FATHER leapt through the hallways, from shadow to shadow and from wall to wall. He always eluded the light, but never escaped it fully. His shoe or his arm or the top of his head would get caught in Huxley's vision, allowing him to continue his pursuit. But he could still feel his body wearing down. He had slowed to a stumble and his nails were bloodied from being scratched against the walls for so long.
There was something wet on his legs. Huxley didn't look down and tried not to think about it. He decided that he had cut himself earlier on. Even when his legs started to sway in an off-kilter way, not going straight forward but flinging out to the side a little, he continued running. His tunnel vision flattened until the only image he could see was the man in front of him.
“FATHER!” Huxley screamed. “It hurts!”
DON'T CALL OUT TO HIM.
He wanted to drill a hole into his ear. He needed to be free from that goddamn voice. It took an extraordinary amount of willpower to stop himself from digging his fingers into his ears.
DON'T LISTEN TO ME. DON'T LISTEN TO ANYONE. JUST GO.
Everytime he let out a breath, he felt lightheaded, every time he took one in he felt like he was about to explode. The voice swirled the thoughts around in his head. One minute, it would be ordering him to stop, to not speak with FATHER, to give up hope. The next it would be whispering to him how that was the only thing that mattered. Eventually, Huxley gave up trying to reason with it. He just ran for the sake of running.
FATHER turned right, Huxley turned right. FATHER turned left, Huxley turned left. The facility seemed to lose its will to fight him. Corners became fewer and fewer. The hallways grew shorter. The slopes flattened and the ground became solid and firm.
He lumbered through an exceedingly long hallway. But by then, the walls had cut the game short. There was no exit — only a single pair of wooden doors. It was the entrance to the gymnasium. FATHER had no place else to escape. He had no place else to hide from what was coming to him. The only thing that could stop Huxley was death.
He was halfway through the tunnel when Huxley's vision started to blur. The wooden doors melded together before collapsing into the concrete walls. The lights shot out suddenly. A power outage left the two in almost complete darkness. Huxley could barely make out FATHER's shape.
“No!” he shouted. Fear gripped him as FATHER came closer to the doors. Huxley would not let him enter that place. If he did, he would know what Huxley did. FATHER would finally realize the thing that Huxley did to him.
“FATHER. Wait!” It wasn't the way that this was supposed to go. Huxley was supposed to catch the specter in his hands, comfort it and confess then. That was how spirits left. But now it was happening too fast. FATHER had all of the power over Huxley, he was forcing the subtherium to confess, to admit the things he did to him. That was something Huxley couldn't survive.
He was twenty meters away. Then he was ten. Then five. “Stop…” Huxley croaked, his voice rusting as he began to taste a warm, metallic liquid in his throat.
Huxley's legs were weak. He lost his grip on the wall as FATHER looked back at him, grinned, then phased through the doors. Mountains of sound rattled his ears. Beneath his feet, he could feel something moving. Something larger than mountains and older than he could ever imagine. It was the machine deep beneath the SCP Foundation, the one that convulsed and screeched and spewed rivers of amnestics into the oceans. It was something nobody could stop and nobody could tame.
He heard it cry. He heard it hate.
The sound was overtaken by deep blue static. Huxley felt something that felt like tears on his face, but he couldn't feel them when he dried them with his hand. The static overtook his senses. One by one, his senses fell away. The only thing he knew was that he was walking. He was alive and he was walking.
“I'm sorry…” Huxley apologized to the leviathan beneath. It didn't care. The Pulse filled his vision with millions of deep blue pixels. He raised his hands, but he couldn't see them anymore. They were just lines in the blue void that engulfed him. His eyes vomited tears like dirty water from a broken sink.
The only thing he could hear was his heartbeat smothering his brain. He apologized again and again, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, hoping that it would mean anything. There was the sound of a door being opened. Then Huxley felt the ground collide with his face as he collapsed onto the gymnasium floor.
“I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…”
FATHER turned his foot. He swiveled around and stared at a mutilated Huxley.
“I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…”
FATHER knelt down beside him. Huxley trembled.
“I'm sorry…”
Then FATHER whispered, “You're everything that anyone could have ever wanted.”
Huxley screamed. An electric fire crashed into him as he felt every nerve in his body wailing at once. His skull was splitting in two. His heart beat a thousand times a second. And his legs burned. He looked down at his knees, his eyes raw with tears.
They were both bent in unnatural directions, broken bones jutting through his flesh like spikes. Large black patches of flesh surrounded them, dribbling blood. He was like an animal that had gotten run over by a large car and it left his body mangled and hurt. His voice started to strain. The pain didn't leave. Everything looked blue and everything felt red. Waterfalls of the colors stained his clothes and body and left a long trail behind him as he crawled forward.
Huxley's throat shredded itself. His ears were ringing. The world dimmed. The last thing he saw was FATHER's face slowly moving away, slowly fading into the cold darkness of everything.

