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NAME OF TALE The Celestrian Empire

The duke had always thought that the room was larger than it should have been. The first generation of colonists had decided that to really embody the "Ming spirit" they had to create something truly grandiose. The pavilion was a strange blend of Chinese pagoda and neo-Gothic palace, which would have jarred the eye if it wasn't already dazzled by the slick and weighty coat of gold.
The duke sighed, leaning his head on his hand. The occasional flickers of fear the partygoers shot towards his throne bothered him. His father wouldn't be bothered - but then again, his father was relaxing on a pleasure beach in Shanyang, having abdicated the world for another century. He'd be back to reclaim his throne, in time. Meanwhile, his son would be the one to navigate Gongji's future, the agitated people, the endless chorus of cousins and grand-nephews who he had all betrayed at one point, and who had all at one point betrayed him.
A serving-girl brought him a plate, but he waved it away. Her hands had trembled. Was it him they feared, with his slight frame and twitching hands? Was it his office, with the grandeur and power it came with? The memory of his father? Or was it just the mask, that piece of lurid grotesqurie that mocked its ancient models? He didn't know. It didn't matter. The others danced, with hidden faces, looking towards his altar.
His hand fingered something in his palm. It was a small thing, with a definite weight to it. His plans had been complicated. Everything was intended to go off like the ticking of a clock, but there was a stoppage in it - one that would have to be dealt with, and fast.
This stoppage was dressed in black, a crane mask over dark red eyes.

People don't see one another. They don't see the passions, heartaches, the theologies and philosophies of others; only translations, filtered through language, bias and perception. A beautiful piece of music to one is a cacaphony to another, because of the context in which each of them exists.
China is a country, a concept, a civilisation or whatever you want to define it as. It has existed in one form or another for millenia. Over the long march of time, it has developed intricate, complex societies, with their own turmoils, debates, crises, developments, changes both slow and fast in the constant transformations of history.
But when the Europeans came, and viewed it through their own lenses, all this complexity became a monolith. The translation of culture altered the image. They could not see the subtleties, the philosophy, the thoughts and traditions that went into methods of rule or forms of verse.
China had to be the Other, so it was cast as barbaric, "lesser" through specific forms of cruelty that wouldn't have been out of place in Europe only a generation before. All struggle, beauty and comradeship was annihilated in lurid tales of slow-slicing and pigtailed servants. A society of absolutism, where people were not people but the end-points of chains of power, leading back to an emperor whose majesty was only rivalled by decadence. A state where history had stopped centuries ago.

"Celestria is built on air." Mary's matter-of-fact voice was at odds with her odd phrasings. Tsukiko had noticed this, in the months they'd spent together; a certain deliberate disdain that would occasionally twist into whimsy. It was like Mary had learnt how to close herself off, rather than being born to it. It interested her. When this was all over, she hoped to know the other woman better.
"It's a kingdom built on an absent ideology. Money is what greases its wheels; the rest is just so much void. They care about appearance - not for the sake of taste or understanding, but simply to overawe their slave-class and foreign dignitaries into despair. The court protocol, the tawdry art and the diamond pavilions - these are all facsimiles, edificies. And once you're past the edifice, it's easy to spot the cracks."
She spread a set of blueprints across the table. The lines interlaced with each other over the cracked surface, weaving complexities that dazzled Tsukiko. Mehmed just whistled.
"Is that a Tiger Maze?" he asked, hands twitching in excitement.
Mary nodded. "The void beneath the image. A line of distorted reality that spins our dimension into a spiral, trapping all whose minds have not been attuned to it within. You'll be trapped forever without even realising it, your life stretching out forever in a forgotten kind of hell. Your identity will shift, merge, dissolve but never end. It's very Celestrian; an edifice of security that does more to enhance the mystique of the ruler than keep your vaults secure."
The three were silent for a moment. Starlight shone down through the windows, washing over them. Each was illuminated in turn as the autopilot twitched the ship, just slightly.
"So how do we get in?" Tsukiko said, quietly.
"Thankfully, quite simply. The Ducal and Foundation archive, aside from a demonstration of the Foundation's need to cling to power, is also connected to the Grey Pavilion, one of the summer-halls of the Duke. He is holding a party there for the usual crowd of Celestrian elites, famous skyfarers and Imperial businessmen they want to defect. If we get into the party, getting to the maze will be easy. And as it happens, I still have some contacts in the Foundation here. Shouldn't be too hard to get a few spare invites."
"And getting past the maze?" Mehmed asked.
"We need an approved person; someone whose mind has been attuned to the maze's tricks. A simple brain-scan, plastering a veneer of their mind on your own. You could hide a scanner in a button, they're so small nowadays. Anyone who works in the archive will do." Mary smiled - the kind of smile Tsukiko knew well. She'd seen it on too many people. The kind you saw on someone who lived for the thrill of movement, the chase, the strenuous work in the last mad panicked hours.
"Yes, keep smiling," came Mehmed's dry voice. "Absolutely nothing could go wrong with this plan."

The image of China most Europeans possessed was, then, not an edifying one. But in every society, when people get bored enough, they start looking abroad for inspiration. Or at least, they look deep into those images of the Other that they themselves have conjured. And so one group of rich trillionaires, dissatisfied with the high taxes and bland centrisms of the Empire's propaganda arm, came up with an idea. Wouldn't it be so much better, so much more civilised, to become an Orientialist Despot? To rule, with an infinite number of eastern servants at one's command, ready to satisfy every whim and desire that any Westerner could want. Their world was a just world, after all; it simply needed to become fact.
The movement ripped through the Empire's elites like wildfire, and soon enough, a capital flight began as more and more companies and investors emigrated to a new society on the edge of space. Palaces were built, twice as gaudy and thrice as ignorant as the Brighton's exoticised east. Wives were given harems to look after, a newfound status mixed with a new kind of oppression. Dress, bureaucracy, music, palaces - all modelled on what they had once thought China was, but serving them, their needs, their desires, their mindsets.

Gold dazzles. Tsukiko was dazzled. The room was moving, spinning, twisting around in a colour designed to blind. She forced herself to focus on the here-and-now.
There was a chandelier above her. It was the only constant in all of this. The room was square but the roundness of this solid, central thing gave it a peculiar feeling. Like it was the axis of the world. She put a hand to her head, and fought her way towards the edges of the room. Her mask was of a rabbit.
The people were talking all around her. They were whispering in English - why was it English? Why were they all white, or wearing skin-grafts that made them look like - she shuddered. She wanted to spit. She remembered China, the real China, before all this. They'd transferred her before too long, and she was glad. She'd been lucky. Nowhere near Nanjing, or the burials, or the Unit. She had always wondered if she'd have the moral fortitude to face them. She'd gone to Midway and encountered a different kind of horror.
What she remembered of the place was people, some hungry, some angry, all honed down to survival. They were not the caricatures they'd told her about. Just people trying to scrape by, heads half full of common sense and half full of the centuries of tradition that all nations suffered through. People trying to work out how to make something new and what to preserve of the old, even as the rice-fields burnt.
But here, now, the grotesque masks leered. She had to get out. She had the image, she'd done the mind-graft in an immaculate cubicle while a woman wept in the next stall, crying and crying and crying, and there was Lord Hong-Cousins discussing labour protests in Shanyang and the Northern independence suppression by our Brave Boys who understood the value of their own slavery and the chandelier span and the Duke was staring at her on his throne and-
And there was the door. Two tigers emblazoned over a green circle, crisscrossing lines within it. A tiger maze.

