence of subject involvement with the victims. Additionally, DNA analysis was revealed to be rushed, leading to mismatching of fingerprints and hair. Witness testimony describing D-6831 largely inconsistent with physical appearance.
Jossen Rudestein glanced up from the document to look at the Senior Researcher sitting across from him. Both of his eyes were bloodshot, and every now and again, he would lift a handkerchief up to his eyes to wipe at shed tears. His hands, which were firmly clasped on his lap, were shaking terribly, as if he had just chugged a gallon of coffee (which he wouldn''t exactly put past some of the researchers these days). Jossen clicked his tongue, twirling around a pen in his hand as he briefly pondered whether or not the researcher was serious or not. The situation was so absurd, that it was almost comical. It could have been just one big joke, were it not for the fact that the man sitting in front of him looked about half a week away from suffering a stroke. "So," Jossen started. "D-class." "Yes." "And you want this person to serve as lead researcher for SCP-L900?" "Yes." "Right." Jossen nodded and put down his pen. He supposed he could see where the proposal was coming from, given the circumstances. SCP-L900 was a unique anomaly, moreso than the others. Still, it was an odd idea, having a D-Class research an SCP beyond serving as anything other than a test subject. "Dr. Trent, you must be aware of the roadblocks ahead? The Ethics Committee will certainly take interest. D-Class personnel aren''t exactly knowledgeable about writing up Foundation documents either." "Mr. Rudestein, no one wants to work on SCP-L900. It''s¡­ unnerving." Trent took off his glasses, which were fogging with perspiration. "Fear of the unknown and all that. Only, we can''t even study the damn thing, not properly. It''s a Catch-22, not even amnestics work properly. They help, but are much too slow. We need some sort of leeway to crack at it, and when it comes down to it, I''d rather sacrifice a D-Class than one of our own. I''ve only worked on it for a week or two and I''m already at my limit." Jossen sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking up to ponder at the ceiling and its fluorescent lights. If anything, the proposal, rejected or accepted, would set new boundaries. Where would the line be drawn in D-Class involvement? Their treatment? What measures, exactly, would the Foundation take to learn of an anomaly that doesn''t in itself pose a significant threat? "Well, better for the issue to come up sooner rather than later," he muttered to himself. "What was that?" "Nothing." Jossen straightened himself up. "Send the proposal to me and I''ll work out the kinks. It''ll take a while, but I think I can get it sent up for consideration. Take it easy for a bit, alright? You look like you''re about to pass out. I''ll make sure to send another batch of amnestics to your office. Stronger ones." "Right. Thanks." Trent nodded stiffly and rose from his seat. As he stumbled his way out of Jossen''s office, he couldn''t help but notice the way he was limping. From his long years as Site Director, Jossen had only ever seen one containment breach, thankfully. It was a bad one though. A real bad one, the type that made him wake up at night sometimes, shivering and in a cold sweat. It was a humanoid, of course. Somehow managed to get to one of the guards and take his gun and security access. He remembered the details vividly, the deafening reverberations of gunshots, shouting, so much shouting, the blaring of alarms. He was in one of the break rooms, hiding and praying to every deity he knew. Justified cowardice, at least, until he heard someone on the other side of the door. He felt that tight twist in his chest, felt the deafening sound of hollow knocking that hummed throughout his body, smothering out every other sound. It sucked up all of the air in the room like a vacuum, leaving him breathless. The knocking stopped, and then there was the telltale beep of the door''s electronic lock being opened. He couldn''t do anything but sit there on the floor, slack-jawed and staring as he watched what he thought would be his final moments in life unfold. Thought. What stood in the doorway wasn''t a bloodlusted anomaly wielding a rifle, but rather, a meek, slender woman with a mop of blonde hair that vaguely resembled straws of hay. She had a white coat on, which was stained a rich shade of red that leaked steadily onto the floor below her. Her eyes, fragmented and divided between the shattered lens of a pair of crooked glasses, were jittery, darting all around the room without recognition. Looking at everything, yet perceiving nothing. She limped into the room, slowly dragging a leg behind her. As she got closer, he could make out a dot on the stiff limb. Or rather, a hole, from which viscous blood slowly flowed out, trailing down her tan-coloured trousers at a snail''s pace. He found himself unable to breathe as the woman, who he later learned was a technical assistant, sat down at one of the tables near the break room''s coffee machine. Paralyzed, he could only sit there. Door wide open, gunshots ringing out, and with a bleeding woman no more than a meter away from him. I wonder how many times she''d been shot, Jossen thought grimly as Trent closed the door behind him. At least once in the leg. At least once in the torso. By the time that containment had been reestablished, she was dead. He wondered how long the two of them would have sat there if the MTF squad hadn''t found them there.
"Help us by researching this anomaly, and you will be exonerated from your service to the Foundation." Annabeth Miz fidgeted in her seat as the man in front of her stared with red, unblinking eyes, waiting for a response. The words ran through her head over and over again, repeating themselves as a mantra as her mind worked overtime to comprehend them. "Is¡­" Annabeth coughed into her fist. "Is that¡­ it? I just help you and I get to go free?" The man nodded. "There have been¡­ issues, that we don''t have the time to address as of late. Time constraints, budget cuts¡­ Simply put, we need extra researchers. Just some help with finding more information on some of the anomalies that have been cropping up. Given your background in natural science, we figured that we could make an offer." "Okay, um, well¡­ How much time do I have to think about this?" "We need an answer now," the man deadpanned. "H-Hey, wait, why now? Why can''t I get, like, a day or two to consider it?" "There''s not much to consider. You either help with Foundation research and be given amnestics before being allowed to integrate back into society, or you don''t, and spend the rest of your life here as D-6831." Too good to be true. Annabeth was getting tired of how many times that phrase has popped up in her mind. It was something that she heard nearly every other day when she was growing up. Both of her parents were cynical to a fault, looking at every possible good fortune with a suspicious eye, as if expecting a trap. She didn''t think she could ever forget that hollow, sinking pit in her stomach at their reactions to her bachelor''s degree. She showed them her diploma, and they could only ask a single question. "How much debt are you in?" That''s all it was to them. No joy. No pride. "Will it be dangerous?" she asked. "Anomalies, by their very nature, are unpredictable. However, no harm has fallen onto any of the personnel who have previously worked on this particular one." "Previously?" "Yes. Re-assigned to more important projects. Like I said, we are low on manpower," the man explained to her slowly, as if she were a child. Annabeth blinked, struck by piercing doubt that cut a hole through her heart as time froze for a split second. Then it was over, and before she knew it, she was nodding her head. "Okay. I accept." I''ll prove them wrong. The man''s cold face morphed into something that vaguely resembled a smile as he extended a hand forwards, a disgusting attempt at showing partnership, gratitude. She had the sudden, insane urge to reach over the table and slap him across the face. It was worrying how often she''s been tempted to do that to all of the "Foundation staff". They were just so bland, impersonal, yet with the slightest hint of smugness below their cold exteriors. Like trying to maintain an air of professionalism while still looking down on them like they were less than human. The D-class, that is. They just swoop in and take people from death row, or from your life sentences or whatever, and then pretend like they''re doing a great justice for that. Except, she wasn''t even guilty in the first place. How many times has she mentioned that to them? How many times has she begged for them to reopen her case? And all that came was the same cookie-cutter response: "We have no authority on judicial matters." She grimaced and reached over, clasping his hand and firmly shaking it. "Right," the man said as he pulled away from the handshake. "You can start right away. I''ll show you to your new living quarters."