Then there was a soft light.
He felt the morning light on his face. It was warm, and brought life back into his body. Something tight was wrapped around his legs, which still thumped with pain. The air reeked of stale bleach, like a hospital. He squeezed his eyes shut as he realized where he was. He was back in his hospital room again. Not even FATHER could break him out of it.
He opened his eyes and saw nobody there. The sun was still rising and the light was still shining and not a single fucking thing had changed and all Huxley wanted to do was scream “Let me leave! Please, just let me leave!” but the Site kept refusing. He could have done all of that, but he didn't. The raging, suicidal fire inside of him was calmer now, almost satisfied. He hated it.
The scene was disrupted by the sound of a sneeze. Huxley turned towards the sound and saw somebody sitting next to him, face buried in a small notebook. There was a bundle of unkempt hairs on her head and stains on her uniform. She was leaning back, cross-legged, like a child trying to sleep where they shouldn't be. On her gray hands he saw seemed like hours worth of sweat caked into her pores.
Honey lowered the notebook. They stared at each other for a few minutes as Huxley slowly tilted his head back to the ceiling.
“Hey,” she said in a dry voice that had already lost all of its energy. “What is that, three times you've almost died now? If there were a Christian here, they'd probably say God was looking after you.”
Huxley didn't respond. Blinking felt like it took minutes.
“Yeah, that's what they'd say,” Honey continued. “But I don't follow any of that, so I don't know what I'd say. I guess that I'm, um, happy that you're still here. You know, twenty years ago, they wouldn't have been able to save you. You would have lost too much blood. But now we can pretty much bring anything back from the dead if we really wanted to. Isn't that great?”
Huxley swallowed, and tasted hot blood. His throat burned. It was still sore and so fragile that it could easily break with the slightest of sounds. He looked down and tried not to cry.
“You know you can talk back, right? The surgeons didn't take your voice box, did they?” Honey chuckled to herself.
Another minute passed. A bird chirped outside. A plane passed overhead. The soft drone drowned out the bird's song completely, and Huxley didn't get a chance to hear it again before it flew away.
Honey nodded like she was trying to read his thoughts. “Okay. I'll take that as a ‘no' then.”
“It's morning.”
Huxley's words stunned Honey for a moment. She waited for him to say more, but Huxley simply stared at the patterns on the ceiling, his eyes glazed over. His brain was already dead, it was just a matter of making his body realize that as well.
“Oh…” Honey realized. “And, um, you know these things take time and it's fine if you want to take more. Remember Huxley, I knew a subtherium that was in one of these programs for six months before making a decision. The SCP Foundation is the wealthiest organization in the world, it can absolutely make room for—”
Honey got so wrapped up in the nervous thoughts that were tumbling out of her mouth that she didn't notice Huxley staring past her. Eventually, she stopped. The room fell silent. Huxley lowered his head.
Honey knew what he was feeling, but she had never had the time to find a word for it. It was something she had seen in every patient, this look of utter acceptance. It was like watching an injured animal that knew it was going to die crawl into a hole. There was no reason for why it did that, but still it would use whatever energy it had left to move itself out of the way. There was something intimidating about it. At that moment, nothing could hurt it. It was invincible.
Her chest quivered. It was a sensation she hadn't felt in a long, long time. It was her job to oversee people as they made this decision, and during her many years at the SCP Foundation, she had had this conversation hundreds and hundreds of times, but for some reason, now it felt meaningful. She felt like she was talking to her first suicidal patient again.
“I want… I want to show you something, Huxley,” Honey said. “It's not what you're thinking of. It's something… special to me.”
Honey slid off of the chair and walked to the other side of the room, behind the wall of heart rate monitors and body temperature checkers. She grabbed the crumpled gray mass in the corner and unfolded it in front of Huxley.
It was his old wheelchair. Instantly, Huxley's eyes were drawn to it like he was gazing at a long-lost lover, but there was a hint of repulsion in his eyes. There was a part of him that didn't want to look at it again.
“They never actually got rid of it after that mission. They just put it in storage, with the rest of the evidence. I found it and brought it back here. I said that it would help with your recovery.” Honey rubbed the armrest. There were dozens of cuts in the rubber. “I want you to take you somewhere. I want to take you in your real wheelchair.”
Huxley kept glancing between the chairs and the monitors beside him. They spat out hundreds of sheets of data that nobody would ever look at, creating pointless piles in the printer trays. Slowly, he nodded.
Without a word between them, Honey carefully helped Huxley up off the bed and placed him into the chair. She took her time, maneuvering each leg into its correct place. She could see him gritting his teeth, but she ignored it as she began pushing him through the first of many hallways.
Honey only took a step a minute so as to not reopen the myriad of wounds on his legs. She took ramps even slower, but Huxley would still grunt with pain occasionally. It felt like hours had passed before they rounded the first corner.
Huxley observed his surroundings like a child in the backseat of their parent's car. His gaze attached itself to the rust patterns on the walls, on the reinforced plating on the doors, and the cracks in the concrete below him. The Site continued placing slopes in front of them, never staircases. Honey couldn't tell whether this was because the Site took pity on Huxley or dumb luck.
It took only three turns before she saw it. The two came upon an extremely short, unlit hallway that seemed to lead to nowhere. The walls here were blank and partially unfinished. Some parts didn't have any reinforcement at all and others seemed to have never been painted at all. At the very end was a tiny light-blue door. It bore the words ‘SERVICE ENTRANCE. NO ENTRY' in messy white paint.
Huxley held his breath as Honey pushed him through. On the other side was a balcony that overlooked a room he had never seen before. There was only a small space to stand, large enough for one or two people, surrounded on either side by massive ivory pillars. A storm of light shined upwards, and when he moved to look down he was nearly blinded.
“It's clinical.” Honey stood, her hand caressing the railing. Her age had finally caught up with her. “And it's quick. There's only a few seconds of fear before the patient's memory gets wiped. The transformation is instant.”
“I can see it.” Those were the only words Huxley could find. It was like he had finally seen a ghost. There were dozens of ways he could describe it, but the mere fact that it existed at all obliterated every single one until the only thing left was a mere statement that it was there, that he could see it.
Honey would have laughed then. But she just looked down at Huxley. She meekly placed her hand on his shoulder. He accepted it. “Are you okay? Do you think you can handle this?”
Huxley paused. “I don't know.”
It was shaped like a cross. A superstructure hundreds of meters wide and thousands tall, as if a deity had stabbed it into the Earth thousands of years ago. Thick walls of steel, decorated with shredded metal designs that covered every wall. At the center of the cross, where the cacophony of stone and metal met, was a massive chamber made of glass walls with intricate, golden frames. There was something inside. It was a monster. It was a subtherium.
A platform surrounded the chamber, carved with the same intricate designs. Dozens of faceless, white-labcoated things walked on top of it, frantically typing away at computers and printing out test results and bickering with each other. It was like watching ants trying to operate a computer. There was no sense of understanding, only that doing this had made the machine work before, so we must do it again.
An alarm sounded as the walls to the chamber closed around the subtherium. Red warning lights flashed as all of the researchers took a few steps away. White gas flooded the chamber, hiding the monster for a moment. Then, there was a guttural groan so loud it rattled the platform and caused some of the researchers to collapse. It was the voice of something below.
Just when the platform seemed about to break off and fall into the dark pit below, it was over. The gas cleared and the doors opened. Inside was a lone naked woman. Two security guards, clad in night-black armor and carrying heavy machine guns, escorted her out. She didn't fight them. Huxley's eyes drifted to the long, long line of subtheriums behind her. Guards flanked each one, their fingers resting on the triggers of their firearms.
“Is this why this place is…” Huxley mumbled. Honey shook her head. She didn't know.
“The machine can alter reality,” she said. “I don't know how, and I don't know how they found it. I didn't know it was real for the longest time. I thought it was just a codename for a medical procedure. But it's not. There's no magic here. It's just like rewriting bad lines of code. Anything that goes in becomes whatever the SCP Foundation wants it to be.”
Huxley's eyes stinged, but no tears came out. He wasn't holding them back, there were just none left. He looked up at Honey. “Why… why are you showing me this?”
She sighed. “I've been working here for a long time, Huxley. A lot longer than you have. Next month will be twenty-six years. I joined back when they had those old recruitment posters up as colleges.” Honey chuckled. “I had no clue what I was doing. They placed me in some Site in Ohio that closed a week after I got there.”
Honey shook her head as another subtherium stepped into the chamber. She turned and sat, refusing to look any longer. As she spoke, the sound of the machine slowly faded into the background.
“This job is really good at just… getting you going. Before I knew it, I was in my thirties and then I was in my forties and everything just goes so fast. You don't have time to think about how you could have treated a patient better because you have to treat another the next day and your budget is always shrinking and you're constantly worrying about if you can afford to live off-Site for another year. It's all confusion. I don't know what I'm doing anymore, I just do it.”
Honey's voice became shaky. “But… when I saw you in that bad, with those casts on your leg, I think it sparked something. There was this tiny little voice in my head that kept saying Are you helping him? and I don't… I don't think I want to do this anymore.” She was shaking. Her eyes were tearing up. “There this, um, log I have. A patient log. I have to keep track of which patients decide to get treatment and which I approve to leave. I was looking through it and… Huxley,” she looked into his eyes, “only twelve people left.”
She stared at him, trembling, waiting for a reaction. When none came, she buried her face in her hands as she sobbed. “I came here because I wanted to help people. I wanted to make people feel happy. But I… I sent thousands to that machine and only sent twelve away.”
“B-But they chose to do that, didn't they?” Huxley took on a comforting tone. “You helped them—”
“I fucking kill people, Huxley!” Honey erupted. “I don't help them. I don't make them better, I just make sure they don't slit their wrists until their procedure day! It's those… goddamnit, it's those therapies they send me. I knew what they did to those people, but I just did it because I was too much of an idiot to think for five seconds.”
She turned away from Huxley, too ashamed to even look at him anymore. Her voice had lost all composure, stuttering and jittering with every syllable. “And I-I try to understand, you know. I think about what it's like to be in that situation and… it's like looking at a doll. I see this people — these bright, beautiful people's souls get crushed. They lose all their color, like they're rotting away right in front of me. A-And when I was in the hospital room, I saw you and you looked so tired. I can't do it anymore. I can't, Huxley.”
Honey continued to sob. She withdrew more and more until it appeared that her body would never unwind again. Huxley didn't know what to do, and a few grueling seconds passed. Then something else inside him took control. He gently raised his hand and placed it on her shoulder. He comforted her. Honey turned, and for a moment they locked eyes with each other. She saw something inside them, and so did he.
“Huxley,” she asked, “do you want to leave?”
His face lit up. “What?”
“Do you want to leave? The only thing you need is my signature. You wouldn't have a job anymore, but you'd be able to leave. You would have your memories, your body, everything. The SCP Foundation would never be able to take you back. Unless you, you know, murder someone or something like that.” Honey laughed, and Huxley laughed with her.
Huxley looked down at his hands — his gray, wrinkled, lifeless hands — and said, “I… I don't know.”
“You only have a few minutes, Huxley. You're schedule to be treated today, in an hour. But I still have time to sign you out.” Honey grabbed his hand and held it in hers. “I can do that, but if you… want to be treated, then I'll let you. You wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. You wouldn't have to worry about everybody hating you. You'd be safe forever.”
Huxley stared at the ground. He closed his eyes and said something to himself, something that Honey couldn't understand.
“Just say yes or no. You don't need to explain why. I just want one simple word, but it has to be your final choice,” Honey said.
Huxley thought for a long time. Then, he opened his eyes and said one simple word.

Huxley sat at the top of a tall hill overlooking a beach. The sun flew high in the sky, showering everything in soft white light. The wind breezed against him gently. In the distance, a bird glided down close to the sea, dangerously close to the water. But it flew with confidence, somehow knowing that it would be okay.
He crossed one leg over the other and leaned his head back against the warm park bench. He gazed into the clear blue sky overhead. A few clouds passed by, but none were large enough to disrupt the beauty of the simple color. A squirrel shot up a nearby tree, rattling the branches.
The sound of crunching grass broke him out of his daydream. He looked down the hill and saw a woman leaning against an oak tree that had lost all of its leaves. Behind her was a sleek black car that was parked on the side of an empty road that stretched around the coastal mountains and cliffs.
Her clothes were professional, like she had just gotten off work. A pair of sunglasses rested on her forehead. If she tilted her head slightly, they would fall down onto her eyes, but for now they remained there. She waved. Huxley returned the gesture with a slight raising of his hand. He wasn't sure if they were friends or not.
The woman laughed. Even though Huxley couldn't hear her, he knew the sound was beautiful. It was confident; it was self-assured. It knew that in this moment, on this hill in this tiny outcrop of land, on this road that nobody had travelled down in years, under this sun and these clouds, and surrounded by these waters, nothing could hurt it. Huxley held that image in his mind for a few seconds as he considered how to respond. Then, the woman simply smiled at him.
And Huxley smiled back.