It is not difficult to see through the charade of this plan. These men of means created a state where there was no regulation, no law but that of unrestrained competition. The Emperor and his bureaucracy existed to service these hundreds of thousands of corporate entities, savaging each other in endless drives for more bodies. And those bodies had to be of a certain type - Chinese, Japanese or Korean in descent, just to add an extra spring of authenticity as the divide between rich and poor took on yet more racial coding. Who they were, where they came from, the specificity of their cultures and experiences didn't matter; as long as they looked close enough to the storybook villains the "Celestrians" had grown up on.
It was a horror show. Even the Empire's autocrats balked at some of the stories that came from their informants. Promises of dignity and a living wage would entice workers from the Coal Chain. They would travel untold lightyears across the sky, only to be locked inside slave-pits and demented harems. The rich had their every desire catered to, justified by the "restoration of ancient cultures". There was none of that, of course; just occasional artistic exhibitions which only the elites could see, where spiritual artifacts or crafts of searing passion were repackaged as the birthright of white Americans and Englishmen who fancied themselves the true Chinese.
The emperor danced, stamping on the subaltern as he pillaged their souls.

Was this all? Tsukiko frowned.
There was a corridor, made of wooden oak. Two identical doors were at the end of the passage. Portraits of notables of Gongji lined the wall, tall white faces in mock-Qing robes. She walked forwards, considered, and chose the left one.
There was a corridor, made of black steel. Yes, this felt right. Attuned. This was good. She walked forward, past the portraits on the walls showing Imperial notables. Strange that they would be here, but she supposed this place was meant to diorient. She turned twice, and saw two doors. She chose the right one.
There was a corridor, made of pine. Two identical doors were at the end of the passage. Sculptures of notables of Gongji lined the wall, tall white faces in mock-Yuan robes. She relaxed. This was right. She was almost there. She walked forwards, considered, and chose the left one.
There was a gullet, made of the flesh of a swan. A hole into its stomach lay at the end. Saliva and blood lined the sides. She walked forward, slipping and sliding as she descended. The oesophagus split into two. She chose the upper passage, sliding through a darkness until-
There was a corridor. She knew this one. The one in her childhood home, sliding doors shifting to and fro across every surface. She chose one on the left. She was glad to be near the end. Why was she wearing a rabbit mask? Hadn't she come in with a crane?
There was a corridor, made of glass. A child was being beaten all around it for doing things that it should not have done. She didn't have to look. She walked to the end and opened a corridor onto a door onto a corridor onto a-
There was a corridor, made of wooden oak. Two identical doors were at the end of the passage. Portraits of notables of Gongji lined the wall, tall white faces in mock-Qing robes. She walked forwards, considered, and chose the left one. Why was she crying? Why was she despairing? She was a-
She was at a party, and hating it. The walls were black, a jet pavilion of Lord Cartwight's own design. There was the usual array of dignataries and notables; the usual stuff Foundation operatives had to suffer these days. The 50s had been better, but time moved on. The Soviets had recently revealed a new kind of dimensional weapon, and so the British were smarming up to their shady clan even more than usual. So here she was, in Scotland, listening to this bore of a man drone on about his views on her field.
She was exhausted. She didn't have much more to give. A prize physicist being steered around the party by sweaty men with design contracts who thought of her as just a name, or a body, or the prestige factor that their own geniuses could take. She excused herself, went to the lavatory, shut herself in a cubicle and wept.
A face appeared over the side of the next cubicle. An Oriental woman - was that the right word? She didn't know. She had never met someone from that far east, except through correspondence. Her face was hard, but kind. Weathered, that was the word.
She wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "Don't be," smiled the other. "I'm Tsukiko, Hisakawa Tsukiko. You're Mary Bosworth, aren't you? We corresponded by letter, talking about the anomalous properties of antimemetic apes in northern Borneo. Are you OK?" "Oh yes I'm quite alright" she responded, wondering why she was Mary. She got up, opened the door, stepped into a corridor, stepped through a door, and-
And the Duke was sitting in front of her, mask over his face, smile on his lips.
"Hello, Tsukiko," he said. "I think we'd better have a talk."

What You Are in the Light

End of Death

A Gullet, Made of the Flesh of a Swan


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Losing My Colors
Tale based on SCP-4319
~~ More Alan Stuff ~~

Quiet footsteps echo through the stairwell. Laura slowly climbs the stairs, bound for her apartment. The woman is exhausted, wishing only to crawl into her bed and rest. And yet she can't, as there are still important things that need to be done. She approaches the door and tries to open the lock, shifting the trash bags she bought today from one hand to another. The key gets stuck. After a few failed attempts to turn it, she almost lashes out and hits the door to drive the key deeper, but stops. She shouldn't do that. It would be wrong.
Finally, the door opens, allowing Laura to enter. The pink sunset light floods the apartment as she parts the curtains. Now she can see the room in all its beauty. A variety of furniture painted in different shades of pink, a wardrobe with huge number of dresses, an array of cosmetics on a coffee table in front of a mirror… She shivers for a moment. Then comes the realization that there's no reason to react like this. This is her room, as it should be.
Laura takes out a bright, glittery diary from one of the table drawers and tears out a page. Upon writing the first sentence, she sees herself in the mirror. Her clothes, her hairstyle, lack of makeup, all this catches her eye. It's disgusting. It's wrong. It needs to be fixed. A moment later, her clothes, one item at a time, land on a nearby ottoman: first a black jacket, then a T-shirt with a skull printed on the front, and dark blue jeans. After a close examination of her wardrobe, Laura chooses a bright red dress with a neckline and tries it on. The dress fits her new, correct image very well; for a few seconds, she looks in the mirror with pleasure. Exactly as she should.
New words appear on a diary page as Laura sits down and continues to write. Despite trying her best to concentrate, she quickly loses her focus, remembering that she still has flaws to fix. Her trembling hand reaches for lipstick, which will brighten her smile. Then comes the powder, which will conceal the imperfections of her skin. And finally, mascara, which will make her eyelashes longer and more voluminous. Step by step, she is becoming more beautiful, more feminine.
The diary page gets crumpled as the woman grabs it again to write. Her hand doesn't obey her and the writing comes out clumsy; some words have to be crossed out and replaced. For a second, she loses her train of thought. This moment is enough for her to recall her imperfection again. Her hairstyle. Slowly, her hand picks up a hairbrush lying on the table. Before the brush can reach her head, Laura stabs her palm with a pen, causing the item to fall down. She screams in pain, puts her hand back on the table and writes more words on a crumpled piece of paper.
However, there's one more important matter to deal with. Her gaze focuses on a far wall. There hang her medals for victories in sports competitions. Nearby are belts displaying her rank in martial arts. Next to them, the photographs which depict her receiving those awards. Her task is now clear. The woman takes one of the garbage bags and opens it. There's a short moment of hesitation. Then, the first medal ends up inside the bag. Then one more, and another. They are followed by belts, photographs, and all other objects that were delicately arranged in this part of the apartment. A tear drips from the woman's eye. But there's no reason for it. Eliminating her flaws is the right thing to do.
Laura's trembling hands pick up the garbage bags and her legs carry her to the stairwell. A moment later, the bags are sent falling down the garbage chute. The woman silently dries her eyes and returns to the apartment. A short melody is heard in the room. Someone just sent her a message.

Wow. Great job! you are soooo pretty now. :З I'm almost jealous! I mean, not too much since I'm also glad that we were able to help you! You look like a real girl, that's amazing! And we achieved that together, KeeLee will be proud! \(◕◡◕)/
So, since you're already one of us, it's time for us to know each other a littl bettre. Whoops sorry I'm so excited I can't text lol. Anyway, I'm sending you the info on where our little meeting will take place, so you could join us. ♡(Ξ◕◡◕Ξ)♡
Cya there. ♡♡♡♡

Putting her phone aside, the woman mentally evaluates herself in front of the mirror. Her hairstyle still requires work. Laura's hairband comes off and her dark hair falls on her shoulders. Not wasting any time, she begins to comb. There should not be any flaws in her image. She must not be wrong in any way.
Having perfected her hair, the woman drops the hairbrush and gazes at her reflection. Finally, she had gotten rid of her flaws. All her clothes match each other in style, the makeup underlines her beauty, and the new hairstyle perfectly complements her feminine image. The true girl gently takes a pen and writes a few more words on the diary page. Satisfied with her writing, she puts the phone into her purse and leaves the apartment.

Loud steps echo through the stairwell. Two men quickly climb the stairs, approaching the apartment. After a few seconds, the door is slammed open. The men examine the place in a hurry, looking into every room, every corner, and every drawer. They seek something important, but their search is unsuccessful. When they're ready to admit their failure, one of them notices a wrinkled diary page lying on the table.