There was an odd sense of loneliness as Annabeth stared at the room she was given. It was more of a laboratory than anything, with sharp, sterlised white covering every inch of the room and a long resin table with several old-fashioned CRT monitors lined up on it as well as a bright red rotary phone. There was a closet tucked away in the corner which held nothing but chemistry equipment such as beakers and tongs, which she was plainly told would most likely be of no use in this situation. Her new bed, an air mattress, had a cardboard box on top of it with an assortment of various supplies. At the center of the room, there was a small wooden box, which apparently contained the anomaly that she was supposed to be studying. They kept the door locked behind her, though supposedly she could scan her issued identification card to request for the door to open. Security reasons, the security guards who escorted her here had said. They didn''t elaborate on that, but then again, she didn''t question them any further, did she? The only opening it had was a thin slot, like one of those old door flaps where mail and newspapers were pushed through. Still, it was an improvement over the shared dorms she had to endure as D-Class. Both her dorm and this room had cameras, but that''s where the similarities ended. Back there, all she had for herself was a small dresser and a mattress that hasn''t been cleaned in god-knows how long. The lab even had its own separate restroom, which in itself was a gracious luxury. At first arrival, she couldn''t sleep for several days just because of how noisy it was at night, the room filled with a cacophony of several dozen other people snoring away, the occasional grunt or mutters, even the breathing was too much for her. It was much more uncomfortable than an actual prison, where she was given the luxury of having her own cell. She got used to it eventually, of course. She learned how to filter out the noise as ambience, and despite her fears of being packed so tightly along with so many other convicts, never felt too threatened. In her mind, she knew that these people likely came from the same situation as her; sentenced to death row before being "put to use" by the Foundation. Murderers, outlaws, sociopaths, and yet, she never quite got that feeling from them. They were¡­ normal. Or rather, about as normal as she could expect, given the circumstances. From what she''s seen, they mostly just tried to get by the best they could. She got to know a few of them, even bonded, which in retrospect, was inevitable. They all knew their place here in this Foundation. Powerless, to be used as test subjects or for the dirty work that their wardens deemed unfit for themselves. No one liked it, but it was a harsh reality. They lived together, ate together. So the natural thing to do would be to work together. It was like an extended family, sort of. Here though? She was alone. A temporary researcher put in charge of an anomaly she knew nothing about, tasked to write a report that she didn''t know how to do. All that she had to work with were the Foundation''s database, the internet, and the wholly unfinished research of whoever worked on this thing before being re-assigned. Fantastic. She stood there for a while, awkwardly digging her hands into the pocket of her issued lab coat, not quite sure on where to start. All she had on her was the laminated card that the Foundation gave her, which apparently served as both identification and as the key to the lab. It was cool to the touch, unnervingly so. It felt more like frozen metal than a piece of plastic. Exhaling, she finally shuffles over to one of the computer terminals, which had been on since she arrived. There was a text document open on it:
| SCP-L900 Tentative sentience, inanimate, Class Designation: TBD Description: Recovery:
"Seriously?" Annabeth mutters to herself as she scans the document over. The entire thing consisted of less than ten worlds, which didn''t exactly give her much to work with. She grimaced and walked over to her bed and picked up the cardboard box, setting it down on one end of her table. She rummaged through it until she found a container filled with disposable gloves. She put it on and approached the wooden box which contained the anomaly. Her uncertainty was palpable to the point that it seemed to permeate through her skin, making every movement hesitant and sluggish. She briefly considered using the rotary phone to call for help. The person who had gotten her in this situation in the first place (who she later learned was a senior researcher by the name of Dr. Trent) provided a phone number that she was supposed to call for any inquiries. No, no. I just got here. I should at least try it out myself first. The wooden box, which sat perched on top of a tall stool, stared at her impassively as she extended her trembling hands towards it. The senior researcher said it wasn''t dangerous, right? But then again, he also said it was unpredictable. And judging from the notes she had been left, they didn''t even know that much about it in the first place. "Whatever. Just open it already. Just open it," she told herself. And so she did. Her hands dug under the lid, lifting it up gently. With a bated breath, she peered inside and found herself both underwhelmed and overwhelmed by what she saw. It was a stone idol of some kind, a statuette. She tentatively picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It depicted a crudely shaped figure of a person with block limbs and a wide oval head, which was completely featureless. Several different shades of grey made up its surface, but what stood out as odd to her was a single spot, perhaps two centimeters in diameter, at the top of the idol''s head, which was a bright shade of purple. For some reason, the stark contrast in colours made her feel a bit nauseous. Tentatively sentient¡­ Annabeth mused to herself as she placed the idol down at her desk. She brought out a scale and ruler from the cardboard box and without really thinking about it, took a few measurements. What''s that even supposed to mean? It''s made out of stone. Though I guess it''s anomalous for a reason. If it''s sentient, is this thing alive? Experimentally, she poked the idol. Nothing happened. She tried once more, this time pressing on the purple spot. Nothing happened. "Erm¡­ Can you hear me? Hello?" Nothing happened. Despite the fact that there was no one else there, her face started to turn red in embarrassment. She felt like a newly hired employee on her first day at work, coming in only to find that she was the only one there and was expected to do everything by herself, which at the moment, wasn''t too inaccurate. Shaking her head, she sat down in front of the monitor and closed out of the file, only to find another text document:
First located during an excavation of an ancient construction fill located within Nicaragua, where it was processed by on-site anthropologists. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brought into Foundation custody shortly thereafter.
Hints of a headache started to appear as Annabeth read through the short passage. It was all just so vague, as if they were intentionally leaving out information. She would have thought that such an overwhelming entity such as the Foundation would be a bit more thorough with their work. Shaking her head, she copied it over to the SCP file, wondering why it wasn''t there in the first place. Without much else to do, she started to note down her observations, figuring that it was better to have something down than nothing. As she typed, the burning pinprick in her head began to grow, formulating into something of a migraine, which was only worsened by the monitor''s harsh glare.
| SCP-L900 Tentative sentience, inanimate, Class Designation: TBD (Probably safe) Description: A grey statuette made of some kind of stone. It doesn''t have a face or any defining features, aside from a purple dot on its head. It weighs 1.9 kilograms and stands at roughly 18.5 cm tall. Recovery: First located during an excavation of an ancient construction fill located within Nicaragua, where it was processed by on-site anthropologists. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brought into Foundation custody shortly thereafter. Notes: How is it sentient???
Already, she was starting to regret agreeing to all of this. They''d given her a short lesson on the types of observations she was supposed to make, but it mostly went over her head; she had no idea what she was doing. What if she couldn''t produce any useful information? Would they just make her a D-Class again? It would be a pitiful outcome, to fail at such a seemingly straight-forward task. She squeezed her eyes shut, wincing at the soft burning sensation that it produced. She wondered whether or not they''d let her have aspirin. Not even a full day had passed and she was already exhausted, straddled with a ridiculous task and a binding headache to boot. Grumbling to herself, she stumbled to her air mattress and fell onto it, grunting on impact. They hadn''t brought in any sort of bedding, but it was still leagues more comfortable than what she was used to. As she laid there, legs hanging off the side of the bed and with a hand over her head, she came to realise that there was a chance that they wouldn''t even honour their end of the deal at all. What''s stopping them from just taking one look at her work and then deciding it wasn''t good enough? What if they just sent her back to the cells? What if they make her forget that she''s ever heard of an SCP-L900? What if- What if, what if, what if. Enough. This is a chance to get out of here. Doesn''t matter about what if''s, I just have to do it, Annabeth scolded herself. Despite her newfound resolution echoing in her mind, the weight pressing on her brought with it fatigue, manifesting as their body''s plea for rest. Alright, Annabeth thought as she started to drift.
Cold metal, shining with diffusing light. It was a solid, paper thin sheet of metal, an immaculately cut rectangular card that she held in her hand with awe. And on it, was a delicate carving, lined art of some sort of statue. There was a brilliant sense of importance, of sheer weight, that made her want to protect it at all costs. Shield the precious artefact with her life, her very being. Can''t let it die. The sun burned brightly in the sky, a radiant ball of fire that beamed down an almost unbearable heat, yet without light. It was strange; she could see the baby-blue sky, its wispy white clouds, all of it as clear as day. And yet, it was so dark at the surface. So, so dark. She was on a platform of sorts, a crop of black silt that was surrounded on all sides by murky water. It left her nearly no room to move around. Water was a universal solvent; given enough time, it would corrode nearly anything, including metal. Including metal. Couldn''t risk falling. Couldn''t risk falling and drowning and drowning and dying, couldn''t risk having it sink, all the way down. How long would it stay there, at the forgotten depths of these dark waters, that so closely resembled an abyss? A bottomless ocean that gave way to nothingness, it would consume anything that falls into it. Including it. Was such a risk worth it? She thought not. Better to just wait. So she did, so she would. Cross-legged with the sheet of metal and its picture hugged tightly to her chest. The frigid touch of the metal burned through her shirt and into her skin, sending a pleasant tremor through her spine. It was a jarring reprieve from the sun''s deadly heat, but a welcome one. All the more reason to protect it with everything she had. Forever, if need be.