THE END


The shape undulates over top of the open bowl that was once my dad. His brown, engorged intestines slip over one another, sucked out of the hole in his gut and into the cavernous mouth of the thing — the thing that looks like a potato sack made of skin with a human skeleton stuffed inside it, its bowels expanding with the addition of pounds upon pounds of excreta.
My stomach aches just looking at it.
"Are you going to eat that?"
I blink several times. Dad sits across the table from me, avoiding my unerring gaze that I only just realize I am giving. I shake my head lightly, and will myself back into the present.
"Yes, Mom," I say.
I turn my eyes back down to my plate. Breakfast. Eggs and sausage. I finger the fork in my hand, twisting it a time or two. This isn't enough, I almost say out loud. Instead, I spear a sausage link, and take a bite. Mom watches me, stationed at the kitchen, washing dishes. Dad wipes his mouth, stands, and takes his leave. I force another bite, and hope that the growling of my stomach isn't as audible to my parents as it is in my own ears.
Once Mom stops watching me, and Dad has gone upstairs, I hunch over my plate and begin to shovel it into my mouth. I have no time to decorate the eggs with ketchup or mix the sausage with syrup. Everything becomes a slurry as it melts together on my tongue, and I can't care less about the taste.
I set my plate back down, satisfied that Mom's gaze was elsewhere. I lick my fingers, and stand. "Okay. I'm off to school. See you."
"Goodbye," she says flatly, then turning to side-eye my plate. "I can't believe you ate all of that."
It wasn't enough, I think. She doesn't listen to me, though. She just returns to her meaningless dishes, thinking no one's noticed she's been working on one glass for the last half hour. I pretend not to hear her breathing strain as I walk into the foyer, grab my backpack, and put on my shoes.
"Wrestling match after school, Mom," I remind her.
"We'll be there," she assures me.
They won't.
The morning passes without event as I consume my box lunch discretely during my first couple periods. I get food from the cafeteria twice and no one notices. I try to ration out the second lunch across my last two periods but can hardly help myself. The kid sitting in front of me in algebra turns around a couple times to catch me eating an apple I have trouble keeping silent, but doesn't rat me out.
When the last bell rings, I'm the first person out the door. The hallways are crowded with students making it to the buses, parking lots, or after-school activities. I, for one, am headed to the wrestling gym, to smell like sweat and hormones in the presence of the rest of the frustrated young men who've decided this is a good way to get aggression out.
Once there, I get very little recognition from the coach or anyone else. Which is good, because I need to make a pitstop. Before getting changed, I walk briskly to the bathroom, and find an unoccupied stall. I close the door, hunch over the toilet, and cough out thick brown blood that slops into the piss-stained water.
It comes out more like phlegm than blood. Coagulated, chunks. Maybe some bits of something or other in it. I can't tell. I just know my stomach fucking hurts, and it hasn't stopped hurting for a week. More than my stomach, even. The pain has crept up and out, so that it feels like my whole torso is painted with chronic, tearing pain.
I stay in that hunched position until I'm sure nothing more is coming out. I rip off a square of toilet paper, wipe my mouth and then my forehead. Okay, I think, that's done with.
I stand, heave for a moment, and then exit. There's a boy at the sink who's pretending not to have heard me, and I give him a look through the mirror to remind him that he's making the right call. I wash my hands, splash my face with water, and I feel ready. I feel pumped.
I get to the lockers, pull my clothes out of my locker, and then locate a spot to change where no one will see me. I strip down to my underwear, and then begin to pull on the black-and-gold wrestling jumpsuit.
"Hrm." I hear a voice to my right.
Shit. I turn, and my fears are confirmed. It's coach. And he's looking at me and my bare chest, shamefully hiding my body from my peers.
He purses his lips, and he doesn't have to say anything.
"I'm eating a lot," I say. He opens his mouth to interrupt me, but I jut in: "I hit the gym every night!"
"How much is a lot?" He pries.
I struggle to keep my temper under control. "A lot!"
"Hey, hey, hey. Kid." He's got that tone he gets, that tone when you can really tell he doesn't give two shits about you. "I'm just worried how you fit with the team, is all. I mean, just last month you were too heavy. I mean, I can't tell if you're taking this seriously."
I silently seethe and turn my head. Not to hide my shame, but because if I look at him, I might explode.
"If I pretend I didn't see this," he gestures to my ribs, "you're gonna get pummeled out there. You can't even make the lowest weight class."
"You weighed me," I plead. "A week ago, I was one-oh-four, you saw it, that's good enough, I can compete."
He just raises his eyebrows, and then shakes his head. "It's your choice, pal. I'll let it slide today, but you'd better still be a hundred six next time we check. Comprende?"
He waits for a response. I don't give him one. I pull up the rest of the jumpsuit, and I walk out into the crowd of kids. He has no right to talk to me like that. I'm one of the best wrestlers on the team and he knows it. He's seen it. It wouldn't matter if I weighed ninety.
After some impromptu practice matches that I sit out on, the coach ushers us into the gym. Immediately, we go from the snuffed acoustics of the lockers into the echoing rumble of the crowd. On each side of the gym, parents and friends from different schools sit, chattering away, adding to the thrum that bounces back and forth across the ring. On the opposite end of the gym, the opposing team are lined up in their blue-and-white uniforms.
I put on my ear guards and do a couple stretches while the coaches meet in the middle and talk. The lineup goes from lowest weight classes to highest, so I'm up first. In this suit, from far away, it looks like I could be one-oh-six, and if my opponent is surprised, then that's more advantage for me.
Some announcer does the whole spiel which I can barely hear through the ear guards. I'm not listening. Well, until I hear my name.
"…Kaleo Tweed!" The announcer blasts. My heart pumps. My muscles tense. Pain courses through my trunk like the persistent gnawing of wood-boring beetles. That's strength, I assure myself. I jog to the center, to meet my opponent. I didn't catch his name, but he's stringy. What you'd expect, people of our size. I'm taller, but he's fuller. From the look in his eyes, I can tell he sees that.
We shake hands, as is customary, and then lean down, which makes the pain stab for a moment. Muffled from my ear guards, I can hear the cheerleaders doing something. It's just girl-voice static rising above the rest of the rumbling speech in the gymnasium, another flavor of stimulus and adrenaline.
The referee puts a hand between us, and motions in time with his countdown. Three, two, one…
Head to head, body to body, each of us rush to fill the center like air after a lightning strike, and the contact is nearly just as electric. Hands to his shoulders, his hands to mine. Neutral. Normal. Openings for attack. I reach for his side, attempting to throw him off balance, but he bats it away. He's pushing me back. I scramble for a foothold, but I'm just sliding. Sliding?
When have I seen someone just slide?
He copies my maneuver, taking advantage of my momentary confusion. He accomplishes the same task, pushing me off my balance, but he accomplishes more than just that. As his hand meets my stomach and pushes, my insides churn.
Bubbles of cramp constrict my whole chest, and I lose focus on reality. It hurts. It fucking hurts. In the brief interlude between conscious states, my eyes catch on my opponent's gritted teeth and turn it into a white, shining dream.
Sweat and salt mix in my mouth. Cheers. My heart pumps like it's trying to run away from the hole below it, my muscles scream.
I don't know how it happened, but when I come back to, he's on top of me, pushing me to the ground, keeping me on my stick-leg knees, and he's so heavy. He's stronger. He weighs more. It's not enough, I lament. I pound a hand on the ground.
It's not enough!
His hand, pressed onto the ground in front of my face. His fingers, like little sausages.
More weight, I think, as he yelps. He strikes the back of my head, hard, knocking me to the floor. The referee blows the whistle, shrill, shrieking, ringing throughout my head while the world spins around me, dizzy, disoriented. I'm exhausted. I'm so hungry. I could eat anything.
Someone is yelling at me while I stand up. The opponent is explaining how he struck in self defense. The coach tries to catch me, bring me into the conversation, but I'm running. I'm veering, I'm bumping into things, but I'm running.
I have to get home.
I have to catch the bus and make it to a fridge, or something. Something to fill the hole. At the front of my school, I find a bike by some talking kids on the front steps. Transportation. I mount it and ignore the instant yells behind me, aided by my ear guards, which I remember in time to take off and throw to the wind before careening down the street, homeward bound.
I'm hunched over the handlebars the whole way home, like maybe squeezing my stomach will make it feel less empty.
Eight dizzy minutes and I'm at my front lawn. I dismount the bike and let it roll forwards and fall over on my fence.
My shaking hands have trouble opening the front gate. I walk past the two cypresses flanking the front door, picking the spare key from out of the branches. It's faster than knocking and waiting for one of my dumbass parents to let me in.
The door opens, and I immediately turn left towards the kitchen, flinging the key to the floor and leaving the door open behind me. Priorities are different now.
What I walk in on is… unnerving. Out-of-place enough that even my desperation gives pause to consider the best course of action.
The fridge is open. The freezer, too. Vegetables, fruits, meats, all half-eaten, are spread across the floor, along with spillings of milk, chicken broth, vegetable oil. Butter. Leftover takeout, ice cream. Even the spice drawer has been opened and emptied. Everything mixes into swirling brown puddles on the floor.
For the first time in hours, I just stand and breathe. I take a wide angle to get a better look into the fridge. Entirely empty, as expected. I walk over some plates that seemed to be shattered in the crossfire, along with that one glass. The one Mom was washing.
I look at the ground. There are footsteps coated in the grime, and there's a knocked over chair in the hallway before the stairs. Several smears of the kitchen mixture coat the first two steps, and little dots trail upwards.
I try listening, but all I can hear is the ringing in my ears and my pumping heart. There might be some kind of rustling upstairs, but it's just as likely to be the swishing of blood in my head. "Mom?" I hear myself say, to no response.
I plod my way to the bottom of the stairwell, and look up towards the door to my parent's bedroom. "Dad?"
A brief eternity passes, and then I find myself taking my first steps up the stairs. The door is open, and there's light coming from inside. I keep my steps light and quiet, hoping to sneak up on whatever has happened. As I approach, it becomes undeniable. Some noise is emanating from the room. Squeaking floorboards, the taps of shoes and hands on wooden surfaces. And something worse. Something wet.
As I reach the top of the steps, my eyes can finally see over the landing and into the door. I stop my ascent immediately.
Mom is on the floor, and it looks like she's retching, faced away from me. She shakes, and shifts weight unexpectedly, jolting and twitching, combined with a lot of heavy breathing and some mashing wet noises.
I just watch her for a moment. Then I take the final steps, and see just what it is she is hunched over.
Once my sole touches the inside of the door frame, her whole body jolts and her head snaps back to look at me, like I am a fly who has just landed in her web. My eyes drift to her bounty, and my empty stomach howls.
I masticate on air, and a string of drool escapes from my bottom lip and trails down my chin. Back to Mom. She hasn't moved.
It happens so fast, I can't tell who strikes first.
We tumble into a tangled ball on the floor, each of us then scrambling to get our limbs into a defensible position, footholds and handholds on the wood, and I guess Mom gets there first, because all of a sudden, her hands are on my neck.
I cough at the pressure on my larynx, and the cough makes things worse because nothing can come up, nothing makes it past her iron grip. Her eyes stare daggers into mine, her breathing pushing saliva and blood through her bared teeth to spray down onto my face, while I try in vain to grab at her forearms and push her off of me. She opens her mouth, wider than anyone should be able to, and instinct kicks in. I pull back my arm, and punch the back of her throat.
By instinct, she bites down, but the damage is done. She retches as I fumble and then take hold of her uvula, ignoring the pain in my forearm. She coughs, and gags, and then eventually her body gives up, and she hunches over, expelling blood onto my face and chest, letting go of my arm. The strength goes out in her grip, and one swift jab to her inner elbow sends her onto her side and off of me. I take the advantage, standing up and delivering a kick to her head.
She yelps at the damage, but grabs my leg and tugs me into a horizontal position again. She tries to take the opportunity to regain her position over top of me, but I quickly push away, rising to a kneel, and lunging back at her instead. Now, the roles are reversed, but I don't use my hands, I use my knee. Her throat, crushed under my leg. But I can't give her any amount of respite. While my hands are free, I find her eyes.
She would scream if she had the air to do so. Blind and immobilized, her legs kick out frantically, and she sinks her nails into my exposed calves, but I withstand. I take the risk of lifting my knee for one second, only to bring it down with force.
I think I feel something crack. That's what I was looking for.
I stand up, and remove myself from striking distance. She flails and wheezes, getting onto her knees but unable to summon enough strength to stand, looking but not looking through her punctured eyes, aqueous humor mixing with blood and crying down her cheeks. I scramble to a corner, and wait it out, trying to contain my breathing as much as possible.
For a whole minute, she crawls around the room, her attempts at breathing coming out closer to the bray of a dying donkey, bumping into furniture and walls. Then she slows, and looks down, and coughs blood, and slumps, and falls, and stops.
I'm left with the ringing in my ears and the thumping of my heart. I win, I think to myself. Food, I think next.
I try to walk, but my strength gives out. I feel hollow. A hand goes over my stomach and presses down on the center of pain, only to find that my skin has give. It's springy. Like there's nothing underneath.
I almost chuckle. Bigger problems, I think. I yield to dragging myself to Mom's dinner. Dad's half-eaten corpse, his legs sloppily gnawed to the bones and his lower abdomen started on. I can feel the pain from my torso beginning to eat at my extremities, the beginnings of my arms and legs, and I stop being able to move forward. I fall down next to Dad's arm.
His fingers, like sausages.
While my body eats itself from the inside-out, I at least have food, because fuck, I am starving.