PoI: KeeLee (Alias, used as a nickname)

Real name unknown

Female

Most likely an individual capable of reality-bending. This ability primarily manifests in altering objects (such as furniture, household items, and clothing) that belong to PoI's female acquaintances, as well as creating new ones within their close proximity. Affected objects typically become a lot more beautiful and suitable for gir altered to fit a stereotypical "girly" design.

PoI is also able to help and aid mentally control female persons she comes in contact with. This effect scales over time, and the victim realizes her problems and flaws loses the ability to oppose it after several days. PoI keeps contact with the victims through a blog of her creation labeled "www.justgirlythingsblogsite.si", in which she keeps helping the girls big time and

Currently, there are 15-20 persons under PoI's control, presumably ordinary individuals in the past, who then got affecte                                     controlled         cannot keep
the effect           trapped       thinking is       resist                           not

…who then realized that KeeLee is a great gal trying to help us all and started to behave like true girls, finally getting rid of all those dumb boyish traits.~


Eleven Years Ago
A young woman sat in a hermetically sealed cell, a broad grin on her face. Her dark skin was covered by a pale coat of makeup, with black mascara and lipstick, giving her face the look of some bizarre mix between a teen who had gotten too into goth and a monochromatic clown. What ruined it was her attempt to actively look intimidating by giving a wide grin at the glass.
On the other side of the glass, Dr. Veijo Saarijärvi pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, the other handing a file over to Simon Glass.
"SCP-353. Keter?" Glass frowned. "She's just sitting there in a cell."
"Read on a bit."
Realization dawned in Glass's eyes as he came to the second paragraph. "She can manipulate bacteria?"
"And she's started showing the ability to control them outside of her own body." He nodded to a red line on the floor before them. "Twenty-meter exclusion radius. Keeping oxygen levels low in her cell keeps her docile."
"Biohazard suits do nothing?" Glass chewed his lip.
"It's hard for a biohazard suit to do anything if she can make your gut flora mutate to the point where it starts eating your intestine." Saarijärvi sighed. "She's a lost cause."
"Never say that." Glass adjusted his glasses. "Where's the intercom?"
"Over there. You may have to yell."
Glass crossed over to a pole with an intercom speaker on it and tapped the button twice. The figure in the cell looked up at the ceiling. "Can you hear me?"
"Another jailer come to visit their pet?" The figure within chuckled. "Do you hope to control me? Force me to obey to your whims?"
"No. I wish to help you. What is your name?"
"My name is Vector." There was a hissing through the speaker. "And you shall bow before me."

Harkness, Maryland Quarantine Zone
October 31st, 2019
Audrey McGrath sat back in her seat and winced as the needle was pulled out. "Not going to comment on the look?" She asked, blinking her heavily-mascaraed eyelids.
"Nearly gave me a heart attack, seeing you back in your old… what's the word?" Dr. Veijo Saarijärvi tilted his head. "Old duds." His laugh was muffled through the biohazard suit he was wearing as he put the sample of blood he had drawn from the woman into a box marked 'Biohazard Level 4'. "How's counseling going?"
"Dr. Palmer's taking over well from poor Glass." Audrey shrugged, rubbing the inside of her elbow after gauze was applied. "He said that he didn't mind me putting on makeup and dying my hair again, but… well, it looks a little odd."
"Goth fashion doesn't work as well on a thirty-seven-year-old." Veijo locked the box and handed it to an assistant. "Still, the lipstick looks good on you, if nothing else."
Audrey let out a soft 'heh' as she stood. "What are you hoping to develop from this sample?"
"Zika's on the upswing again, and there's a shortage of vaccines." Veijo led Audrey to the door. "Thank you for coming by on such short notice, 3—" He stopped himself. "That is, Audrey. Sorry. Old habits die hard."
Audrey rolled back her sleeve, revealing a tattoo on her left arm that read 'SCP-353'. "I'm technically still in containment. You're fine."
With that, she exited the Salk & Cooper Pharmaceutical Testing Facility, or as it was known internally, Site-52. It had originally been Samson and Cooper, but Jonas Salk did aid in the original containment of Harkness, so when an O5 had one of their rare sentimental moments, they decided to rename this particular front.
Harkness was, as always, covered in a miasma. That was the only word to describe it— a dense, sickly green fog which had pervaded the town for over thirty years. Sunlight was rare, but thankfully, the fog was contained to the Nexus Zone, so no errant gusts of wind could blow it onto the nearby highways— if twenty miles could be called nearby.

Ten Years Ago
For the first time in a very long time, the door to SCP-353's cell opened. SCP-353 herself looked up from the book she was reading— Journal of a Plague Year. Let it never be said that Vector was not thematically consistent.
Dr. Glass knew that biohazard suits wouldn't help. He didn't even bother wearing one. He could practically see the miasma around her, and he swore that it whispered. "Vector?" He asked.
The woman snapped to face him. "…that voice. You're Glass."
"First time meeting face-to-face." He shrugged. "I figured if you were going to kill me, you would have done it the instant I got into the exclusion zone."
"Big mistake." Vector stood with a manic look in her eyes, and strode closer to him. Halfway to her captor, she paused, and her eyes widened as she recoiled. "What the everliving fuck is in you?"
"You noticed." Glass looked down at his hands. "During a containment breach, I was exposed to an anomalous contagion. It's expected to overtake me within five years."
"So, you're coming in here looking for a cure?" Vector snorted. "That's… just sad." Still, she came closer to him. "What the hell does it do?"
"Is that important?" Glass sat on the floor of the cell. "I'm not afraid of dying anymore, so if you're going to kill me, kill me. If you're going to talk, then talk."
Vector frowned. The organisms in his body, whatever they were, weren't responding to her Control. She couldn't discern what they would do to his body, how they would kill him, even if they were bacteria, virus or archea. They were a curiosity, and his death meant no more access to them.
She sat by Dr. Glass. "What do you want, Freud?"
"So she does have a sense of humor." Glass pulled out his phone. "SCP-353 Session 1, commencing recording."

Today, the miasma was lit by dozens of grinning plastic smiles, belonging to degradation-resistant faux Jack-o-Lanterns, given gratis by the Foundation. Trick-or-treating supplies had been given out as well. Costumes were… slightly more of an issue, due to the unique physiology of some of the townsfolk.
"Eyyy, Audrey!"
She recognized the voice of Alan Plum before she saw him. Man had Chronological Vocal Displacement Disorder— his words came out before he opened his mouth. "Ey, Al."
Alan stepped out of the miasma, wearing a costume modeled after Bane from the Nolan trilogy. Thankfully, this meant that his mouth was covered, so that his words and lips didn't move out of sync. "Just give some blood?"
"Yeah, yeah." She rolled her shoulders. "You heading to the Halloween bash tonight?"
"Maybe. But it's such a beautiful day out that I thought I'd spend it out here and not in the solarium. Catch some rays."
"Your humor's ahead of your time." Audrey stretched. Spending twenty minutes strapped to a chair tended to give you a kink in your back. "Hopefully they find something useful."
The two of them walked off into the fog. In addition to the Halloween party at Leena's, there was a small fair on the main street— if one could call a dozen food stands, a carousel, a tilt-a-whirl and a face-painting booth a fair. But the smell of frying food made Audrey think of it as one.
"I could go for an elephant ear right now." Audrey groaned. Even the thought of fried food made her stomach roil. Having every strain of virus and bacteria known to humanity in your bloodstream did not preclude you from having acid reflux, even in Harkness.
"Eat something healthy instead." Alan led her over to a cart selling caramel apples and cotton candy. "Well. 'Healthy'."
Audrey looked at the menu, her eyebrow raising as she noticed an item on it labelled "Gilded Apple" for 20 requisition tokens. She waited until she got to the front of the line, and saw that Alex Whittlesey, a woman affected by Fractal Body Syndrome, was manning the stand.
"Hey, Aud." She smiled with one of her five mouths. "What can I get for you?"
"What's a gilded apple?"
"Got in a special breed of apple from Wisconsin. Don't know how, but dipping it in caramel turns it gold." She nodded to the rack of apples by her window. "Wanna try one?"
"Why not?" Audrey took out her requisition card and handed it to Alex. "God knows it'll give me less reflux."
A minute later, Audrey was walking away from the stall, inspecting her gilded apple. She had never seen caramel so reflective— even through the miasma, she could see herself in it. "Been ages since I've had one of these."
Alan talked before, and through, a mouthful a cotton candy. "You gonna admire yourself in it or are you going to eat it?"
Rolling her eyes, Audrey bit into the apple. The caramel was sweet and gooey, the apple was tart and crisp, and it was perfect.