Annabeth woke up drenched in sweat, panting with a mouth that was as dry as sand. It felt like her entire body was burning, save for an unsettling numbness in her chest, right over her heart. She jolted up from her bed, wincing as several of her joints cracked at the sudden movement. Deliriously, she stumbled around the room for a bit before she remembered where she was. Groaning, she slapped a hand to the back of the neck and winced as it pulled away, covered in her warm sweat. There was a lingering sense of terror in her chest, raking the inside of her lungs with every breath she took; remnants of some sort of dream, a nightmare, though with every passing second, her memory only dissipated further and further. All she could recall was that coldness in her chest, as if the blood in her heart had frozen. Blinking rapidly, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and staggered towards the lab''s restroom. Water. She needed water, more than anything in the world she needed water. Her tongue was shriveled up, a warm piece of fabric that stuck to the insides of her mouth. It felt like every ounce of water in her body had been used up in producing sweat. She wandered blindly, dragging herself through the thick layers of fog obscuring her vision. That headache that had brought her to her bed in the first place was back, content in chipping away at her skull with relentless persistence. Eventually, she managed to find her way to the restroom. She grasped at the sink''s faucet and pulled, tilting her head and opening her mouth under it to catch the small stream of water that poured out. It was lukewarm, room temperature, and yet it was nothing short of paradise. She closed her eyes and swished the water around with her tongue, shuddering at the cool, crisp taste. After a minute or two of constant drinking, she finally pulled away from the counter. Her legs were too weak to support her body, crumpling as she fell down on her back, spread eagled and panting. Her skin stuck to the cold bathroom tiles, clinging onto it whenever she moved. Am I sick? What happened to me?Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. At the very least, she felt marginally better; her head was still stuffed to the brim with fuzz, and that damned headache refused to fade, but she didn''t feel like she was about to die of dehydration anymore. With a grunt, she pulled herself off of the floor and stood up, wincing at the sharp creaks of protest coming from her legs. Walking back into the lab, her eyes caught SCP-L900, which was still sitting on her desk, as inconspicuous as ever. Something flickered in the back of her mind. Wasn''t that what her dream was about? It was faint, very faint, but she thought that she could just barely recall¡­ No, the moment passed. Most likely, she was just stressed out, which compounded with her headache to create an unpleasant night''s rest, if it even was night when she slept. Speaking of which, that headache of hers was really starting to irritate her. She couldn''t produce a single thought without it being disrupted by that awful thudding in her temples. Grimacing, she sat down in front of the statuette and picked it up, not bothering to wear gloves this time. She couldn''t help but feel a sense of disdain for it. How could the Foundation be so sure that it was anomalous? It hasn''t even done anything so far. Exhaling, she leaned over to grab the receiver of the rotary phone, which sat on the other end of her desk. After a moment''s hesitation, she dialed the number that the senior researcher gave to her. Surprisingly enough, it picked up after only two rings. "Dr. Trent speaking." "Hi, uh, this is Annabeth. Annabeth Miz. I''m the one who''s supposed to research the anomaly. Erm, yeah, SCP-L900. I was just wondering, the document you gave me didn''t really have much info on it, and¡­ well, I-I couldn''t really find any, well, anything anomalous about it. It''s just a weird statue thing, and-" "I''m going to have to stop you right there," Trent interrupted. "First of all, due to current concerns about regulations and security, you are not to disclose information about SCP-L900''s properties to anyone who isn''t directly involved in the project, which includes me. Under no circumstances, understand?" "H-Huh?" Annabeth stammered, caught off-balance. "But, aren''t you the one who-" "I don''t have anything to do with SCP-L900. I was only the one who recruited you to assist with the research. It''s mostly bureaucratic, but it''s still something that''s enforced strictly. So, I''ll ask again, do you understand?" "Ok, yes, yes. I get it. It would have been nice to know about this earlier, but I get it." Annabeth sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. The headache was starting to get a little worse now. "I just¡­ Am I seriously alone with this? Because I''m really not getting that much headway with this thing." "Second, everything we have on SCP-L900 is stored within the terminal in your room," Trent continued, clearly unconcerned about her worries. "Look, we don''t expect you to write a full, complete report of the anomaly, so just keep working at it, alright? We don''t have an exact deadline set or anything, but we''ll let you know in advance when we need it done. Now, will that be all?" "Um, yeah. I guess so." "Alright then. You know what to do." *click* Annabeth sat still, receiver still pressed against her ear as the line went dead. She wasn''t allowed to tell anyone about the anomaly, huh? She supposed that explained why they had to keep her locked in here. That other thing he said. Everything. Everything they had on this anomaly was on the computer. With slow, deliberate movements, she placed the receiver down and turned back to the terminal. She backed out of the text document and navigated through its documents, only to find that there was only a total of three. The short discovery log, the SCP-L900 file itself, and a document simply entitled "Archivist Report". With nothing else to do, she opened it.
| INCOMPLETE REPORT BY ARCHIVISTS AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART XXX SUBJECT APPEARS AS CARVED WOODEN IDOL. RELATIVE DATING TO NEARBY MARKINGS AND SITE OF DISCOVERY SUGGESTS DATE OF ORIGIN AS 900-600 BCE. DEPICTION OF FIGURE WITH BLOCK LIMBS. NO DEFINING FEATURES.
Annabeth frowned and looked back at the idol. It was most definitely not wood, at least from what she could tell. She knew that wood was quick to decay, at least relative to other materials such as stone or terracotta, and yet, the statuette seemed to be free of damage or even any sort of wear. Not to mention that it literally looked like it was made from some type of rock, with its rough, grey surface, dotted with sediments. But why? But why? That was quickly turning out to be the single most repetitive question she''s ever asked herself. None of it made any sense. Maybe its anomalous trait was being able to change its make? Turn into different materials, and such. She winced as the constant headache in her skull flared up. It was only getting worse by the minute, evolving from a nail being pounded into her brain into a metal drill that screeched as it worked, filling her ears with the irritating, borderline painful ringing of tinnitus. Maybe she really should try to find the pharmacy, wherever that was. Clutching at her head with one hand, she navigated back to SCP-L900''s file and started typing. Each and every time she pressed on the keyboard, the ringing in her ears only got louder and louder. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see the drill, an oversized, ribbed bolt that rotated as it drilled holes into her skull. Round and round and round it went, through the solid white bone and onto the soft, malleable tissue inside. Tearing up brain matter, twisting and pulling at the stuff without mercy. She once heard that there weren''t any pain receptors in the brain. One could do as they pleased in there, poking and prodding at the insides, and the person would be none the wiser. It was an interesting, yet morbid thought. Just how would it feel? The brain was quite literally a person''s self. If she let someone mess around with the inside of her skull, some sadistic sociopath with nothing but a wicked sense of curiosity and a scalpel, just how long would it take for her to go insane? She wondered if she would be able to recognize deterioration in her mental state. How many crucial neurons would die, how many bits of tissue would be severed, until she would simply die? Pass out? Go into a seizure? I wonder if it would be fast. Or slow, all gradual-like. To go from perfectly lucid to unconscious in less than a second, with no pain whatsoever. Or would it take a while? I would be afraid, I think. Afraid as my brain is dissected, diving deeper and deeper into fear and a sense of the unknown. Things would probably become unrecognizable. Afraid for no reason. That would be worse, I''m sure. To be so afraid, but of nothing at all, of not even knowing why or for what reason or where¡­ Annabeth pressed enter, and the file saved.
| SCP-L900 Tentative sentience, inanimate. Class Designation: TBD (Probably safe) Description: A grey statuette made of some kind of stone. It doesn''t have a face or any defining features, aside from a purple dot on its head. It weighs 1.9 kilograms and stands at roughly 18.5 cm tall. Relative Dating suggests that it''s from 900-600 BCE. Recovery: First located during an excavation of an ancient construction fill located within Nicaragua, where it was processed by on-site anthropologists. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Initial analysis by their Archivists say that it''s made out of carved wood, which contradicts its appearance as of now. They also didn''t note any distinguishing features, despite the obviously out of place bright purple spot it has. Notes: How is it sentient???
In the end, all she had to do was call in and ask. Annabeth sat on the floor with her back against a wall as she cradled a bottle of aspirin in her hands. After a short call to Dr. Trent, he had allowed for a package of medication to be shipped to her room. It had arrived through the door''s one-sided drop slot, the same place where they delivered food to her. She had already dry-swallowed two tablets and while she was somewhat tempted to take a third, she knew that she should probably wait for the stuff to work through her system first. SCP-L900 sat next to her, of course. She''d been keeping it close to her, almost always in line of sight. It was quickly becoming an ever-present object in her life. It was just a simple matter of observation. The more she kept it around, the more she got used to it, the better she would be able to provide information about it, or notice if something out of the ordinary happened. Speaking of which, something did happen, or so she thought. Whenever she held the idol in her hands, she could almost think that the thing was getting colder. It was subtle, subtle enough to just be a product of her imagination, but she could have sworn that its surface was cool to the touch. She made note of it regardless, just in case it turned out to be important. It struck her suddenly that this was the first and only time that SCP-L900 would exhibit even a single anomalous property. Even then, it could be chalked up to her mind playing tricks on her, or even something as mundane as being left in the room with the air conditioning on. I can see why they didn''t bother assigning any actual researchers to work on this thing, Annabeth thought glumly as she prodded at the idol with her pointer finger. It was just so boring. Above all, it was just a boring object. They could probably have just thrown it in the trash and the world would be none the wiser. In fact, that idea was getting more tempting by the minute. In a sudden fit of childish pettiness, she tilted SCP-L900 over, letting it fall on its side against the floor. It hit the ground with a dull thud, and nothing happened. She glared at it, daring for it to act up. To grow a set of limbs and strangle her. To snap her neck as soon as she blinked. To spontaneously combust, to start talking, anything at all. Instead, it only continued to lay there, staring back at her with its non-existent face. The aspirin was helping, a little. She scowled at the computer terminal in front of her, which taunted her with its blinking display. A roadblock, she''s spent the last thirty minutes sitting in front of the monitor, and every single word that she''s typed was subsequently removed not soon after. She could hear every thump of her heartbeat, a metronome of pain that echoed in her head at an agonizing rate. You know what? Fuck it. Even if the initial notes said that SCP-L900 was carved from wood, it was clearly stone now. It was also getting colder. She was sure of it, the damn thing was getting colder. It didn''t make for much substance, but it was something, so to hell with it all, she needed to feel like she was making progress, any progress at all, even if that progress could end up being nothing but falsehoods.