Huxley was in the same hospital bed in the same hospital room. The curtains were the same. The air was the same. The world didn't notice that anything had gone wrong.
There was a dark shadow in the corner, one that he couldn't fully make out. The details were jumbled together in his foggy mind. Only when Honey stepped closer did he recognize her familiar smile. She was shaking a little, and extended a nervous hand to his bed.
"Hey, are you awake?" she whispered.
"Yeah. I know you."
Honey nodded. She rocked back and forth, confused as to what to say next. "Um. Are you having any symptoms that I should know about? You took a pretty bad fall back there."
"Why are you here?"
"I just said why." Honey tilted her head. "You had a fit and I'm watching over you. That's what counselors do, Huxley. We protect our patients. Did you forget that?"
"No, I mean…" Huxley propped a pillow behind him. "H-How long was I out for?"
"Half-an-hour."
"Oh."
"The meeting was cancelled," Honey said. There was a small stack of folders resting on a chair beside her. "I, um, I have something important to show you."
The weak mattress lurched, causing Huxley to sink slightly. Honey didn't seem to notice, though. She dropped a folder stuffed full of paper at his feet, and as she watched him open it, a look of concern grew on her face. She rubbed the back of her neck and tried to search for something to say.
"Huxley, do you remember what happened before you passed out?"
Huxley hesitated. Was that meant to be a tell? Usually he would have been able to tell by instinct, but today something was suppressing that power. "We were talking about something. I don't remember what."
Honey nodded. She pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, straightened it, and laid it face down in front of him.
Everything in Huxley's head ordered him to flip it over, until he reached over to actually do so. Then they screamed at him to keep it as it was. Huxley examined Honey's face. It was blank. He could sense her holding something back behind her eyes.
He flipped the paper. His eyes fell.
“You…”
Honey threw her hands up. “Before you freak out—”
“Wait, wait, wait, shut up. Why are we doing this now? There are plenty of other things we can try. There's a mountain of things. And I… I didn't do anything wrong. How is that fair? I did every single thing right and I still lose?”
“Huxley, it's not about winning or losing—”
“Did I say something? Did I say something that made you concerned for my health?” Huxley laughed. “I mean, it's hilarious because you know nobody else in that room cares about what they say. I care about it much more than them. The only reason they're cooperating is so you don't sign them off to treatment. And of course they're lying to you.. Do you even know that? Do you know they're lying or are you just too fucking stupid to realize?” He threw the papers back at her face.
"Shut up! You fas—"
The ends of Honey's eyes curled up like she was going to fly into a rage. She took a deep breath and forced herself into a calm tone, “Huxley, we are just trying to help you. Do you know that? I want you to get better, but if you don't want to get better, then nothing here is going to work.”
“Stop.” There must have been some blurb in her training manual that talked about situations like these, one that trained her to always say the same speech. “Please, just stop. You keep saying that you want to help me and you keep saying that like it's going to make it true, but it won't. You're not trying to help me, Honey.”
His voice was emotionless. That hit Honey in a place she hadn't felt in a long time. She held her hand to her mouth for a moment, trying to regain her composure. She knew she had to push back, but something was holding her back. “Huxley, I'm really sorry, but this is really the best option I can give you. You wanted this, don't you remember? You said you did.”
Huxley slammed his foot against the edge of his bed, causing part of it to break apart off and fall onto the ground with a bang so loud it caused both of them to jump. His foot wailed as if it was broken. It screamed that he just wanted to get himself killed sooner. The pain brought tears to his eyes.
“Stop fucking lying to me! I'm not stupid, Honey! I know how this works! I know what you're trained to say to me. They put a chapter in your book about how to talk to employees, didn't they? Why did you have to say this was a choice? Why? T-This right here?” He snatched the crumpled-up paper and showed it to her. “This isn't a choice, it's a fucking death trap. I was never going to get your signature. I was never going to get out of here. You have to be… delusional or… something to get me to think… that…”
His face fell.
She was crying. Honey was crying. Her face turned red as hot streaks of water streamed down her cheeks. Even though Huxley's mind told him not to feel bad for this woman, this pawn, he did. He hushed her hundreds of times, but each time Honey just moved a little further away. She slapped herself to try and get her tear ducts to quit in fear.
“Stop.” Honey cut off her crying and wiped away the traces. “I'm sorry. That was… Fuck… that was unprofessional. Let me… I just need a second, okay?”
Huxley didn't say anything as Honey turned and exited. Through the translucent windows he watched her pull herself together. Her shape was something that Huxley couldn't take his eyes off of. Her hunched over silhouette, hands pressed to her face, then to her knees, then back to her face. It was like an elaborate dance. When she entered again, there were red marks around her eyes and strands of hair dangling in front of her face.
“I don't know,” was the first thing she said. “I don't know what to do with you, Huxley. I've tried to do everything, but we haven't gotten anywhere. Whenever I try to be cheerful, you say I'm lying. Whenever I try to be forceful, you say I'm being cruel.”
“Wait, what are you talking about? Isn't the point of all… this,” Huxley waved his hand across the bed, “to get me to still be here?”
“I want you to make a decision.”
The air was still.
Huxley nodded, acknowledging something that was quickly choking up the air. It was something psychic, something he had felt dozens of times before but had never been able to put a name to. “But it works!” she exclaimed. “I-I've seen graphs and statistics and testimonials from these people and it's just magical. They're happy, Huxley — happy. For the first time in their life. They make friends, they find jobs, their lives are made better.”
“You're still trying to sell me on the treatment, aren't you?” Huxley drew back, anger seeping into his jaws. “I don't want it. I've said it since the day I got here, I don't want the procedure. You said I had a choice. You said I could leave if I wanted to.”
“Huxley…” Honey's head was hanging low. His words were poisoning her. “Before you passed out, you said you wanted the treatment.”
He burst into a fit of laughter. He slapped his knees so hard they burned and wheezed so hard his lungs were sore. Once or twice he glanced up at Honey. She didn't look guilty, nor was she offended. The only thing on her face was utter acceptance, burdened with the knowledge that there was no more she could do. That killed Huxley's laughter.
He just stared at her for a few minutes. His mind refused to let him respond. He couldn't have lost. This couldn't be it. Words would begin to form only for a shiver to run through his body and shut them down. He didn't want to speak. He didn't want to see the next day.
“B-b… But I don't want it anymore.”
"That's not how it works, Huxley."
The buzzer on Honey's belt went off, beeping and rattling and screaming its annoying cry. A slight grimace appeared on her face as she examined it.
“I have to go. The old man needs me.” Then she was gone.
Huxley's mind was scrambled. He craved an answer, something that would douse the fire in his mind. He never did find it, though. He had scrounged through the remains of long-buried memories and tore down his relationships and roared at the world, desperate to find something beneath it all. He was still digging. Before, he would've died surrounded by things he never had a liking towards. Now all he could do was hope that maybe somebody will murder him.
His eyes moved to the stack of folders. Honey had forgotten to take them in her hurry. That didn't matter much; it would only take her a few minutes to realize her mistake. However, right now Huxley had free reign over their contents.
He snatched one off the top. It had the word 'SUBTHE-219' printed on the cover. He flipped it open, and his eyes widened at the sight of his mugshot. It was the same picture that was on his identification card.
The only other thing in the folder was a description file: two paragraphs full of tiny, almost unreadable words. Only by holding the pages a few centimeters from his face was he able to read it.