Nine Years Ago
"SCP-353, Session 48, commencing recording." Dr. Glass sat across the table from Vector. "You're not wearing your makeup today."
"It wasn't really makeup." Vector shook her head. "Wasn't allowed it. Just used a bunch of bacteria with chromatophores to color my face and skin."
"Hmm." Dr. Glass looked at his recorder. "Last session, I brought up the Pandora's Box project to you. Are you at all—"
"No." Vector slammed her fist on the table. "Fuck no. If I'm going to be a bioweapon, it'll be on my own terms."
"All right, all right." Glass put up his hands in a placating gesture. "Now that that minefield's out of the way… have you been keeping up on your journaling?"
"Not much to journal about." Audrey pulled out a notebook from underneath the table. "But yeah. Don't worry, it's been sterilized."
Glass took the journal and flipped through it. He sighed as he saw the majority of the writing had been scribbled out. "Vector, I appreciate you wanting to be private about your life, but we've been at this for over two years now. I still don't know anything about you."
"What's there to know?" Vector rolled her shoulders. "I can eat pathogens and mutate them in me. Do you really need anything more than that to be a living bioweapon?"
Glass rubbed his face. She was regressing into the comic book mindset, so he may as well follow. "Well, the best villains have good backstories, right? Clayface used to be an actor before becoming horribly disfigured, Mr. Freeze was just trying to save his wife, Thanos was in love with Lady Death… so what's your backstory?"
Vector looked down at the table. "You never cared before."
"Well I'm caring now." Glass sighed. "Just give me a hint, Vector. Please."
Vector looked up at him.
"I was born in Tuskegee, Alabama."
And that was all she said for the rest of the session.

Audrey walked alongside Alan as she ate the apple. The Miasma almost looked pretty with all of the Jack-o-Lanterns showing through it. Almost. It looked Halloweeny, at the very least.
"We're having a Mystery Science Theater marathon at the Community Center. You in?" Alan sounded hopeful.
"Mike or Joel?"
Alan groaned. "Oh god you're one of those people."
"They've both got their merits! But the show didn't feel the same after Joel left it." Crunch went the apple. "I'm fine with both, though."
"We're kicking it off with Monster a Go-Go in half an hour." Alan lifted his mask in order to dig into a pile of cotton candy he had ordered. "We just have to get the entire floor lead-lined, first. The Parker family is bringing their kids over."
"Right, they have the, uh…" Audrey snapped her fingers repeatedly, the name of the Parkers' condition escaping her.
"Spectral epidermal syndrome. Ghost-skin disease. They can phase through anything that isn't lead." Alan shook his head. "Kitty Pryde never had to put up with that. X-Men is full of shit."
Audrey chuckled. "Amen to that."
They went their separate ways. Audrey didn't seem to realize that the apple wasn't getting smaller, no matter how much she ate.

Eight Years Ago
"SCP-353, Session 105." Dr. Glass cleared his throat. "You still haven't told me your real name."
"Vector is my real name." Vector spat. "I expect you to respect that."
"All right, all right." Glass put his hands out in a placative manner. "Vector it shall be, then. But why that name?"
"It sounded cool." Vector shrugged. "That's all."
Glass didn't buy it. He shuffled through his notes. "You were born in Tuskegee around… 1982, '83?"
"Shouldn't have told you that." Vector groaned. "What, you found my parents, interviewed them, told them that their daughter is a monster?" She let out a short laugh. "But yeah. '83."
"It's just that I found an elementary-school yearbook entry for a Halloween costume. Fifth grade." He took out a photograph of a little girl with dark skin, wearing a cardboard computer monitor over her head, a cape on her back, a large "V" on her chest in a square, and a smile missing several baby teeth. "Kind of cute. 'The Amazing Vector-Girl'. Wish we had that in a Marvel movie."
Vector's face turned to confusion, shock, anger, and then sadness in the space of less than a second. "…you actually dug me up." She snorted. "Un-fucking-believable. Get out."
"Vector."
She turned, ready to strike him, to mutate the benign polio vaccine in his bloodstream into something that would make a life in the Iron Lung seem like a mercy, but then she realized something. He could have called her by her old, dead name. He didn't.
"I'm just trying to understand who you were, so we can figure out who you are. Because from what I've seen? You weren't the kind of girl who traveled the world and collected Ebola and smallpox and polio and Marburg and god knows what else just because you could." He drew a line on the table with his fingers at both ends. "I'm trying to figure out how you got from Point A-" he tapped the photograph— "to Point B." He nodded in her direction.
Vector paused."Not much to tell."
"Tell it anyway."
"I got sick a lot as a kid, and then one day, I didn't get sick anymore." She looked at the far wall. "Are we done?"
"If that's what you want." Glass stood. "See you in a week, Vector."
"Sure." She looked away, disinterested.

Audrey McGrath found herself fumbling for the light switch in her apartment. She had managed to get the apple down to the stick after almost ten solid minutes of eating. There was a hotline on her kitchen wall to report anomalies, and she was planning on using it— as soon as she got cleaned up.
Desperately wishing she could recall the chromatophore-filled bacteria that gave her a horrific look when she was younger, she made her way to the bathroom and started a tap of warm water, rubbing a makeup-removal wipe over her lips. Some of the caramel on her face stuck to the wipe, and pulled away in a solid string— a string that was colored an odd shade of red. It snapped off, and took a chunk of fetid skin with it, leaving a bloody gap on her face.
"What the fu—" Audrey's curse was interrupted by a loud, wet, barking cough, which discharged blood onto her mirror. She felt her nose run with thick, green mucous, which dribbled down and mixed with the blood, her makeup running a disgusting combination of colors.
She barely had time to turn into the toilet before the apple, and most of her meals the previous days, erupted from her mouth into the toilet. Something was very, very wrong. She never got sick, outside of food poisoning or heartburn. And this didn't feel like either of those things.
Spitting out a glob of blood, she ran to the hotline. She didn't even need to pick it up, just break the cord. That would trigger an alarm that would scramble Foundation agents to her location within five minutes.
Her right arm contorted itself into a claw, and she used the pain to snap through the flimsy plastic and copper cord as she fell, face contorted in agony. She barely had time to turn herself onto her side so she wouldn't drown in her own blood and vomit, and her voice turned into a scream.

Seven Years Ago
Simon Glass stood in front of a gravestone.
It was small, conservative. The estate of the people buried there couldn't afford much. Just a marker with three names on it— surname, name of the husband, and name of the wife. Martin and Edna, as it turned out, were the names of Vector's parents.
SCP-353 was no longer his charge. Dr. Palmer had taken over, after the Foundation felt he had gotten 'too involved'. He knew that. But he also knew he had less than a year left to live. It didn't feel right, having one of the most challenging cases of his career go unresolved.
Martin had died of untreated syphilis in the late 1980's. He'd been confined to a psychiatric institution by that time, due to his brain being eaten by the disease. As near as he could tell, he'd been infected with it at the time SCP-353 had been conceived.
In one of their last meetings, SCP-353 said that they had "gotten sick" as a kid, before acquiring her anomalous immunity. The source of that was becoming evident— her mother was a pharmacist, her name prefixed with "Dr." on the marker. Records showed that her pharmacy— a family-owned practice— had started ordering vast quantities of antibiotics, anti-virals, and even very early anti-retrovirals starting in 1983.
She had evolved from immuno-deficient to immuno-immaculate. Was there something about that particular cocktail of drugs, her genetics, her exposure to the disease in the womb, some combination of the three?
He contemplated his notes, and placed them on the grave, before taking a lighter to them. The last thing this world needed was the Foundation trying to create another Vector.