| SCP-L900 Tentative sentience, inanimate. Class Designation: TBD (Probably safe) Description: A grey statuette made of some kind of stone. It doesn''t have a face or any defining features, aside from a purple dot on its head. It weighs 1.9 kilograms and stands at roughly 18.5 cm tall. Relative Dating suggests that it''s from 900-600 BCE. It has the ability to alter its physical state, in one recorded instance transforming from being made out of a wooden material, into stone. It was also observed to noticeably drop in temperature despite a lack of change in regards to its environment. Recovery: First located during an excavation of an ancient construction fill located within Nicaragua, where it was processed by on-site anthropologists. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Initial analysis by their Archivists say that it''s made out of carved wood, which contradicts its appearance as of now. They also didn''t note any distinguishing features, despite the obviously out of place bright purple spot it has. Probably because of its anomalous properties. Notes: How is it sentient??? I hate this thing.
"Shit." Annabeth winced, warm tears springing up to her eyes as a sharp jolt stabbed through her brain. She stood from the chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor. She coughed roughly and stared at her hands, which were trembling to the point that she was seeing double. A moan rose from her lips as she stumbled over to her bed and collapsed, eyes squeezing shut in a meager attempt to filter out the thick blot of agony pushing against the insides of her skull. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts She slammed her head into her pillow and brought her hands up to wring at her hair. A well of sickness opened within her stomach and she was struck with the sudden urge to vomit. She hiccuped and held her breath, bringing her knees up to her chest as she tried to quell the stream of bile rising up to her esophagus. It brought with it trails of acid, stinging her throat as it rose and rose and rose and her mouth began to fill with warm saliva and all at once it just compounded into an ache, a horrible ache that wracked through her body in burning waves. Yet she held it back. She grit her teeth and squeezed her stomach and held it back, held back her screams as the iron vice held her head in its tight grip. She cried and whimpered and trembled and whispered all of the prayers she could muster. Minutes turned into hours, into days, into years, but time passed, and with each creeping second, the tension lessened slightly. She opened her eyes, using the back of her hand to wipe at the pool of stinging tears that had gathered. She could see then, the layers of grey skin under her nails, gathered like layers of debris speckled with dark spots of dry, gritty blood. Strands of black hair were stuck, caught between the dead skin. Gingerly, she picked at the hairs, pulling them out from the insides of her nails. They came out with slight resistance, bringing with them large flakes of clumped, oily skin that immediately began to crumble away. "Disgusting," she muttered. She wanted to clean herself up; there was a shower in the lab''s restroom. But her body refused to meet those simple commands. Every time she tried to move, she would break out in a cold sweat and the pressure in her head would double. "What''s wrong with me?" She closed her eyes again and wrapped her lab coat around herself, using it in lieu of a blanket, which hadn''t been provided. Tiredness gave way to exhaustion, and her body welcomed the reprieve from consciousness with open arms. She did not care to think about SCP-L900.
Annabeth stood in front of the crowd, illuminated by a glaring stage light as she held the piece of paper in her hands. She held it out, letting the audience take a look at its contents, consisting of a crude drawing of a statue. There was some light applause, which prompted Annabeth to look out from behind the drawing, which had shielded her blushing face from the peering eyes of the crowd. She wished she could see them better. In stark contrast to the stage where she stood, the audience had little to no illumination. In fact, what little was visible could only be seen due to the harsh white lights that called so much attention to her in the first place. She could only make out the shifting figures of shadows, barely silhouettes in the veil of darkness that seemed to morph and distort in a grotesque fashion. There was a physical, solid aura that emanated from their presence, feelings of hate and malice. But that couldn''t be true, could it? They were clapping. Some of them even whistled as she continued to hold out her drawing to them. She wished she could take another look at the paper. She didn''t think her artistic skills were all that great. Maybe it had transformed into something else, had become beautiful in wake of such a grand crowd gathered to admire it. She smiled abashedly to the crowd and pulled the paper back, though she soon regretted doing so. Her heart jolted as the jovial audience turned sour, mood shifting to something much more akin to resentment. She could feel them, all of them, hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at her as she stood exposed under the stage lights. In a panic, she tried to hold out the drawing again, but felt something was off. It was lighter, somehow. Like holding onto a manifestation of air. Annabeth flipped the paper over and looked at it. It was blank.
Eyes. Annabeth stared into SCP-L900''s eyes, not quite sure what to make of it. She was most certain of the fact that it previously had no facial features. And yet here it was, staring back at her with a pair of eyes, carved into it with thin, intricate lines. They were empty, dead, as dead as the rock that the statuette was made of, and yet she couldn''t help but feel unnerved as she continued to stare at it. Well. I guess this confirms that SCP-L900 can change itself like that. I wonder if it can see me. She shuddered and closed her eyes as another bout of pain strangled her breath, forcing her to stop and focus. Try to breathe, in and out, just try to breathe. Relax, she should ignore the way that the thick veins running up her neck seemed to grow taut, bulging against her skin as if it yearned for escape. Ignore the way her muscles seized up at every throb, ignore the overwhelming spell of dizziness that made it hard to stand upright. Just ignore it all. She had woken up moments earlier to the deafening sound of her heart thumping in her ears that drowned out the fading memories of her dream. With each pump of blood, she could practically feel her heart hit her ribcage, threatening to break through her chest. It was loud, louder than anything she''s ever heard, and for a long while she simply laid there, afraid to move for fears that her heart would simply explode, and she would die right then and there. It must have been hours before it finally started to calm. Hours spent with two fingers up at her neck as she stared into the distance with glazed, unblinking eyes, simultaneously terrified and fascinated with the strong, rapid pulse that pumped blood through her veins. The thought of cardiac arrest crossed her mind many times, and though there was a massive, almost painful pressure on her chest, like something was expanding and wouldn''t stop, it never came. Right on the verge, a step away from death, and then she backed away. Once again, once she rose from the bed, she found herself soaked in her own sweat. And now, that thing is staring at me. Its grown eyes, and it won''t stop staring at me, Annabeth thought numbly, slowly walking backwards towards the restroom. She had long since gotten out of sight of the cursed idol, but she still held that sane fear, suspicion, that it would at any moment come alive and start moving around. It was possible. Far, far too possible for her to handle. She opened the door to the restroom behind her and slowly backed in, closing the door in front of her as quietly as she could. Maybe that''s what they meant by sentient. Maybe the people who found this thing went through the very same experiences that she was living through right now. Her stream of thought was interrupted by another wave of pain, except this time, it didn''t hurt so much; it was more of a shock. It was a heavy impact, far bigger than anything she''s ever experienced, like an earthquake localized entirely within her body. The harsh taste of copper filled her mouth as she fell to her knees, gasping for air that she suddenly couldn''t get enough of. Thin lines of spittle fell from her mouth and onto the floor; she expected blood, but it was completely clear. Normal. Am I dead? It certainly felt like it. Her body had been struck so hard that it was a wonder that she hadn''t simply fallen apart on impact. She knew, of course. She knew that it was just a particularly bad migraine, and that she wasn''t really dead, but a larger, irrational part of her thought otherwise. There was little pain, only the scared suspicion that something within her broke. Snapped. If nothing else, she shouldn''t be alive right now. She sat up from the floor, limbs buzzing with static as she moved. There was a sense of fragility to her limbs as she moved, suddenly brittle bones threatening to snap as she stood. She braced, waiting for something to break, but nothing happened. Just that pressure at her joints, swelling as if it were about to explode. She turned to look at herself in the bathroom mirror. As she stared at the gaunt, pale face before her, with bloodshot red eyes and matted hair that stuck to her sweat-covered forehead, a thought struck her. That thing is doing this to me. As if confirming her suspicions, the metallic taste swelled to the point of numbness, stealing all sensation from her mouth other than the taste. Spittle began to dribble down her lips as the taste rose up to her nostrils, stinging them with its copper scent. A sickening mixture of disgust and indignation rose in her chest as she turned back and marched into the lab. It didn''t surprise her at all when she saw that SCP-L900 had moved so that it was facing her directly. Sentient. It''s alive. Probably fucks with people more the longer they stay near it or something. The pressure increased ever so slightly. It brought her joints to the cusp of popping, of snapping. She didn''t care, brought herself in front of SCP-L900 and grabbed it with both of her hands. She lifted it up and glared at it. Her red eyes stared into the statuette''s own, searching for any sign of life, any sign of intelligence or knowledge of what it was doing. But all she found was stone. Blank, lifeless stone. "But you''re alive. I know you are, so stop pretending already." Annabeth slammed the idol back down onto the table, cringing at the loud explosion of sound it produced. "I have to get out of here. I can''t¡­ I can''t stay near you." She backed away from it and turned to exit the lab, but of course, the door wouldn''t open. The doorknob was locked firmly in place, refusing to budge an inch as she twisted it back and forth with vigor. Because of course it was. She was a prisoner, that never changed. She fumbled through her coat pockets and produced her identification card, slamming it into the scanner next to the door. Nothing happened. "Come on," Annabeth breathed, "can''t you let me out? God damn it, someone let me out!" She slammed her fist onto the metal door over and over again. Nothing happened. She pulled down at the knob with her entire body weight. Nothing happened. She screamed at it. Nothing happened. She scratched at the card reader. Nothing happened. She took one of the chairs sitting at her desk and heaved it at the door with all of her might. Nothing happened. She put the rotary phone''s earpiece to her ear and dialed the number of Dr. Trent. Nothing happened. She dialed nine-one-one. Nothing happened. She threw the phone at the door. Nothing happened. She picked up SCP-L900 and threw it at the door. Nothing happened. It bounced off and landed on the floor with a soft thud. Annabeth, panting with exhaustion, finally collapsed onto the floor. It felt like an iron pike was being driven through her head, and tipped with a burning poison that traveled through her veins, scorching every part of her body in the process. It was too much. All of it, all of it was too much. Head buzzing, she crawled over to the door and picked up SCP-L900. She wondered if she could destroy it.