Description: Late 20s to early 30s. Heavily deformed. Uses a wheelchair due to severe muscle deterioration. Threat of physical harm is very low. Threat of psychological/emotional harm is very low. Currently employed at Site-49.
Interactions: No known partners. No known family. No known close friends. One known acquaintance Two known acquaintances: coworker and mission partner. Relationships do not appear to be developing. Recommended strategy for engagement is to build trust using constant positivity and clear milestones. If uncooperative, forced treatment is advised.

Huxley's eyes sank into his skull. He wanted to be asleep again. Honey must have been carrying this around as a guide. Was this what she was basing her therapy off of? Reading through it reminded him of Emma and how she smiled and nodded while everything around her was falling apart. Constant positivity and clear milestones. The phrase made him ashamed because he knew it was true. He needed those things more than food or water.
The final line was halfway down the page.

Requires Treatment (Y/N): Yes (AS SOON AS POSSIBLE)

The response was hand-written and sloppy, like somebody had scribbled it on only a few minutes ago. An image appeared in his mind: Honey writing those words during one of the meetings while he was talking about Emma or the SCP Foundation or the world at large, a plastic smile on her face as she stared back at Huxley and waited for him to reveal another secret she could use as justification.
Huxley cried quiet tears. Millions of thoughts banged at the gates of his mind, each one screaming their case over the other like a furious mob. He was a subtherium! He was scum! He was the thing that was meant to be destroyed! The meaningless blades stabbed into him again and again.
“Emma,” he cried. “Where's Emma?”