"What the hell happened to her?"
On the other side of three-inch-thick glass, Dr. Saarijärvi gaped at the form before him. SCP-353, Audrey, someone who had become his friend over the course of the last ten years, laid on a bed, her body distorted by pain, covered in blood and pus and oozing sores. They had tried to sedate her, but she was so dehydrated that it wasn't taking.
A medic came up next to him. "Place was a biohazard. Ebola, polio, smallpox, everything was in that room, like it just leaked outta her. Melted through her. We had to quarantine the team we sent in." He held up a plastic container, marked "BIOHAZARD" with black letters on a bright orange label. Within it was a half-eaten caramel apple. "We believe this to be the cause."
"Helvetti. Is that one of the apples from Sloth's Pit?" Veijo put his head in his hand.
"We detected them in town a few weeks ago. We think a crate got away and made it into a fair stall. It's been shut down." The medic sighed. "Dr. Saarijärvi… to say the prognosis is grim would be an understatement. Her fluid content is lower than anything any of us have ever seen, intravenous drugs aren't working, her body's discharging blood faster we can put it in…" He shook his head. "I've been in Maz Hatters for over a decade, sir. I've never seen anything like it."
"Get me on the phone with. Someone. Anyone. Fucking hold a seance for the ghosts of Edward Jenner and Jonas Salk and Anna Williams. Use Andrew Wakefield for some kind of sacrificial rite, do something!" Veijo hit the glass of the observation window hard enough to make it rattle in its frame.
"Sir. She's an SCP."
Veijo turned and loomed over the medic. "She. Saved. My. Life."

Six Years Ago
«Containment Breach in the Biological Wing. Containment Breach in the Biological Wing. Containment Breach in the Biological Wing.»
The voice over the loudspeaker was deep, modulated, and intimidating. And in the dark, underneath the flickering lights, Vector walked for the first time in years.
And she was terrified.
Around her were people dying. The thing that had broken out, it was some kind of— not quite a virus. A prion. She didn't know if she could handle prions, but judging by the fact that she wasn't on the floor, slowly succumbing to a sickness that resulted in death in less than forty-eight hours, she had a hunch.
"P-perkele…" A voice behind her coughed, a split second before the gun went off. It ricocheted off the wall, hit a light, and sent the hallway into darkness.
Despite this, Vector could see. She could see the skulls of those around her, being eaten away at by a prion that just seemed… wrong. And she recognized the shape of the brain of the man who had tried to shoot her, from when he nearly died of meningitis three years ago.
"Veijo." She knelt by him. She wanted to gloat, to take credit for this. To rub it in his face about how he had failed, and that Vector would walk free. But she couldn't. She couldn't even contort her face into a grin.
"You bitch." He coughed. "Leaving us to d-" A rasping, barking cough escaped his lips. "To die while you waltz out the door, and back into the world, to spread your plague? How does that feel, Three-Five-Three?" The spat the numbers out like it would save his life.
Vector sat by him. "This is about the point where I would offer you a cigarette, if I had one. I…" She swallowed. "I need to be honest. I never actually did anything."
"What are—" Veijo coughed. "What are you talking about?"
"With the things in my body." She looked at her hands. "I… was so angry, when you caught me. I don't even remember why. I thought about just storing diseases up and keeping them there, brewing them into some kind of Omega Virus, release it somewhere crowded and cause chaos." Her words came out fast and almost slurred together. "But… every time I tried, something stopped me." Her lips wavered. "T-there'd be a kid playing with his mom, or a couple realizing that they really loved each other for the first time, or a man playing the most beautiful song on the street corner while people threw coins into a guitar case, or a bright sunny day that seemed too nice to ruin— or something that— that— that made me…"
"Stop." Veijo put up his hands. "Spare me the crocodile tears. Let me die feeling no pity for you."
Vector put her hand on his shoulder. He was dying. His brain was being eaten. And all he felt for her was contempt, fear, hatred.
She got her wish.
She was the villain.
But she didn't have to be.
Vector's hand reached out and clutched Veijo's head. She had never tried to exert her Control on a prion before. If it succeeded, he'd be alive and hate her. If she failed…
"Get off of me, you—" And then Veijo's eyes glazed over. The things that had been eating his brain were recombining themselves under Vector's influence. Amino acid chains unfolded like a sheet thrown off a balcony, before recombining into a benign protein chain, which she then willed to break apart, scatter, leave its molecules to exit the body post-haste and never return. Right through the blood-brain barrier, and…
Veijo sneezed violently, his mucous coming out black and exploding against the far wall. By the time he came to his senses, Vector was already three people down, her hand on the forehead of a woman with dark hair, her eyes screwed up in concentration. Soon, she too sneezed, and Vector moved on.
It was the first ever breach of SCP-008 which resulted in zero fatalities.

Audrey McGrath knew only pain, and loneliness.
For decades, she knew that there were things in her body which would always keep her company. Some of them already had names, like smallpox; others, she named herself, like Alpha Strain 9. She knew each of them, and all of them had vanished from her body in one painful gasp.
She heard voices gather around her, hooking new drips into mummified skin, struggling to find a single vein to find purchase in. Her vision fade to white, then black, then white again. After a while, it was like she was trying to see through closed eyes.
Audrey McGrath, Vector, SCP-353, was dying a slow, painful death.

Five Years Ago
"Quite a recovery you've made." Veijo reached out to shake Simon Glass's hand. "Here I was on the verge of getting rid of Man in the Mirror as my ringtone for you. Guess nobody wins the dead pool now."
"That's grim." Simon sat down across from Veijo. "But it's very much borrowed time. The coma and cryostasis bought me maybe… another four years. Five, at most." He sighed. "How is she?"
"Vector is… in a unique position." Veijo whistled through his teeth. "She reconsidered your proposal from a few years back. Wanted to join up with a task force. I told her that Pandora's Box is dead, and we'd be insane to resurrect it. Putting that many anomalies on one squad…"
"One word: Samsara."
Veijo raised his finger, ready to speak, before lowering it with a scowl. "I can't argue with that."
Glass steepled his fingers. "I… heard the recording of the incident. She's grown as a person."
"She's a valuable asset, and she has helped. Not quite the alternative to SCP-500 we were hoping for. She wants to help, though." He sucked in air through his teeth. "She.. doesn't have the right skillset for a researcher, and she can't spend eight years in a doctoral program. Agent seems to be the right position for her— less training."
"What about Beta-7? Maz Hatters?" Simon pulled up a file on his phone. "God knows they need more infectious disease specialists."
"I'll bring it up with her."

The call went to voice mail. Of course it would— the man he was trying to call was dead.
«You've reached the inbox of Dr. Simon Glass. If you'd like to make an appointment, call my business number. Clef, if you're listening to this, I'm not approving another trip to South America. Stop asking.»
"Simon." Dr. Saarijärvi put his free hand on his face. "I know your inbox is probably full to bursting but it— it's Vector. She's dying, and I… I just need to talk at you, to formulate ideas, something. We're in a place where disease literally evaporates on contact with the air, and she's dying of everything from Adenovirus to Swine Flu to Zika. I've known her for as long as you have, and now I'm scared that she's just going to vanish and—"
The rambling continued into the phone for a long while. He didn't even hear the alarm when she started to go into cardiopulmonary arrest.

Four Years Ago
"Are you sure about this?" Vector looked across the park at the woman on the bench. "I mean, I'm still in containment. So—"
"You're also an agent of this organization." Simon Glass handed her a drivers license. "The name you requested. Why Audrey, if I may ask?"
Audrey McGrath looked at her new civilian identity. "Audrey Hepburn. I was born on May 4th, same day as her. One of my first memories is my mom showing me My Fair Lady." She looked at the woman again. "How did you even find her? I didn't know I had a sister…"
"Half-sister. Your mother put her up for adoption after her first marriage." He sighed. "I'm sorry, V— Audrey."
"So she knows nothing about me? Doesn't know I exist?"
"Not until I arranged the meeting a week ago." He waved his hand across the park. "Go. Be human, for once. God knows it's been too long."
Audrey nodded, and strode across the green. The two sisters greeted each other, stood up, and hugged.
It would be one of the last times Simon Glass would see his patient happy.