She tried a few more times to use the phone. Nothing came of it though. She had to wonder whether the Foundation themselves had cut her phone line, or if it was the SCP. Considering everything, she was leaning more towards the former. For its part, the statuette didn''t do much of anything to resist her efforts of attack. She slammed it against the walls, soaked it in water from the tap, even ground it against the edges of her table. All the while, it just stared at her with its empty eyes as it passively resisted any of her efforts to damage it. It''s invincible. Annabeth watched, unamused as she threw it against the wall once more only for it to fall flatly onto the floor. Indestructible. I haven''t even managed to chip the thing. It''s totally, completely indestructible. An awfully large jump to conclusion, and yet as she sat on her bed, head being split into two and with every one of her nerves being overloaded with an unstable concoction of heavy fatigue and an overbearing, dragging numbness that made it hard to feel anything save for hollow pain, it made perfect sense. It was indestructible, and that was that. Something sharp jabbed up both her nostrils. Blinking, she put her hand up to her nose and pulled away to find that she had a nosebleed. Her blood was a thin, off-pink colour, polluted with black specks of hardened snot and black coagulation. She groaned and stood from her bed. In response, her legs began to scream in protest; despite the withered state of her frail body, thinned over days without food, her kneecaps creaked and shook under her weight. They''d stop sending her food, because of course they would. If they did, then they''d have to interact with her. And who''d want that? No, better to just let her starve here. Starve, locked in with this SCP, and with nothing to do but die. Stumbling, she manage to catch herself on her desk, where the blinking monitor looked at her with indifference. She scowled, but reached out to type into the terminal regardless. Her job to document the SCP was of the least priority to her right now, but she did it anyway. Why? Perhaps self-satisfaction, or some sort of weak attempt at retaliation against it. Or maybe I just feel like it. And because there''s nothing else for me to do, Annabeth thought bitterly as she typed away, leaving behind red fingerprints in the process.
| SCP-L900 Class Designation: TBD (Probably safe) Description: A grey statuette made of some kind of stone. It doesn''t have a face or any defining features, aside from a purple dot on its head. It weighs 1.9 kilograms and stands at roughly 18.5 cm tall. Relative Dating suggests that it''s from 900-600 BCE. It has the ability to alter its physical state, in one recorded instance transforming from being made out of a wooden material, into stone. It was also observed to noticeably drop in temperature despite a lack of change in regards to its environment. It can also MOVE. It''s sentient and it makes you feel like shit. That''s all it does. It moves. I know it moves, because it turned even though it''s just a statue and I just put it down on a table it can still move and that means it''s alive. It''s also invincible. Why? Because it is, that''s why. Fuck. Recovery: First located during an excavation of an ancient construction fill located within Nicaragua, where it was processed by on-site anthropologists. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Initial analysis by their Archivists say that it''s made out of carved wood, which contradicts its appearance as of now. They also didn''t note any distinguishing features, despite the obviously out of place bright purple spot it has. Probably because of its anomalous properties.
Annabeth laid naked under the shower head with SCP-L900 in her hands. Liquid ice rained upon her shivering body, providing soothing comfort to her boiling blood. Just outside of the shower''s glass sliding door, her filthy clothes, stained with sweat and blood, laid in a crumpled pile. On top of it was a half-empty bottle of aspirin. She stared, unblinking at the statuette in her hands. The pitter-patter of the water falling upon the porcelain floors did well to drown out the slight whispering that lingered in her ears. It wasn''t stone anymore. Rather, it seemed to be made of some sort of metal, with a reflective surface and a sheen of silver. It was much heavier and cold to the touch, almost unbearably so. She could see herself on its surface. A living corpse, with prominent ribs and poked through her thin skin and sunken eyes that could hardly blink. It was almost fascinating, how much she had changed since she was assigned to this little project. "Harmless," she croaked. "No harm here." Funnily enough, that purple spot on its head was still there. In fact, it might have grown a bit, though it could have been her imaginat- She gasped as the statuette fell from her hands. She couldn''t feel them anymore. God, she couldn''t feel her hands. It wasn''t just numb, they weren''t there. She lifted her arms and saw a pair of limp, stark-white hands, but they weren''t hers. They were prosthetic, plastic prosthetics covered in chalk dust. Can''t feel. Can''t touch. Annabeth curled up into a ball and closed her eyes as uncomfortable warmth enveloped her body. It''s not harmless. It''s killing me. The thing is killing me. She couldn''t see it, but as she drifted into unconsciousness, SCP-L900 blinked.
"Okay. Call clean-up to get in there and retrieve the object. The body as well of course, but SCP-L900 is the priority." Jossen watched as the lab intern nodded and talked into a handheld radio. A promising one. The intern had shown nothing but diligence during the short time she''s served as a lab assistant, with a natural proficiency for lab work and a curious but restrained mind that hungered for knowledge. He was sure that in a few years or so, she would become one of the site''s top researchers. A lot of promise, that one. Sighing, he turned back to look at the display of monitors that showed live feeds of D-6831''s temporary lab. For the past four hours, D-6831 had been laying motionless on the shower''s floor. That, coupled with her body''s poor state, was enough to convince him that it would be alright to intervene. During the week that D-6831 had to work, he''d been more than tempted to take a look, just a quick peek at SCP-L900''s file. Of course, it was just a natural curiosity. He knew better than to read the file, just as Trent knew to install those filters that censored SCP-L900 from the video feeds. Judging from the file size, he could tell that there was quite a bit of content, more so than he expected. Most of it would have to be pruned, but still, he was sure that useful information could be gleaned from it. He really took every precaution. Even installed an independent terminal to ensure that none of SCP-L900''s files were accessible, not to any clearance level. "That''s that, I suppose," Jossen muttered. "Yes," Jossen looked behind him to see Trent nodding to himself with a satisfied look on his face. "I''d say this went well. Good, even." "Still, it''s unfortunate. D-6831 was innocent, you know that," Jossen said as he looked back at the camera feed. Two personnel wearing yellow hazmat suits unlocked and entered D-6831''s lab, heading straight towards the restroom. "Had a degree. Young." "You approved the proposal. In the end, so did the Ethics Committee, though from what I heard, it was only by a slim margin. The transcript of their arguments is long enough to fill a book. I''ve never seen the word ''precedent'' tossed around so much in my life." "Yes, I know. Doesn''t mean I can''t feel bad about it." "She was the best pick. Besides, in the end, she was just a D-Class. She was bound to die sooner or later. Better for her to die for a good cause, rather than a senseless death to fill out another spot in a test log, or to be caught in the crossfire of a containment breach." Mouth suddenly dry, Jossen picked up his mug and took a long drink from it, relishing the hot, bitter coffee as it went down his throat. It was scalding, but that was fine. Perfectly fine. "I suppose you''re right." Yellow Lightning Senior Researcher Jacob Geller sat within a dark, empty room at Site-73: the video archives room. In front of him was a DVR connected to a CRT monitor. It sat on an extended shelf, on which the designation SCP-1733 was written. The door to the room was locked, though Geller knew that this precaution was largely unnecessary. Aside from SCP-1733, the videos stored here were mundane, mostly consisting of backed up security tapes and old recovery logs. Of the many years he''s been working for The Foundation, perhaps no more than half a dozen personnel visited this place. If someone needed to archive a video file, it would be uploaded to one of the many Foundation-secured servers, digitally preserved and protected from physical wear. Physical forms of digital media were largely obsolete within The Foundation. Still, even if something transcended physical form, it wouldn''t last forever. Those video files, some would corrupt, some would be deleted, and some would simply perish as parts of the online web simply ceased to function, its servers corroding to scrap after they outlived their human creators. So close, Jacob thought as his finger hovered over the monitor''s power button. To be an instrument of digital recording, but trapped in that form. Replaced entirely by the immense, sprawling web of the internet, with all of its cloud servers and databases. You arrived just a bit too late. Jacob turned on the CRT, which began to flicker with an unpleasantly intense light, its screen filled with a messy jumble of black and white static. He frowned but made no motion to lower the brightness. Instead, he reached over to the DVR and began a reverse playback of SCP-1733. Normally not possible with this type of DVR, but it was simple enough to modify. It would be the third day in a row spent within this room, playing the same video over and over again.