It took Honey almost half an hour to realize her mistake. By then, Huxley's eyes had dried up and he almost looked presentable. She couldn't give him an answer — she didn't know one.
The golden hour was over. The sun was extinguished. Huxley stared at the last surviving beams of light in the window. They were slowly turning black. he didn't feel afraid of the night anymore, only a slight pity like he was watching a child fall to their death from far away. The absurdity made him chuckle. Huxley's mind still had the ability to drag itself down further.
Then something strange occurred.
Huxley felt something in his hands. It was the papers. The words were still there, broken typeface and all. He couldn't have been holding them, he thought. Honey took them away, didn't she? That's how this was supposed to go. It was just his mind again. Still, something inside him was curious.
He opened the folder and stared at his photograph. He stared into his own eyes. In only a few hours, those eyes would be gone. Those dark brown irises would be torn apart and reassembled into something human: a beautiful, pure set of blue irises. He would lose his bitter memories, he would die, then he would be reborn.
His hand, almost like it had a mind of its own, slapped him. Rebellious thoughts invaded his mind. No, no, it shouted, the procedure isn't going to correct him. It was going to brutalize him. It was going to strip him of everything that made Huxley Williams what he was. He couldn't try to justify murder. He couldn't keep getting seduced by spirals.
He didn't have time to answer paradoxes. There were only a few hours left of his life. He should be spending them on anything other than this.
Huxley could hear the seconds ticking by. He hadn't noticed it before, but the hospital room had a small clock at the top of one of the walls. It ticked by, second by second, minute by minute. He watched the hands as they spun around in circles. He admired it. The clock didn't care about the conditions of the world or the morality of the organization that ran it, it only cared about what time it was. It needed no instruction, no pathfinder, no guide. It simply did.
The sky was all black now. Night was here. If he were lucky, they would come for him in the morning. That was twelve hours or so. This was Huxley's final night on this planet. When the sun came again, another wrinkle in the universe would be flattened out.
Huxley pulled the bedsheets up to his chest. He took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. There was nothing in his mind. No emotion, no thoughts, no last-minute pleas for somebody to save him. Acceptance was the only thing left.
NO.
Huxley shot up. He would've been terrified had he not realized where the voice was coming from. It was a hallucination. He was hallucinating. His mind had fully declared itself independent, and now the world was warping the world around him.
YOU'RE GIVING UP? NO FIGHT? NO LAST STAND? NOTHING?
“Yes.” Huxley said.
YOU'RE BLINDING YOURSELF. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO.
“I've tried everything. There's nothing more I can do. I never had a chance in the first place.”
TAKE ONE MORE LOOK.
Huxley continued looking at the ceiling.
IT CAN'T HURT YOU.
He groaned and sat up, wiping the slumber from his eyes. There was something sitting on the corner of his bed. He squinted, and the shadows disappeared. It was the folders.
Huxley called out to the dark, “What am I supposed to do with this? Is this supposed to convince them that I'm worth keeping?”
NOT FOR THEM. FOR YOU.
He looked down and saw that the folders were now on his lap. A sliver of moonlight illuminated them. He ran his fingers across the one on top. It even felt real. He flipped open the page, but instead of being greeted by his own face, he was saw somebody else's. They were old, but with a youthful beard. Their eyes pierced through Huxley, stripping away his defenses.
Huxley remembered that man. That man found him back when he was just an amalgamation of flesh and brains. That man split him apart and stitched him back into something recognizable. That man gave him life. It was life that Huxley had stolen, life that somebody else should've received.
That man was FATHER.
His eyes watered. “This is another punishment, isn't it? I know I deserve to die for what I did. I keep trying to tell you, I know that, I know that, but you don't ever…”
NO. WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?
“He died.” Huxley slammed the file shut. “He was conducting an unsafe ritual when the Pulse occurred and now I'm here and he's now."
LOOK.
The voice sparked something. Fear crept through Huxley. He needed to see FATHER. He needed to make amends before it was too late. He flipped to the next page. It was a recovery report, one from just a few days ago. He flew through the page as if he already knew the words.
“No…” Huxley said. “He's… still here?”
FATHER didn't die. Somebody found his after the Pulse and managed to piece together what bits of brain and skull and flesh were left. The crew delivered him, blind and half-crazy, to the SCP Foundation. They kept him alive for years. Stapled onto the bottom of the page was a Site transferral report. He was here right now.
Huxley closed his eyes, half-hoping that the folder would disappear when he opened them again. There was still a part of him that said that it was pointless. He couldn't keep going on wild goose chases hoping that it'll fix the mistakes he made.
WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO FIX THEM?
He shook his head. “I don't know. I know I'll never solve this, but I… I just don't know.”
IT ISN'T TRUE. HE'S HERE.
“No he's not—”
Something stole Huxley's attention. There was a shadow on the other side of the door. It was malformed at first, but soon it took on a human form: FATHER. FATHER was still for a moment before turning and scampering away. Huxley's skin grew pale.
GO.
He couldn't disobey.
An unstoppable, untamable energy entered his body and he found himself sliding off of the bed and sprinting to the door. His legs didn't have time to hurt. His inhibitions were weak, and with every step they lost a little more strength. He clawed at the walls for stability.
The hospital was long behind him now. Only bright lights and grime-covered floors and blood and shit and concrete were ahead. He pushed through it all. Huxley reached for FATHER, but he was always slightly out of reach. No matter how fast he ran, he was too slow.
FASTER.
Huxley's legs were blood red. Bruises spread across his calves like a virus. He couldn't feel his feet. His body only had minutes left.
More corridors. More hallways. More cell blocks. It felt like he was running in circles — he was running in circles. Huxley dug his nails into a wall to swing himself around a corner when one of his legs blew out. He slammed to the ground, nearly cracking his head open. Fire tore through his body. Feedback was blaring in his ears.
Then the cramps hit. His leg felt like it was slowly being twisted and snapped into pieces. He screamed. He didn't have time. He needed to run, but his body wouldn't cooperate. His mind couldn't suppress the pain anymore. It forced itself down his mouth and throat. He couldn't even hear himself scream.
A hellish handful of seconds passed. He tried to breathe in deeply, but was barely able to suck in enough air to keep him conscious. There was ringing in his ears. It was the loudest sound he had ever heard. It spun and spun and spun and spun around until he was begging for it to just end already. Why couldn't it end?
“Hello?”
It was a voice. Not the one in Huxley's mind, but somebody else — somebody real. Huxley suspected it was Honey, hunting for him.
“Who's there? Is that you, Honey?” The voice came again. Now, Huxley could hear it more clearly. It was older and muted, like they were speaking through a mask. It couldn't be Honey, he thought. It only helped a little.
“No,” Huxley called out. Anything was better than Honey. He could lie about his injuries. He could lie about the security footage.
“Mr. Williams? Why are you out of your cell?”
Huxley grinned. He remembered that voice. It was Robert's, the man in the gray suit, one of the people Huxley had spilled his life story to. It was coming from the other side of a containment chamber door.
“Robert!” he exclaimed. “Oh, thank you Robert!”
“You're not supposed to be here. Wait, did something terrible happen? Are there subtheriums in the Site?”
Huxley pulled one of his legs forward. It was still raw and seizing with pain, but he managed to maneuver himself to the door. He clung, hunched over, onto the handle. He looked up and saw the locking mechanism: a facial scan. Huxley's heart dropped.
“I can't…” He propped himself against the wall to keep his balance. “I can't open the door. It's a… fuck! It's a facial scanner, I'm not, ugh, in the system anymore.”
“The door isn't locked.”
“W-What?”
“Just open it.”
Huxley's hands pressed against the door. A layer of rust fell off its hinges as it slowly opened, revealing Robert on the other side. He was lying on a stainless steel ledge like the one in Huxley's room. An array of machines were crowded beside him, each one beeping and ticking and clicking at different rates. The subtherium's flesh was gray. He looked like a vampire.
“Oh…” Huxley mumbled. One of the machines, a heart-rate monitor he guessed, lit up red and began beeping rapidly. It quieted down just for another machine to light up and take its place.
“These machines keep me alive. That one checks if I'm still alive and that one monitors that machine to see if it's still working, and I think there's another backup somewhere in here. It's very complicated, but it keeps me safe.” Robert gestured around with a weak hand. “I can hardly move.”
Huxley wanted to step inside, but his legs were frozen in place. They pulled back, insisting that he shouldn't enter. Slumber was causing his eyelids to droop and his heart to slow, but he kept his head still, afraid that if he rocked it forward a little too much he would black out.
“You're not well, Huxley.” Robert took in a mechanical breath. “You should really consider going back to your room.”
“You're no… better.”
“You're not wrong.” Robert looked down and grimaced. “Oh Lord, you can barely even walk!”
“I can't feel my legs.”
“I'm surprised they're still working at all.”
Huxley grunted. Panic was starting to build up inside him again. “Honey will be here soon,” he said.
“No, no, don't worry about her catching you. Somebody else called her over, the arrogant one. If you hurry, you can make it back and she won't be able to tell the difference. Sometimes, she doesn't even bother monitoring the cameras! Heh. I don't blame her. What is there to monitor?”
Huxley's head bobbed up and down. That was the only way he could nod. His legs both cramped again, shooting another round of adrenaline up his spine. He gritted his teeth, nearly breaking them, and continued to stand. If they were burning, that meant he could feel them; if he could feel them, that meant they still worked.
“I'm not going back to my room, Robert,” Huxley said. Robert was quiet for a second. He readjusted his oxygen mask, making his voice sound distant.
“Huxley. May I ask why you are here?” There was fear in his voice, and pity. It grated against Huxley's ears as he imagined what Richard was thinking.
“I'm looking for FATHER.”
“Your father is likely dead, I'm afraid. I imagine he was a subtherium like you?”
“No, not that. I don't have a father. I'm just looking for… I don't know what it is, but I need it. I need him. More than I need Honey, more than I need the SCP Foundation or Emma or… whatever else there is. I just have to see him. I have to talk to him.”
“You sound like a madman, Huxley.”
“Maybe.” Huxley let out a guttural cry of pain and hope. “Ah! I don't care! It doesn't matter! Everybody else is gone. There's nothing left but the fucking needle. If chasing a ghost will make me feel a little better before that happens, then I'll chase it until I'm gone.”
“You can't catch a ghost, Huxley. And even if you could, what happens when you do? Do your problems disappear? Does Honey let you leave? Are you happy?”
His flesh was splitting apart. He let out a throat-tearing scream and fell to his knees. “I don't know!” he roared. His eyes were twitching uncontrollably. His tongue rattled in his mouth, causing him to stutter. “And I might… die, but I… can walk… I can… still run.”
He lurched away, tripping over himself and smashing his face into the concrete wall. The pain resounded through his skull. He lifted himself. His legs were wet.
“You're killing yourself, Huxley! You're not different from me! You're not different from anybody in this building!” Robert called out to him. “Stop this right now. Come back.”
Huxley's eyes grew red with rage as he stared at the old man. “You can't… judge. I read your… f-file. You think you're made of… fucking concrete.”
Robert cried. “I'm not! I know that's what it says, but I'm not, Huxley. Honey, the treatment, it all works! Look…” He let one of his arms fall, showing deep wrinkles and engorged veins. “I'm aging, Huxley! The machines are the only thing that… can keep me around. I'll die if I don't get the treatment. Huxley, you're making a mistake!”
Huxley looked at him, eye-to-eye. The tension transformed into something calmer, comforting. He embraced the man with his gaze. Huxley looked down the hallway. FATHER was standing in the shadows at the end, waving at him with a grin on his face. He looked back at Robert, eyes quivering with anxiety. He took a deep breath.
Then, he ran.

Post-Foundation
<< Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 >>


+IT IS TIME+

Death stood at the foot of the Foundation. In truth, they need not come in person for Death was as the atoms themselves. Universal and fundamentally running without observation or intervention. Shepherding a soul was broadly for symbolism, maintaining the human concept of a psychopomp. Otherwise, people tended to be surprised when Death materialised at their door. Besides, these Foundation sorts were always dealing with memetics and such, meaning Death couldn't help but see the soon-to-be-deceased in person. They drew an hourglass from themselves and lifted it to their eye-sockets. Its contents, fine grains of time, had almost all fallen.
+IT IS TIME,+ Said Death.

Anthony took a deep breath and approached the Containment chamber doors. It was dimly illuminated by candlelight, highlighting the whips of fragrant incenses curling around the room. Behind him were a set of guards who sternly took another step closer behind Anthony.
"Get in there," Said the tallest.
The guard directed Anthony forward with the barrel of their pistol. Anthony was still hesitant but managed the remaining forward steps into the Containment Chamber. Anthony took another shaky step deeper into the chamber, partially considering a bullet tearing through his flesh as rather inviting. Anthony was new here but already had heard the stories of the Foundation's regard for criminals. The chamber doors hissed as they sealed shut. He focused what thoughts he could towards the chamber itself. It was perfectly square, containing a bed, a podium and a collection of various religious artifacts strewn across the room. He counted them as he fiddled mousily with his fingers. Crosses, golden arrows, loral crowns, strange pentagons, ankh and more that Anthony failed to recognise.
Taking another tentative step forward, the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Anthony turned carefully back towards the door he had entered. He swallowed, quite unsure as to how to respond, at the sight of a figure ordained in ornate garbs. The Clergyman, whose face was obscured by a marble mask reminiscent of both Roman and Buddist stylings tugged nervously at their velvet shawl. It was muttering indistinguishable verses through chattering teeth.
“My boy,” It breathed. “Do you doubt your place here?”
Anthony frowned, shaking his head with foggy disapproval. In their actions, the Clergyman was mime-like. It shifted in place as if it were carefully avoiding small objects Anthony couldn't perceive. It tilted their head side to side then warmly motioned Anthony to come forward.
“I see the mark of the orange uniform. Sinned perhaps? Yes…I see it now.”
As Anthony was respectfully rooted in place, the Clergyman drifted forwards.
“The hell…” Antony finally managed.
“You know of Hell, obviously that is true. You are the Damned-Class, ‘tis true…‘tis true.”
Anthony found his feet and stumbled backwards as the Clergyman abruptly sped towards him with their hands outstretched.
“Get the hell away from me!” Said Anthony, failing to find his footing.
Sympathetically shaking their head, the Clergyman latched tightly onto Anthony, then after a pause, embraced him. It stunk of wine and honey.
“It is time, Damned Class.”
Anthony squirmed in place, kicking and clawing at the Clergyman who only tighten their embrace. Digging their nails into Anthony's forearm, the Clergyman with their free hand reached into his mouth.