Veijo Saarijärvi's phone was a weight in his pocket. He had never disconnected the call. He had no experience in hands-on treatment, but his heart broke as he saw his staff attempt to pry apart Audrey's arms so that they could get the defibrillator onto her chest.
It wouldn't help. This wasn't a medical drama. He almost wished it was— maybe a miracle would happen. Some revelation that would save her.
There were no miracles here. There was just a phone in his pocket whose call disconnected with a message that the voicemail box on the other end was full.

Three Years Ago
"Plague, Glass! She caught the fucking black plague!"
Simon Glass had barely dodged the copy of the DSM-V that Audrey had thrown next to his head on the way into his office. "What?"
"My sister, Bella. She almost died because she caught the plague from me living with her! You said I was okay to be around people!"
"I— I thought you were." Glass looked down at his hands. He groaned. Maz-Hatters, him, Veijo… everyone SCP-353 had been around in the last eight years had more vaccines in their blood than hemoglobin at this point, just because they worked with her. "Shit."
"I can't be around anyone! Five people in my neighborhood got sick with fucking Zika! I had to fucking pull smallpox out of a five-month-old kid! I…" She tugged at her hair. "This whole thing, this whole fucking thing, was a mistake."
"It was. I'm sorry, Th— V- Au—" His head steamed with pain. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fucking pay for antiboitics." She strode over to him. "I literally had to get on my knees and fucking beg administration to allow the Foundation's insurance to cover my sister, because she's only a half-relative."
"I'm sorry." He backed against the wall. "Is there… is there anything that—"
"Amnesticize her and assign me to a fucking leper colony somewhere. I'm a danger to her, and everyone else in the world." Eyes red and furious, she walked past Glass, and slammed the door to his office hard enough to make the window in it rattle in its frame.

"Dr. Saarijärvi?"
It was the third time the medic had called his name before he turned to look at him. "What is it?"
"Your phone, sir. It's been ringing for the last two minutes."
He hadn't noticed. He'd been in a daze, watching someone he had grown to like die through the glass. The ringtone was distinctive, one he hadn't heard in years. The chorus of Man in the Mirror.
The ringtone belonged to a dead man. Inside his suit, Veijo Saarijärvi answered the phone and brought it to his ear. "Hello?"
There was static on the other end. Then, his voice. «dying… ideas… Zika… vanish…»
It repeated three times before the line went dead. Realization dawned on Veijo, and he slapped his forehead. "The blood sample we took from 353 this afternoon. Do we still have it?"
"It's not scheduled for shipment until tomo—"
Before the medic could finish his sentence, Veijo was dashing past him, to biohazard storage. He flung open the cabinet with such force that the shelves shook.

Two Years Ago And Currently
"Audrey."
Audrey McGrath stood outside of Simon Glass's room. His condition had worsened suddenly. He was on the verge of death, and was surrounded by a dozen people she was too intimidated by to talk to.
"Audrey, please." Veijo looked into the room with her. "You were one of his favorite patients."
"They're not supposed to play favorites." Audrey worried her hair.
"Yes, well, we're only human. We get attached, make mistakes, grow fond of one another. And he…" He looked over at Simon. He was looking right at Audrey. "Talk to him. Before you regret it. Please."
Trembling, Audrey stepped into the room, taking her place by Dr. Glass. "Di…did… you…"
"What?" Audrey asked. "Did I what? Simon?"
"Did you regret it, Audrey?"
Audrey looked over her shoulder, the room vanishing around her. A perfectly healthy Simon Glass— or something that looked like him— stood there. "Regret what?"
"Changing." Simon stood next to her. "A therapist can only do so much. We can't force you to do anything you don't want to. We can offer a comforting word or an encouraging pat on the shoulder, but in the end?" He scratched his ear. "In the end, we're just people. There's no magic word I can say to make the pain go away." He looked down. "The pain I caused."
"I caused a lot more." Audrey shook her head. "I don't… I don't even remember why I wanted to be Vector. I just…" She tugged at her hair. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. I don't think. I wanted to be special, and I— I was a stupid kid, angry and scared, and stupid and—."
"You're only human." Simon looked over at the body on the table. "And you never said goodbye to me."
"I'm sorry, Si." She rubbed her face. "Is that what this is? My life flashing before my eyes?"
"For all you know, I could just be the last neurons firing in your head." He sighed. "It's okay. You were angry, and scared. Maybe a little stupid too." He smiled at her. "It takes time to change, and sometimes we don't do a complete 180. But." Simon pointed at her with a grin on his face. "You came close. 'A lost cause', they said. Now look at you."
"Dying on an operating table in fucking Maryland." Audrey snorted. "Fucking hell, Si. I… I could have saved you."
"You tried, once or twice. I know you did." He flexed his hands. "But you could never get it out, could you?"
"It was like it stuck to your soul. I tried making it more benign, but what if it—-" Her voice turned panicked.
"It didn't hurt. It was scary, yes. But it's okay to be scared and angry." Simon put a hand on her shoulder. "And it's okay to have regrets."
Audrey McGrath fell to her knees and cried.

It took over three minutes for him to find a vein hydrated enough to accept the blood. A technician was on standby to massage the heart, another with Type-O blood for a full transfusion.
Veijo Saarijärvi muttered a prayer under his breath in Finnish, and jabbed the vial full of Audrey McGrath's blood into her arm. He kept praying.

November 5th

Item #: SCP-353
Object Class: Neutralized
Special Containment Procedures: No longer required.

There was a knock on Veijo Saarijärvi's door, interrupting his revision of the file. He was in Baltimore, at his office away from Harkness. The whole room smelled like disinfectant. It distracted him from how much was lost. "Come in."
Audrey McGrath rolled her way in. The woman looked like she had aged twenty years in one night. With enough time, she would recover. But Veijo doubted that she could ever use her legs again— the dehydration and nerve damage had been too intense. They'd barely been able to save her arms.
"Audrey." Veijo nodded. "I'm… revising your file. Your SCP file, that is. Not your personnel one."
"Already going through that." She waved her hand. "Ten examinations later. Clean bill of health." She sighed. "And I mean clean."
Veijo blinked. "You mean—"
"They're all gone. Every single disease. My white blood cell count is so low that they're thinking about putting me in a bubble. They're surprised I have gut flora anymore." She shook her head. "I thought you'd be apoplectic. Losing a valuable resource."
"Yes, well, menneen talven lumia." Veijo waved his hand. "If I get fired, I'm going to need someone else to take over my job."
"…you're joking."
"Why not?" He shrugged. "You have more experience working with infectious agents than I ever will. And Zika's still on the upswing." He sighed and looked out the window of his office, at Baltimore harbor, up the coast, towards Harkness.
Audrey joined him. "I saw Glass. When I was dying."
"I think I did as well." Veijo looked at the phone on his desk. "Or at least, heard him. No incoming call was shown at that time."
"Zombie viruses, werewolves, ghosts…" Audrey sighed. "I need a doctorate to have your job, don't I?"
"We have an accelerated program." Veijo put a hand on her wheelchair. "Want to discuss it over dinner? There's a good seafood place about a block south of here."
Audrey looked out the window.
"Can we just stay here for a bit? Been a while since I've seen sunlight that's not through the miasma."
"Of course."
The pair of them waited, mourned, and consoled in silence. The sun was setting, and so all grief was temporarily adjourned for the sake of a fried fish dinner, between friends.