Evie Geller sat at the commentator stand, huddled in a ball as they muttered incoherent words under their breath. Aside from the buzzing of the court''s overhead lights, as well as the occasional sob or scream that came from the bleachers, it was silent. From time to time, they would cry without thinking about it, tears gently streaming from their unblinking eyes as thick clouds gathered in their mind. Time was a lost concept. It had begun gradually, before spreading like a virus throughout the horde of spectators and even the basketball players themselves. One by one, then dozen by dozen, they would fall silent. Gone were the killings, the sacrifices, acts of paranoia. Only broken husks remained. Some lasted longer than others. Far, far longer. Whether or not this was a good thing was up to interpretation. Evie saw it as a terrible thing. They had lasted for quite a while, maintaining their wits as the stark, raving horde around them began to diminish. People they had formed bonds with, people they have been killed by, people they have killed¡­ Evie had to sit and watch as they devolved. They weren''t totally inert, these living human beings with all of the memories and trauma that came with decades of reliving the same day over and over. No, not quite. They still talked, still cried, some were even capable of shuffling about the basketball court, aimlessly wandering as if in search of something. They shuddered, then closed their eyes. Most folks never went to the commentator''s stand anymore, making it the ideal place of retreat from them all. Alone, Evie waited, in hopes of soon becoming like the rest of them.
Away. Evie blinked, and the red lights vanished. The paralysing bout of pain that had been crippling their body only moments before faded, leaving behind only a dizzying spell of nausea that spun the room around them. They sat there, stunned, as the people around them stood from their seats. For a brief moment, their brain rejected the reality they experienced, desperate in its attempt to remember what had happened as a nightmare, some horrifying visage of horror spawned as a result of the stresses they''ve experienced, being cooped up in here for so long. Away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away. So why was it so tangible? Why could they still remember so vividly, as if it had just happened, the agony coursing through their veins like molten lead, seizing their muscles in painful cramps and forcing those throat-tearing screams out of them? Why could they still see so clearly, the dark, blood-stained front of their shirt? Why could they still hear the jingling of car keys as their stomach was ripped open with visceral strength? Away, away, away, away, away, away, away, away. I need to leave. Leave, I need to LEAVE! They jumped from the bleachers, landing at the outskirts of the basketball court which had already become a place of riot. They stumbled past the shouting crowd, flinching back as several pairs of trembling hands reached out to them. They hiccuped and broke into a sprint as they noticed someone looking at them, a tall woman with a long ponytail of jet-black hair. Away. They needed to get away, from everyone, from all of this. The woman''s name was Jessica Drunnel, a thirty-six year old high school teacher who had one ten year old child by the name of Max. Her hair was dyed; she had been self-conscious of the numerous strands of grey that had begun to pop up. She was a single mother, having taken custody of her child after a messy divorce. Evie knew all of this, of course, because she had told them herself. They might as well have known each other for years. At least, it felt like years. Evie had lost count of how many times they''d been forced to relive this damned basketball game. Sure, for the first few hundred loops, they could have been something akin to friends. A companionship formed from confusion and terror. Evie once thought of her as an anchor, something to keep her from going insane from it all. Just years and years of being trapped in this place, with the same people. Thought. Evie made their way towards the restrooms, pushing their way in through the door and quickly locking themself in a stall. A heavy weight settled in their chest as burning tears dripped from their eyes, a choked sob tearing its way out from their mouth. They cried and cried, hand pressed firmly over their stomach. At some point, their sobs devolved into guttural screams as they began to pull at their hair, jittery anxiety bubbling within their veins, making every movement seem numb and uncertain. Deep, panting gasps and moans were coming from the stall next to them, paired with the rhythmic clapping of flesh. Their nausea suddenly doubled, and they found themself vomiting into the open toilet. As they retched, someone slammed their fist into the stall''s door behind them. AWAY, why can''t I just get AWAY from these fucking people? "Evie! Are you okay?" A sharp stab of fear went through their heart as a familiar voice spoke from outside the stall. Jessica. "I''m sorry, I''m sorry, okay? I was just-" "Shut up!" they screamed. Something cracked within their throat, and they doubled over, caught in a coughing fit that forced them to inhale the bathroom''s noxious fumes. It made them want to vomit all over again. "Leave me alone, just leave me alone you fucking-" "I''m sorry, please, Evie." Jessica knocked on the door several times, each one sending a chill up their spine. They didn''t want to look at her. Not now. Not ever. "I¡­ I was just desperate. The Faithkeepers, they promised¡­ they told me that if I just-" "You''ve gone insane, you know that?" Evie wiped at their eyes with the back of their sleeve. They kept their eyes trained at the tiled floor, trying desperately to filter out the disgusting aroma of human waste that had already begun to accumulate. The moans coming from the stall next to them grew louder. "Everyone. Everyone''s gone insane, even me, because what the hell? I just want to be alone, god, I can''t take this anymore. I can''t take this, I just can''t." "Evie¡­" "I said, leave me the fuck alone!" There was a brief moment of silence, then Evie heard the clicking of footsteps. They counted to thirty before inhaling, finally exiting the stall. Head still buzzing from the burst of adrenaline that came with their tantrum, they turned on the sink and splashed cold water onto their face. "How much more," Evie whispered to themself as they stared into the red eyes of their reflection. "How much more of this?"
"This side is for the Celtics, right?" Jessica nodded silently, still holding them by the hand as they slipped past a few people who were in an argument. Something about more escape plans. Evie suspected deep down that they were truly stuck in this place, perhaps forever, or at least until some sort of outside force freed them. They hoped to be proven wrong though. Hoped desperately. In fact, that was why they were letting themself be lead by the hand like this. Jessica, one of their only friends in this mess, had told them about it. About escape. She claimed that some of the teenagers had managed to carve a path out from the locker rooms. Evie didn''t believe it. Not at first, and not now. Surely, it couldn''t have been that easy. What, a group of kids, with nothing more than makeshift tools, had managed to carve an escape route when literal explosives failed to even cause a scratch to the walls of this place? It seemed ludicrous. Impossible. Still, Evie thought as they rounded a corner. Better to be proven wrong. I really hope that I''m proven wrong. It''s the only thing I want, a way out of this nightmare. Immediately, they noticed something was wrong. The locker room was dark, only kept dimly lit by a few red lights perched on top of the lockers. They squinted, finding that the source for the lights came from smartphones. Dressed in tattered, makeshift robes, several tall figures stood in a half-circle, facing them. "Erm¡­" Evie turned to Jessica, only to be met with a hard shove. They yelped, stumbling forward into the arms of a few hooded figures who held onto them with painfully tight grips. "H-Hey! What gives? Let go, let go of me!" "I''m sorry," Jessica whispered as she started forwards. "I¡­ This is for the best. We''re going to get out of here." "Jessica, what are you talking about?" Evie strained against their hold as they lowered them down onto one of the locker room''s benches, forcefully keeping them in a flat position. Just moments later, they had their hands and feet tied down to the bench with makeshift rope, made out of some sort of cloth. "Help! Someone, help! What are you doing?" "Okay," one of the figures rumbled in a deep voice. "You have done well, Jessica. For your part in this sacrifice, your spot in the Great Escape shall be ensured. Rest easy, knowing that all of this will soon come to an end. Now, may the ritual commence." "R-Ritual? Hey, what are you¡­" Evie''s voice dried up as the shrouded figure lowered their hood. He was one of the commentators for the game. Mike, if they recalled correctly. He had been one of the early leaders for the group known as the Faithkeepers, a bunch of lunatics who thought that they had to sacrifice "luxuries of modern life and post-industrial society" in order to get out. Once, the Faithkeepers managed to climb onto the giant Jumbo-tron on the ceiling and actually cut it down, letting it crash onto the court below. Oh. Evie''s mouth hung open as Mike lifted up their shirt, exposing their stomach to the cold, biting air. He had a set of car keys in his hand, which jingled as he moved. They stared, not quite comprehending as he slowly lowered the key until its point touched their skin, sending a harsh shiver up their spine. "Please. Please, don''t do this. Don''t. Jessica, come on. Help me. Help me." Without warning, he pushed the key into their skin, burying it within them. They gasped as a harsh coldness spread from their gut. They could only stare in silent horror as he started carving through their skin, leaving behind a jagged trail of dark red as he went. Even in the dim light, they could see quite clearly how he strained in effort, the veins in his wrist growing taut as he pulled the key through their body.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Something popped, and they began to scream. The cold quickly gave way to a radiant burst of pain that strangled them. They couldn''t breathe. They couldn''t think. They could only feel the incomprehensible hurt that had spawned within them, jerking their body about as if they were being electrocuted. As they strained against their restraints, small spurts of blood shot from their widening wound, drenching the front of their shirt and streaming down onto their face. Their blood was hot, nearly boiling. They shrieked as it dripped into their open mouth, assaulting them with its jarringly salty taste, an unpleasant and off-putting sensation amidst the deafening pain that somehow continued to grow. Mike had managed to cut open a small opening in their stomach, an irregularly shaped hole with walls of crooked, gnarled flesh. He dropped the car keys onto the floor and held out his bloodstained hands to Jessica. She avoided Evie''s gaze, refusing to look at them as she handed him a small tupperware container filled with various objects. Wallets, a lighter, some hats, and even a player jersey. Evie sobbed pitifully, muttering various pleas as Mike began chanting something. He held the jersey above their wound and lit it on fire. The flames spread quickly, eating away at the fabric and melding its colours together until the player name was unrecognisable. Just as the jersey began to blacken, he let go, allowing it to fall directly onto their open wound. The flames sizzled and sputtered inside of them, producing plumes of thin smoke. "Now," Mike said as he took a ballcap out from the container, "we shall make the rest of our offerings."