Death slid down the Foundation lobby, through stretches of hallways and past rows of personnel going about their lives. Some would turn in brief confusion at the tall figure of Death, however quickly raced to dismiss what was overtly abused, even for the Foundation. Death's bare feet clopped loudly against the vinyl floor, and those who noticed felt politely inclined to ignore it. Must be loud shoes, they told themselves, sparing glances at the figure dressed in darkness.
In this aspect, Death wore a broad hat which dramatically shadowed the details of their face. A sickle capable of cutting thought hung by their side. Death recalled the occasionally disappointed soul who expected the scythe, but unfortunately, that belonged to their middle-brother. Death stopped at the elevator, relatively unnoticed by a scientist skimming through her logbook. Death patiently waited until the elevator came. There was a large group of personnel already inside, leaving very little room for Death and the scientist. Still, she pushed inwards and cleared space for herself.
+EXCUSE ME,+ Said Death, to the row of passengers in front of him.
They glanced briefly at Death and moved to allow space.
+THANK YOU,+ Said Death, as the doors of the elevator closed.

+THANK YOU+

An older gentleman made occasional glances towards Death, his mind attempting to discern what his eyes could not Death. He saw that Death was simply a very thin fellow, despite what his instincts told him, which became remarkably alert in Death's presence. As the doors opened, each occupant promptly unloaded themselves. Each felt unsure why the promptness was necessary, but a chill trailing down their spines. Death politely waited for the bulk of the crowd to leave before they continued.
Death tapped the hourglass in their hand with their sickles tip. There were but a few moments left, so Death passed through a sealed door into a Containment Chamber. Inside was Anthony, his uniform, among other things, shredded to ribbons. Anthony was strung out across a large crucifix constructed out of sticks and ivy. The skin around his chest was peeled back like a sleeve so his chest could be splayed open. The hollowed-out remains of his chest contained all but his still-beating heart. Anthony's lungs were hung above him like a halo. The lungs expanded and shrank slowly.
Anthony, despite his injuries, clung to life by a tether, his heart beating tiresomely in his hollow chest. Through the lucidity, the man's eyes raised towards Death and their eyes met. Death lifted the hourglass to their eye-sockets and watched the last grains of time fall to an end. Death, without brevity, swiped the sickle through Anthony. It did not injure the flesh but the thin thread that Anthony clung to.
“What will happen to me?” Said a faint ember, drifting from out the corpse. ”Did I do good enough?”
+NOW YOU FIND OUT,+ Death replied.
No trumpets were being played, no shadowy demons or holy hosts, nor ancestral spirits: That was the downside to being an atheist, Death supposed, leading the ember onwards into the next life.
Death turned to the Clergyman chanting proudly in the corner, thumbing the surface of an ankh. They shrugged. Death tipped their hat towards them and left.
As Death walked, they briefly reflecting on the Foundation. Truly, there had been fascinating fatalities there. The Universe was awfully large, and it was good she wasn't getting stale. Death stopped to consider where to next and decided to let Fate throw them a bone. They reached into themselves and plucked a random hourglass. It was a ‘Martha Blackwood,' according to the name engraved across the hourglasses base.
+AH YES,+ Death recalled.
Artist, writer and relatively minute. Death clicked their non-existent tongue, tilting their head side to side, and eventually decided to pick another. So, Death drew another hourglass. ‘Marvin Light,' a philanthropist. Death looked at the seconds ticking away in both hourglasses, considering their next move. Then Death noticed the seconds themselves.
+CURIOUS,+ Said Death.
Each hourglass contained the exact amount of time. A wonderful coincidence.
+CURIOUS,+ Said Death.
Still, this wasn't the first time it had happened. People die all the time, and quite often simultaneously. Still, the chance of plucking two hourglasses with identical seconds left was lovely. For good measure, Death decided to take a third hourglass. It also held an equal amount of seconds. Death's appeasement evaporated at this, so they plucked a fourth. Eventually, Death had a dozen hourglass resting on the air before them, each containing the exact amount of time left to fall. This included plants of various demographics, a few cancer cells and even a couple of sentient objects.
+BROTHERS,+ Death said, as the world faded into the Realm of Death.
Death's realm was lined neatly with set rows of Hourglasses, each handcrafted for every soul, cell and stone. Death searched through the aisles to see, to their stoic surprise, each hourglass identical in all but name.
+BROTHERS,+ Death cried out again.

'Death's realm was lined neatly with set rows of Hourglasses.'

Two further aspects of Death manifested amongst the rows of hourglasses. Each was larger and older than Death, the Small-Death. The Middle-Death, who wore black overalls and held a scythe, gazed across the rows of hourglasses and they too looked perplexed. The largest, Oldest-Death, surveyed the room with distilled interest through their a thousand eyes
-CURIOUS. HAS THE PLAN CHANGED?- Said Middle-Death, turning to Oldest-Death.
=IT SHAN'T MATTER,= Oldest-Death replied. =THIS COLLECTION IS YOUR DUTY, MIDDLE-BROTHER.=
Medium-Death nodded, for this was true, yet they remained unsatisfied. Ah well, Middle-Death supposed, Large-Death knew best. Medium Death raised their scythe and turned it over, testing its sharpness.
+BUT MY FUNCTION,+ Said Small-Death, eyeing the large set of souls to pass. +THESE NUMBERS ENCOMPASS MUCH. I WILL BE REDUNDANT+
Middle-Death looked pitifully at Small-Death before they began sharpening their scythe on a grindstone. After all, this would be a magnificent task.
-I UNDERSTAND YOUR CONCERN, SMALL-BROTHER. THE DEATH OF THE INDIVIDUAL IS OBSOLETE ON THIS WORLD, AS SOON WILL I. TAKE JOY BROTHER, FOR WE TOO WILL KNOW THE WELCOME OF THE REAPER.-
For the first and only time, Small-Death understood what it was to be human.
Middle-Death, once happy with the sharpness of his scythe, moved onwards with their larger and smaller aspects beside them. The Trio walked in silence. Small-Death counted each second ticking by. The trio then stopped by a large cavern. A man staggered outwards back into the surface. He was panic-stricken and racing forwards from the cavern behind him.
+WHAT HAPPENS NOW?+
Oldest-Death turned towards Small-Death as Middle-Death raised their scythe over the world with pride. Small-Death turned to an hourglass in their hands, waiting for the last grains of time to fall.
=NOW WE FIND OUT.=

=NOW WE FIND OUT=


Author's Note: This thing was an attempt between Mooagain and I to write a tale in one hour. As a result, the below content is completely off-the-walls, and born from sheer, literary chaos.
Have Fun Reading!
- Kensing

Greazesis 1.1: In The Beginning When Seamus and Ebenezer Created Greazeburger, The Earth Was Completely Fine. These Idiots Fucked It Up, And Now They Are Divine.
Then, Greaze Declared To The Employees: "We're Stealing Content From The Bible Because Our Legal Team Was Vaporized After It Turned Out That They Weren't CC Compliant, And I Need Some Way To Get This Company Memo Out"
And Greaze Gave The First Of The Decrees: "Thou Shall Now Be Responsible For Your Own Equipment. I've Had Enough Trouble Trying To Find The Worst Possible Laptop I Can Give Out And Expect You To Work All Day On."
Thomas Greaze Spoke Up: "But Ebenezer, How Will We Work If Our Hands Are Dirty And Our Keyboards Unclean?"
Ebenezer Sent A Stern Warning, "If You Continue To Sin1, Then The Waters Shall Be As Greaze, And The Fish Shall Be As Men."
Thomas Greaze Asked: "Does This Mean That The Annual Fishing Trip Is Cancelled?"
And Thomas Greaze Was Defenestrated, As He Had Shown His Hatred For His Fellow Tech.
Ebenezer Made His Fourth Decree: "We're Skipping The Previous One Because It's Actually Helpful."
And Thomas Greaze, Who Was Still Clinging To The Windowsill, Spoke Once More: "Didn't you also technically skip the fourth one as well?"
Ebenezer Said: "Let Thomas Greaze Fall To The Earth, And Be Amongst Men."
And So Thomas Greaze Fell To The Earth, As He Had Eaten The Fruit Of Dumbassery And Been Cast Out Of The Garden Of Greazeden. An Angel, With A Sword Of Flaming Grease, Now Guards The Hole Where Thomas Was Cast Out, So That Thomas May Never Again Reemerge To Mildly Inconvenience People.
Ebenezer Then Declared: "It Has Also Just Occurred To Me That Literally Nobody Has Bought Anything From Us In The Four Years Since Our Creation. Could Someone Do Something About That?"
There Was Silence From The Masses Of Greaze, until Robert Greaze spoke.
"Didn't You Cast Thomas Down Into The World Of Men? I Think Those Guys Would Buy Our Shit."
Ebenezer responded: "Well, There's Like Only Two Of Them, Since God Just Kicked Them Out Of The Vegan Hipster Bar."
Robert Greaze Spoke Again: "Just Make More Of Them."
And So Greaze created Man in its image, taking great care to leave a hidden self-destruct switch incase they decided to ask for a raise. Greaze said unto Man, "You are a valued member of our team, now go sweep up the glass Thomas broke with his face."
Man Cleaned The Floor And Dumped The Shards Into A Nearby Waste Receptacle, Amazing The Onlookers.
"Holy Shit, I Didn't Know You Could Throw That Away," One Onlooker Cried.
"Yeah, I Was Just Eating The Stuff Before." Another stated.
Ebenezer Did Not Like That His Stolen Creation Was Actually Helpful, And So He Cast Man Out Of Another Window, And He Fell To Earth. Man Was Unharmed, As He Had Conveniently Landed On Thomas.
"Well, Back To Business," Ebenezer Said.
"I've Wasted Most Of Our Time On This Memo Shit, So Just Show Up To The Meeting When It Happens. I'll Be Sure Not To Let You Know When."