Hub


"Wait…what?"
"We were discussing the last time you saw your friends from high school- a Jennifer and a Bradley if I recall correctly."
"Yeah, my bad, trailed off there. It's been years. Close to ten now. I think."
"Were you close?"
"Well me and Jenn were mad close but Brad… well, I don't know much about Brad."
"Could you describe him for us?"
"Who? Brad? Uh yeah, he was…"
C'mon dickhead you know this. He was around every day. We had… well, we had some class together. I mean, I remember him sitting nearby. Must have been a class. Maybe lunch, he seemed pretty chummy with the Janitor. It was me, Jenn, and Chad. We made shirts for homecoming.
"He was around. I don't know. He was at homecoming."
Why is this doctor asking about homecoming? We didn't even have a dance, just a game and a pep rally. Weird ass pep rally though. Flew in some band from another school to play the National Anthem and they fucked it up. Put a weird beat under it, upped the tempo. Pretty catchy though. We had a band, why didn't we just use them? I think Chad knew the other principal or something because he had the same uniform.
"Did he have any defining characteristics? Tall or short? What color hair? Anything you remember would be useful."
"Who? The guy from the marching band who was always around Jess? He was tall and fat, brownish blueish eyes. Wide mouth. Looked like the Janitor. I don't know what she saw in him. I guess cause he was good at music or some bullshit."
This guy won't stop with the homecoming shit. So there were streamers and music and food and a good beat, big deal. You can get a good beat just walking down the street nowadays. Everywhere is playing something. Keeps looping.
"Bradley was in the marching band?"
That was his name…. Brad. That motherfucker. I can't believe I forgot about Brad. The Janitor's nephew or whatever. Weird-ass fucking eye having looking-ass bitch. If I see that dickhead Ted again… for what he did to her, that fucking waste.
"Yeah."
Nailed it.
"It's important you accurately recall this. We are discussing your friends from high school, one Jennifer Vallay and one Bradley DiGiommato. These names are important to you, yes?"
"It was me and her. It was always supposed to be at least. We spent every day together. And we'd flirt and occasionally hook up, but by the end of high school she wound up with Craig, the Janitors son. The guy with the weird eyes."
"I need you to focus. We are discussing Jennifer Vallay and Bradley DiGiommato. These names are important, please keep your mind on them and tell me any important recollections you have of your time with them."
Oh I got this in the bag. I could tell him about the time we went to the lake Junior year and me and the girl bought a lemonade. Saw all our friends in the lake, but couldn't join 'em. Can't swim. Their loss. That was a nice day. Weird seeing the Janitor there though, you forget they have a life outside of school sometimes. Or the time Senior year we rented an electric scooter and drove it down State Street. Fuckin' incel Tad showed up in his custodial outfit and ruined it. None of us could stand looking at his weird eyes.
"Yeah, all three of us were at homecoming… We made…."
Homecoming.
I can feel the fuckin' beat baby.
Homecoming, jesus.
What a performance…
Fuck- homecoming….
"I made tee shirts. They said Brad and Jenn forever. She didn't like them. Said I wasn't the same guy she fell in love with. Said she could see it in my eyes…. The music was so loud, everyone was weird and riled up. I could have sworn I saw the…."
I swear to God whatever his name was had the weirdest eyes. Whenever I think of high school I see 'em in my head. Come to think of it, that's probably why I hated him. I always blamed him for taking Joanne, but I think it was more the eyes. That and the fact that everything was always filthy, but I don't know why I hold that against him.
"I saw the Janitor. He was playing a guitar. And Brad was there, too. Wearing the shirt I made for Jezebel as if he deserved it. As if he deserves anything. He was playing the guitar."
"The shirt you mentioned making for your friend, what did it say?"
"It didn't say anything, it was just a picture of a drum kit."
I love drum kits. She did too. Chad was playing the drums in the shirt, weird coincidence. You can hear the beat if you close your eyes. Can't focus too hard or your eyes change, though.
"Bradley- we need you to focus. We're losing you faster this time. All of our tricks haven't worked, so we'll cut the shit. Describe either the Janitor or the events of homecoming, please."
The Janitor…and his weird fucking eyes.
I could swear he looked just like me if it weren't for those.
But God damn, could he play a beat.
I don't need a woman-
And I don't need a name-
I don't need a future-
Or a past, it's all the same.
I don't need your money or a fancy SUV
All I need is my friends and we can make a symphony.
Know your role.
Know your place.
Know your tempo.
Know your pace.
Keep the beat.
Keep the beat.
Keep the beat.
Keep the beat. Keep the beat. Keep the beat.
I didn't need her anyway.
"Bradley?"
"Wait…what?"


A baby Jay was brought up
By a Magpie and a Rook
Their family was happy
If a glance was all you took
But Father Rook was changed
By all the strange things he had learned
And so one day he left the nest;
He never once returned
The Jay and Magpie, now alone,
Together, did their best
But if she wished to fly
The Jay would have to leave the nest.
She'd gained her father's knowledge
And had soon picked up a trail
The Magpie begged her chick to stay
But all to no avail
For Jay had learned a Blackbird Queen
Lived hidden in the woods
She traded knowledge freely
To surrounding neighborhoods
It seemed she might know Father Rook
Or even where he was
She might even forego the “why”
If she knew the “because”
The Jay began her journey
Down a dark and dangerous path
Through snow and rain and hail she flew
And in the aftermath
She found that she had gotten
To a forest known by few
The nest was in a grove
Near where the Tree of Knowledge grew
She timidly approached it
But the only other bird
Was a Raven. Could she be the Queen?
That wasn't what she'd heard.
The Raven spoke, “I sense you've come
For knowledge from the Tree”
Jay nodded. “Then it seems that I'm
The one you've come to see.”
The Jay was clearly startled
But she bowed before the Queen
And soon began her story
Of the things that she had seen
And finally the reason
She'd approached the Queen that day
The Queen thought for a while
And then nodded at the Jay
“The Rook lives in a castle
Just a cliff or two away
Your journey here took long
But this one only takes a day”
The Jay was grateful for her help
But still she was confused
She asked why she received it
And the Blackbird looked bemused
“Your father left you young,
Your mother raised you all alone
Your life has not been easy;
It reminds me of my own.”
The Queen gave one last warning
To the Jay before she flew
“The bird that you will find there
Will not be the one you knew.”
Jay rested up and flew out
As the sun began to rise
She finally saw the castle
When she stopped to close her eyes.
The castle was mechanical,
Yet somehow overgrown
It seemed so unfamiliar
From the Earth the Jay had known
She snuck past their defenses
But did not know where to look
She wandered and by happenstance
She ran into the Rook
She suddenly was speechless
And did not know what to think
Emotions filled the poor young Jay;
The Rook could only blink.
She wanted to be happy,
But instead was hurt and mad
The bird that she had found
He could not truly be her dad
And yet it clearly was him
Standing still before the Jay
She finally cried “How could you?”
But he had nothing to say.
She yelled at him and pleaded, too
But to her great surprise
There was no spark of anything
Behind his dead black eyes
‘Twas then the Jay remembered
The wise words of the Queen
Her Father was no Rook,
He was a cog in a machine.
Emboldened by this knowledge
And embittered by it too
She realized she had found the Rook
But not the one she knew
Emotionless, the Rook looked down
Upon the tearful Jay
She looked up and bid him farewell
With that, she flew away.
But as the Rook watched after her
He sensed something inside
And though he knew it could not be
It almost felt like pride
The world had held Jay down
But now she soared into the air
Although she'd reached the hidden grove
Queen Blackbird was not there
So Jay guarded the trees
And all the knowledge in between
Years after she arrived there
She proclaimed herself the Queen
And finally as for the title
Tall Queen Blackbird took
She'd never be a Raven
For her father was a Rook


Coauthor with myself and SCP Illustrated. Involves When Day Breaks and Unlondon and is pretty heavily influenced by Fallen London, obviously.

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F.A.Q.