Evie frowned as they looked at the various people taking turns in trying to pry the doors open. Some of the adults had begun to discuss making some sort of battering ram to smash the door open. Many tried to call for help on their phones of course, but for some reason, no one could get a signal. Evie tried it themself and sure enough, no calls could get through, not even when they dialled 911. For some reason though, Evie didn''t feel all too panicked about the whole thing. There was a sense of concern, maybe tinged with the unwelcoming bite of fear that lingered in the back of their throat, but nothing akin to panic. The whole situation had a dreamy tint to it, as if at any moment, everything would be resolved, and they could just continue on their way. As if they were just watching a horror movie. It''s not like we''ll be stuck in here forever, right? Evie thought to themself, trying to filter out the paranoid chatter around them. This sort of thing doesn''t just happen. It''s just all too weird. Kind of like that Groundhog''s Day movie. Except, this is real life. Not for the first time, they wondered how many times they''ve lived through this game. They wished that they had a counter or something, just anything to keep track of every loop. It was hard enough as is; the memory of each passing loop was distant, fuzzy. Like trying to recall what they ate for breakfast yesterday. It was only through repetition that they could be sure that they were all in a loop in the first place. Assuming, that is, that this wasn''t just some insane nightmare that their brain decided to concoct for some bizarre reason. They felt entirely lucid, in control of their every movement and decision though. If this was a dream, and if they were cognizant of the dream, shouldn''t they gain godlike powers? The ability to shape their own dream in any fashion they want? Hey, dream world. Evie pointed lazily at one of the basketball hoops. Make that hoop grow ten sizes larger. Nothing happened, of course. Suddenly self-conscious, they lowered their finger and looked around to see if anyone caught them pointing. Too often they''d get caught in their own thoughts and find themself doing weird things without really thinking about it. A mostly harmless habit, and they doubted that anyone cared all too much, but still¡­ Ah, crap. A low blush rose to their cheeks as Evie noticed someone looking at them, a middle aged woman a few seats to her left. For a single moment, they made eye contact, sending an inexplicable wave of primal fear through Evie''s chest. They quickly turned away, focusing their eyes down to their lap. Ignore me, just ignore me, please¡­ "Hey." Evie flinched back as the woman sat down on the empty seat next to her. She quite literally appeared out of nowhere, and without so much a noise. Their anxiety only increased as they noticed a look of mild concern on the woman''s face. "Um, are you okay?" They gave her a stiff nod. "Y-Yeah. Hi." "Sorry, if I scared you¡­ just figured, y''know, we''re all in this together it seems, so might as well strike up some conversation, right?" The woman glanced back at the crowd surrounding the entrance doors, still caught up in their attempts to break it down. A few people had resorted to trying to kick the doors down, though it seemed pretty obvious at this point that it wouldn''t lead to much. People needed some type of outlet though, and the apparently indestructible doors were happy to serve as sandbags for violence. "Those guys¡­ they''re talking about ramming the door down." "Yeah¡­ well¡­ um, to be honest, I don''t think they''re gonna be able to break the doors down." Evie admitted. "Oh?" "I don''t know. I-I mean, I know it sounds pessimistic or whatever, but, like¡­ you know, it''s just that with all of this stuff happening. It''s weird. I don''t think escaping will be that easy. I guess, because, like¡­" Evie groaned and shook their head. "Ugh, never mind." "No, that makes sense," the woman said. "Whatever''s going on, it''s definitely not normal. There''s probably more to all of this than meets the eye, right?" "Y-Yeah. I mean, if we can''t even use our phones to call anyone, then whoever''s doing all of this probably barricaded the doors." Evie said, suddenly encouraged. They hadn''t realised it, but simply hearing someone else validate their concerns was such a relief. It was a weight off their shoulders, knowing that they weren''t the only one thinking such things. "So you think that someone trapped us in here?" Evie shrugged. "Well, it has to be that way, right? This kind of thing doesn''t really just¡­ happen. Like, it''s all too deliberate. The locked doors and jammed signals and¡­ stuff. It''s all too deliberate. I mean, that''s just what I think. I guess I could just be paranoid or something. " "I see what you mean," she nodded. "It isn''t natural. You''ve been thinking about this a lot, huh?" "I¡­ guess." Evie admitted. They couldn''t do anything but think. It wasn''t as if they were going to find an exit, at least not before someone else did, and if that happened, they''d find out eventually, along with everyone else. They had gone alone, of course, so they didn''t have anyone to talk to. That is, until now. "Oh, and by the way¡­ my name is Jessica. It''s nice to meet you!" Evie managed a small smile. Maybe this wouldn''t be so bad after all. "I''m Evie. It''s nice to meet you too."
"¡­ a lot more than LeBron James has in his seven years in Cleveland, so it''s gonna be LeBron James running the point¡­" Evie sat in the bleachers, bored as they listened numbly to the commentator''s post-commentary of the game. If they were being honest, they didn''t even know who won. For the entire game, they could hardly pay attention, for the simple fact that they weren''t very interested in basketball. Pretty much the only reason why they wanted to come here in the first place was because they knew that their dad was a huge sports fan. Two tickets, good seats and everything. It could have been a great opportunity for them to actually bond together, something that could maybe create a happy memory for the both of them. Evie thought that it would be a good birthday present, and yet even now, they could remember so vividly the way he frowned at them. Even more so, what he said afterwards: "I''m sorry Evie, but I can''t go." Work. Work, work, work. It seemed that his work had consumed practically all of his free time these days. He had told them that he was assigned to be the head of a big, important project and that he wouldn''t have the time. To make things worse, he wouldn''t even tell them what the project was about. He was always so secretive about his work, as if he was constantly involved with secret experiments by the government. Hell, it was possible that was exactly the case. He could be involved in some Area 51 type of deal for all they knew. It hurt, not being able to spend time with him, all because he was some bigshot doctor who just had to be busy all the time. Just once, just for even one day, they wanted to have him all to themself. Was that so much to ask? Apparently, it was.