Footnotes
1. The Greazeburger Company Code states that "Employees who do not wash hands at regular intervals will be guilty of sin, and therefore damnable under the Greazeburger Human Resources Immediate Termination Policy". Additionally, keyboards used within Greazeburger incorporated are technically sentient, and thus are under the same OSHA working conditions as other Greaze employees. Therefore, continuing to soil the devices would be a severely unclean environment, and the offender would be subsequently defenestrated.


Twinned lamps glowed in the angled night, and they sang.
They sang sadly, teary-eyed, as they were twisted to and fro by the endless fractals of the Pattern.
They wept flowering tears at how the Pattern twisted their once beautiful song into a harsh scream. They tried to dance, but it was like walking on razor blades.
They wept.
Until the question.
- - -
"Are you lost?"
You looked around, surprised. No, surprised wasn't the word. Shocked. Stunned, horrified, confused, delighted, bamboozled.
You opened their mouth, and tried to respond. All that emerged was a strangled noise that echoed around the room even after You clamped their mouth shut.
"It's okay. Just calm down. The words will come."
The platitude was spoken with the force and certainty of a statement. And, indeed, You found that the words did indeed come to them.
"lost" they rasped, visibly cringing at the husky, tattered quality their voice had in this place. "how? Here? What is how? How is… here… how here?"
"How are you here?"
You nodded in reply.
"Well, it seems to me that you must have drifted here. In that case…"
The figure stepped back, and gestured somewhat melodramatically around her.
"Welcome to the Wanderer's Library. My name is Josephine."
Turning back to look at the figure huddled before her, she asked "What may I call you?"
"You." said You, craning their head as a snatch of something carried by in the vibrations of the room. It sent a shiver across their form, so small and fragile now, yet feeling heavy. A coat of warming meat and snapping lightning. A space within that was less angle and sharpness and more smooth adjustment. Somewhere they could nestle away from the blades and, for the first time in memory, rest their wounds.
Josephine looked slightly taken aback.
"No, I am me. My Name is my own. If you have lost yours  I am afraid you will not find it here."
"Name. You. You is… my name. Josephine called me You."
Josephine paused, then relaxed visibly.
She chuckled slightly. "Oh. You isn't… well, a proper name. More something you call someone when you don't know the name of who you are addressing."
Who was she addressing, for that matter? The figure before her was like a three-dimensional charcoal sketch. Something in the shape of a person, but not fully one yet.
"In our world names are often given. But sometimes people choose their own." She puffed out her chest slightly. "I'm rather proud of mine."
"What… is that?"
Josephine paused. "What is what?"
"Vibration. In… m-my? In my head."
"Oh! We call that sound, generally. Unless you mean a headache? No, no we'll say it's sound. Like when I talk, yes?"
"Talk. Yes, like talk. But different."
She listened for a moment, then let out a tiny sigh. "Oh, that's Tanaka. He's practicing his lyre again. It's… well, it's something we use to make music."
She shook her head. "He shouldn't be playing it in the Library, but he says the best books are all here and he never picks up the lessons back home. So he says, at least."
She looked back to You, sheepishly. "I'll tell him to stop-"
"Stop? No, no! NO!" You was almost shouting in their hoarse voice, long violet-black hair swishing as they shook their head. Funny, thought Josephine, she hadn't noticed that before.
The playing stopped and several voices loudly "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhsh"'d in response.
A moment later, a drumming of footsteps preceded a small, bespectacled man carrying a stringed instrument under one arm.
"Jo, I'm so sorry, I-"
He paused, staring at the small figure huddled whimpering and trembling, blobby tears flowing down their face as they rocked back and forth gently, mumbling "no, no, nonono" under their breath again and again.
"Simon, start playing." She held up a hand as Tanaka opened his mouth to protest, then closed it and began, slightly puzzled, to play once more.
At the first note, You's head perked up. They stared almost hungrily as Tanaka played. The tears didn't stop, nor did the sobs, but some of the tension left their body.
By the time Simon had finished playing the brief melody he had been learning, You had begun scrubbing fruitlessly at the tears flowing from their eyes.
Gently, Jo wrapped their arms around the figure reassuringly. They started for a moment, then slumped into her arms and sobbed anew, crying and crying until they were huddled, shivering, against Jo's tear-stained shirt.
"Lyre" they said, stammering through the last of their sobs. "Lyre. My… n-name. I choose Lyre."
Their voice was still hoarse, but now it was the harshness that comes from sobbing long and hard.
Jo helped the vaguely feminine figure to their feet and, thinking quickly, twitched her jacket from the desk she'd been seated at before this all began, and wrapped it around the still shivering figure. This lessened the shivering somewhat, at least.
Lyre turned to Simon. "C… can you teach me? How to s-sing like that?" They gestured to the instrument.
Simon chuckled slightly. "It's not singing. Not exactly. But yes, I can. And Jo here can teach you how to really sing."
"Simon, you-" she sighed. "Yes, I suppose I can. Though not very well, really.
* * *
Names have power in this world. Names nail a thing down, give it shape.
Taken, they can rob a thing of meaning. Given, they can secure it a place.
But when something chooses a name itself, it changes its shape slightly. It attaches an idea to that name and remakes itself.
Lyre hummed to themselves as they walked. The same tune Simon had been playing on his lyre. As they did, for a moment the light around them twinkled into fractals like falling snowflakes.
The Singer followed the two into the Serpent's library, into a new story, a new dance. A new song.


image in mail by dado

A little story I wrote, another dado one. The entire idea for this came from Doctor Cimmerian, big thank you to him, check out his stuff here. Thanks to AnAnomalousWriter, HarryBlank, Impperatrix and Tstaffor for their always appreciated critique!

Image Credits

The image is an edited version of lookcloser.png, taken from SCP-5000, created by Tanhony, and is under CC BY SA 3.0.

▸ More by this Author ◂

{$comments2}

F.A.Q.

{$doesthisfixthebug}

From: meisdado@dadomail.com
To: vrequet@scp.net

you is buy fine dado chowder.

From: ten.pcs|teuqerv#ten.pcs|teuqerv
To: moc.liamodad|odadsiem#moc.liamodad|odadsiem

What?

From: ten.pcs|teuqerv#ten.pcs|teuqerv
To: moc.liamodad|odadsiem#moc.liamodad|odadsiem

Who is this?

From: moc.liamodad|odadsiem#moc.liamodad|odadsiem
To: ten.pcs|teuqerv#ten.pcs|teuqerv

yes, you is spoken to dado. sry for typhoons, uppercase key broken.

you is buy fine dado chowder.

From: ten.pcs|teuqerv#ten.pcs|teuqerv
To: moc.liamodad|odadsiem#moc.liamodad|odadsiem

…..Your IP Address is a broken egg.
What do you want? Why are you sending me that image?

From: moc.liamodad|odadsiem#moc.liamodad|odadsiem
To: ten.pcs|teuqerv#ten.pcs|teuqerv

dado is blackmailing you, no? yes dado learnt it from very fine customer also internet, it no working?

YOU HAVE BEEN BLOCKED BY ten.pcs|teuqerv#ten.pcs|teuqerv

More From This Author

More From This Author

Machen2's Works

SCPs

SCP-6225 (+42) •

SCP-6358 (+65) •

SCP-6036 (+95) •

SCP-6744 (+39) •

SCP-5671 (+30) •

SCP-6989-J (+13) •

SCP-6790 (+131) •

Tales/GoI Formats

Fire & Hate (+34) •

I, Want You All To Stop (+8) •

Lachrymose (+19) •

Other

A Normal Day At The Foundation (+31) •

Machen2 vs. Machen1 (+39) •

Machen's Art of SCP-5140 (EVEREST) (+65) •