"Well, I guess I kind of watched that game with you after all, didn''t I?" Jacob Geller chuckled, running his hand through his thin, oily hair. Dark half-circles had gathered under his eyes, creating layers upon layers of shadow that made it look like he hadn''t slept in a week. "The Celtics won, just like I said they would. At least, on the first time through. Heat snuck a few games in there, but hey, only the first one really matters, right?" Too many times. Too many times, he had watched that basketball game. Even if all of it was in reverse, it was still too much. He wasn''t sure if he''d be able to watch another game again without getting nauseous. After he finished, he viewed it another half-dozen times to make sure nothing else changed. After that, he simply replaced the recorded footage with an identical, non-anomalous copy of Playback 908, which consisted of two and a half hours of a dark room with red overhead lights, and nothing else. He didn''t plan on granting permission for the study of SCP-1733 anytime in the near future, but it never hurt to be cautious. Twenty-one vacation days a year, and for every month, he would always use at least one of them to visit his child. He remembered, back when he was really starting to get a hang of the whole Foundation business, he would just find himself stuck at work for days on end. Often, he''d fall asleep in his office only to wake up and get right back to work, typing up documents and supervising experiments. In retrospect, it was time wasted. So, so many unused vacation days, and for what? To advance his career further, faster? To gain the reputation of being Site-73''s resident workaholic? He would be lying if he said that the thought of stealing one of The Foundation''s many temporal anomalies, just so that he could go back and yell at himself, didn''t cross his mind. "Hey, Evie?" Jacob sighed and looked at the ground as he dug his hands into the lush fields of healthy grass; they were wet, having gathered the cold precipitation of the morning''s dew. "I just wanted a better future for you. You know that, right? I guess somewhere in my head, I thought that if I worked hard enough, I''d be able to retire early, and with a pension to boot. Would have been more than enough to send you to college." Nine hundred and eight playbacks. Nine hundred and eight loops that these people had to go through. Nine hundred and eight basketball games that Evie had to relieve. Nine hundred and eight times that I approved those studies instead of doing something worth my time. And for what? It was a morbid curiosity, he supposed. At first, there were some genuine attempts at progress being made. They tried to communicate with the people trapped within the video. Some theorised that the video was an isolated alternate dimension that was contained within the DVR, though none of their tests picked anything up. Eventually, after it was determined that none of the basketball players had any recollection of the events unfolding within the video, they decided to just keep going. Why not? They weren''t real people, were they? What would happen if they kept the experiments running? It was fascinating, initially. Like a psychological experiment without limits. The tests decreased in frequency eventually, of course. With all of the projects and anomalies that went on within The Foundation, watching a video of people suffering through a time loop wasn''t very high up on the priority list. He didn''t even think about Evie. In fact, during the several watch parties he partook in himself, he rarely ever saw them during the playbacks. Besides, it was harmless. It was for research. It was for work. That all changed, of course. As soon as he lost them, it all changed. All of the sudden, it didn''t seem so harmless anymore, witnessing those manic acts of violence happen, knowing that Evie was trapped in there with hundreds of people driven insane from the repetition of it all. At least. At least I atoned. At least I made it all better, even if just a little bit. He stood, grunting as he arched his back, sending pops and cracks into the graveyard''s silent atmosphere. It really was such a peaceful place. "Well, it''s about time for me to go." It was already six in the morning, and as much as he would have liked to spend the rest of the day with them, his job had other plans. "I''ll see you soon, okay? I love you. Always will." Interlude: Beehive
Over there. By the dining table. I quickly glanced over. Nothing there, but perhaps through all of the subtle ambiance, I could have made out some whispers. Careful footsteps that tip-toed over creaky wooden floorboards, or tense breathing. Better to be safe. Always. I turned off the microwave heating up my meal and shuffled towards the dining table, ears straining to pick out the odd noise, though no matter how I concentrated, I could hear nothing. Only the soft pitter patter of rain and my own beating heart. Alone with my thoughts, what did I expect? For it to be different this time? To find a looming figure hiding in the shadows, ready to jump at me? Look. Over there, the living room. Check. There was a harrowing sense of dread that pushed against my chest without remorse, forcing the air from my lungs. With stiff limbs, I walked down the hallway to my living room, my path lit only by a dull beam of moonlight through the window. The light cast an eerie shadow against the wall, and for a moment, I thought I saw something moving in the darkness. Ready to pounce, it''s there. Waiting. Waiting for you to make a move. There''s no way out of this one. I froze where I stood, not daring to move an inch. My heart raced in my chest as I waited for whatever it was to show itself. When nothing happened, I took a step forward, and then another, and another, until I was out of the hall. I flipped on the lightswitch, squinting as the sudden harsh glare of fluorescent lights filled my vision. Check. It doesn''t hurt to be sure. Right there right below the stairs. It was the pantry door. Locked, of course. I had also propped a chair against it. The world seemed to pause as I approached the door. One by one, layers of comprehension began to strip away from my mind as my surroundings faded. I no longer heard my dull footsteps as I approached the locked door, nor did I hear the rhythmic drops of rain beating against the rooftop. Even the sterile while lights that had previously flooded the room seemed to dissipate. Listen. Carefully. Listen closely. I stepped around the chair and placed my ear against the door. An old, dilapidated thing, with creaky hinges and chipped black paint that revealed the frail wood underneath. At first, all I could hear was the monstrous beating of my heart as it sent dizzying amounts of blood to my head. It was deafening enough to scatter my thoughts and deliver a rising bout of nausea as I tried so desperately to find silence. Be quiet. My body obeyed. Breathing, uneven and hitched, came through from the other side, along with weak, yet desperate scratching. I looked down to find a set of crooked fingernails, jagged and uneven and with disgusting black grit buried underneath. Pale, skinny fingers jutted out from underneath the door. They clawed desperately at the floor, as if hopping to wear the wooden boards down. "Please," came a weak, trembling voice. It was barely above a whisper, but I could hear the pleading in her voice. "Please¡­ let me out¡­" Still inside, then. Good. That''s good. Nothing to worry about.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Despite the closed door, I could still plainly make out the palpable stench emanating from the other side. Disgusting, sickly rot consisting of excrement and fluids left to soak into the flooring. Every week, I would attempt to clean whatever leaked outside, yet the pungent scent would remain. It had only worsened as time progressed, first manifesting as an unpleasant sourness, only to become a revolting cloud of stagnating air that was nearly impossible to breathe in. "God¡­" the voice bemoaned, "So thirsty. Please. A-Anything¡­ God, help me. God, please." How long had it been? A month, maybe. It wouldn''t be for too much longer. It couldn''t be for much longer. I used to be able to hear her cries all the way from my room. Those were the nights. Sleepless, stressful, it felt as if at any moment, her banging fist would finally smash a hole through that decrepit old door. Of course, she could only make such noise for so long; not once had I fed her, not since this whole mess started. Not even water. I should feel bad, right? I mean, I''m keeping a person, or rather what I thought was a person, locked up like some kind of animal. But the truth is, I''m scared. I''m so fucking scared that I can''t even bring myself to think of her as my wife. Every time I do, every time I think of that life, I remember her name. Her face. I see her as she was before: healthy, normal, beautiful. Not true. She wasn''t human, she was something else. Many times, I considered just finishing the job myself. Surely, she wouldn''t be able to fight back. She sounded so weak, I could just¡­ grab one of the cleavers from the kitchen. Or that old baseball bat in the toolshed. I could put an end to this nightmare. Not human. Deceit. She wants you to try. She''s crafty, sneaky, you don''t know what she''s capable of. Right. It''s easier this way. Has to be. "Help," the voice said. Her fingers stretched out further, reaching towards my feet. "S-Sam, Honey, I know you can hear me. I know you''re there. P-Please, just¡­ let me out, fuck, just let me out. I c-can''t live like this. I''m almost out of cans. They''re so hard to open, Sam. It hurts." "Be quiet. Don''t say my name. Just die already, god damn it, don''t do this to me. Don''t be so cruel." The voice inside started sobbing. It hurt like nothing else hearing her cry. I loved her, once. Before I realised what she was. I was fully prepared to spend the rest of my life with her. I didn''t know whether or not to be thankful that she started to slip up. Little oddities here and there. The way her pupils seemed to change colour in the light, her insistence in cooking all of my meals for me, and above all, just the fact that everything seemed perfect. Too perfect. Like my life was a theatrical scene, something set and rehearsed. Only, I was the only one without a script. Whatever she was planning to do to me, I never gave her the chance to execute. "What were you going to do to me? What are you? Who else is in on this?" I hissed at the door. "Tell me. Tell me and I might let you out. I don''t want to do this." The voice inside said nothing, only continuing to cry. I grimaced, disappointed. She never answered my questions. Most of the time, her responses were full of feigned ignorance. But she was lying. I knew that much, I wasn''t a fool. "Nothing to worry about," I whispered to myself as I slowly backed from the door. Her pained voice faded to nothing as the gentle rain once more returned to my ears. I made my way back to the kitchen, careful to keep my footsteps light. I took my dinner out of the microwave, which consisted of half of a rotisserie chicken. It sat in a puddle of brown grease and oil, some of it partly coagulated in translucent chunks of fat. I tore out a dry chunk of flesh with my hand and stuffed it into my mouth. It was room temperature and salty enough to make me pucker. Despite my distaste, I forced myself to swallow. It could be worse, I reminded myself. I could be locked inside of a dusty pantry, with nothing to eat at all. Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow blinked in and out of existence. She''d do anything to live. She would want nothing more than to get back at you. "The door''s locked." Make sure. Have to make sure. Check, and listen carefully. I placed my plate down on the kitchen counter and stared forward, eyes focusing on nothing in particular. It was quiet, but if I concentrated, held my breath¡­ She''s opening the door. She''s waiting to ambush you. I nodded my head and retrieved a large steak knife from one of the kitchen drawers. I had to be careful, after all. Just in case.