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RECORDING ONE:

My name is Jacob Hawkeswith. Dr. Oliver told us that recording our thoughts could keep us from going crazy down here in the dark. I'm neither bored nor scared enough to worry about that, but orders are orders.
On the surface I was a containment specialist. I spent most days either here in London or the primary British containment site in Kent. I work with Kira North, the site's current security head. I wouldn't call us partners, but we do good work together.
Every day we find something new to study, last month we noticed that you can grow plants down here. How a plant can undergo photosynthesis without the photo part is beyond me, but we've got a growing little farm going near the Hyde Park base. They don't grow very fast, mind you, but they do grow. Considering this place is supposed to replicate London, it actually makes some sense. Even the most urban cities have plants and parks.
As long as we try to keep a base down here, though, I'm going to have work. God can you imagine doing this for the rest of your life? The bobbies are a damned menace. Constantly harrying the researchers. Sign up for the Foundation they said. Fight humanoid abominations for the good of mankind they said. They were surprisingly honest in the brochure.
One thing has begun to worry me though, we lost contact with the outside this morning. Of course that's not the first time it's happened, but usually by midday we get a check-in from the above-ground station. Nothing so far today. I'm sure it's nothing, but we're supposed to talk about the stuff that bothers us on this thing, so I am.
On top of it all there's a marked uneasiness among the staff. There hasn't been an attack by the bobbies all day, which is even weirder than losing contact with the surface. Elise said she thinks something went wrong ground-side, an XK maybe. She's always freaking out over little things, but I ordered her not to say that to anyone else. It made me worried, and we don't need that spreading to everyone else.
She pouted a little when I gave her the order, but she'll get over it.
I still convinced Kira that we needed send a patrol topside to check out the substation, and figure out what's going on. It's likely nothing, but we can't take any chances.
That's all. You know I actually do feel a little better. Huh.

GENERAL ALERT:

This message will repeat. This is a general alert from Site-19 and the O5 Council. All foundation personnel are to shelter in place. Direct exposure to sunlight is to be avoided at all costs. Under no circumstances are communications with SCP-001 entities to be initiated. We know they're trying to contact you, it doesn't matter. They're all dead. Do not respond. Do not acquiesce to any of their requests.
All foundation personnel should revise extant evacuation plans, as Site-19 is no longer secure due to several security lapses. The off-world colonization project is currently on hold until the site is re-secured. Learn from our mistakes, but don't come here yet. We… shit it's in the vents. Open fire!
Apologies for the interruption. Site-19 has been fully re-secured. Disregard the previous message. SCP-001 has been neutralized. The surface is now safe and everything is beautiful. This message will repeat.

RECORDING TWO:

Dr. Oliver spread her brains across her office wall with a bullet this morning. You'd have thought that the bosses would've changed their minds about the whole solo-therapy thing but apparently it's still in the rules. Turns out I had the dumb luck of being in Unlondon when the sun went wrong. There's no confusion about what is happening, just the whys. If you spend any amount of time in the sunlight you start to melt. Spend long enough and there's no turning back. God. That really is the new normal.
All the people on the radio say the same thing. Nothing's wrong. Come on out and see the sun. James's wife came on the radio today. Begged him to come up. We had to hold him back but I don't think it matters anymore. I watched half my team go out last night and melt in the moonlight. This morning they came back and asked us to let them in. I would not be surprised if James ate a bullet before the day's… ahh the welcome message. Something's coming down the stairs. I gotta go.

My fellow citizens. If you are hearing this, then the world as we knew it has finished. The sun has broken, the ground heaves with the tramp of terrible feet, and all the horror and madness have broken free to exact their vengeance on the world of Man. Those who sought to contain it are killed or scattered. We soon learned that to attempt to fight these creatures is almost invariably to face one's death. Billions have been transformed into monstrous abominations, and there is nothing -was nothing- we could do to stop them. Evil has raised its bloody flag upon all nations of the world and crowed its unholy victory to the broken sun. Yes, this is the end.
But there is a new hope.
Welcome to UnLondon, a city of the survivors, a city of the free. Together, fellow citizen, we will wait and prepare for the new beginning, the grand new world that is soon to come. Let the world above burn. We will endure. Let the monsters have their world. We will prepare. And let the ground tremble with a new Armageddon, as evil consumes itself, for I tell you, citizen, upon the day of the ruination of Man, their insatiable appetites will turn them against one another in their endless lust for death. We will wait.
And I tell you, citizen, that there will be a new dawn. And you will emerge from UnLondon, blinking in the light of an uncorrupted sun, as our children play and laugh in the bones of horrors long dead. And we will walk, hand in hand, to the sea, our faces skywards, as that rising sun ushers in the new age of Man. And you will gather, citizen, at my feet as I summon UnLondon from its rest, and it shall burst, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old. And on that day, citizen, there shall be a new order, as we raise our flag over the entire world.
I welcome you to UnLondon, the Last City.
And the first.

INTERCEPTED RADIO SIGNAL:

James? It's Amelia. I'm not sick anymore. I was at the doctor's office when the light changed us all. Now there is no sickness.
I don't know if you can hear me but you should come upstairs. It's so beautiful here. There's no more hunger. No more war. No more suffering. We all are linked together in harmony. In peace. Your mother is here. You father too. All of us are waiting for you, James.
Remember when you proposed? A sunset beach in Botany Bay. The whole world was on pause while you got down on one knee and told me you loved me. You told me you didn't want to live without me James. Were you lying? James we miss you so much.
The doctor said it was going to be a little boy. Come back to us James. It's so beautiful here.

RECORDING THREE:

I don't think they know we're here. Well shut up then. Because if we don't record something then no one's going to know what the fuck happened. Look, I'm doing this. Keep an eye out and don't let them see you.
We lost. Hard. After the attack on the entryway we fell back to the Hyde Park tent city. Was a beautiful little community of the stuffiest men and women you'd ever meet. Supplies would've lasted us a year or two at least, and by then we hoped to scrounge some sunlamps from above ground for the carrot and potato seeds. Before thing went tits up a second time, anyway.
We all got about 4 hours of sleep before we woke up screaming. All of us. I remember dreaming about this giant eye, looking at me across an endless horizon. It was… angry? Disappointed? It was so hot, I was trying to breathe and it burned my lungs. Suddenly my clothes caught on fire. I didn't die or even pass out. My skin started to bubble and melt and the eye looked satisfied. That's when I noticed the thing had eyebrows.
How I missed that before I don't know, but then it was a face. Then a hand came at me from across the horizon and a flock of pigeons came from behind me and let out this terrible scream. They attacked the hand, pecking it until it was nothing but bone. But it still kept coming. It scooped up the puddle that was me and brought me to its mouth.. and then I woke up.
I think the city was trying to warn us. I don't know how this place works but those stupid pigeon eye things were going crazy in the air above us. They could see it coming, even though we couldn't.
The men we lost last night knew everything about our defenses, and there's a flood of flesh pouring down the stairs now, spreading it's way across the city. I don't know how many people made it out of Hyde Park but it wasn't many. James's leg is a mess, and Elise is out of breath. The only one keeping it together is Kira, and she kinda wants to leave the other two behind.
I told her we needed to record another message and she gave me a look like I was going crazy. Maybe I am, but I am not leaving Elise behind, and if we kept running those things would've gotten her. I don't know that we can do anything for James, but we're trying. The bleeding has stopped at least.
When the attack came, our perimeter defenses didn't trigger, but thankfully we were already awake. We opened fire but I'm not sure what we thought was going to be accomplished by shooting a giant wave of flesh. It rolled over everything and everyone who didn't run. Kira thinks if we could burn it we could do some damage, but where the fuck are we going to get fuel down here? The only positive to all this is that the bobbies were fighting on our side, fat lot of good that did.
I thought we were dead, but the speaker crackled to life and that same damn voice as always told us we could find refuge in parliament. So we're going there now.
Get James up, we gotta move.
I hope this isn't the end of our story.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT:

This city was meant to be a shining beacon in the dark against the fall of the world of man. You mock it. You destroy all that lives and turn it into more of yourself. I give you this one warning: go back to your corrupted sun. There is nothing to be found here but darkness. Your light has no power here! Burn and answer for your crimes, abominations! I cast you into perdition's flame!

RECORDING FOUR:

We had to leave James behind. I think he knew he was going to die. Kira offered to blow his brains out so he wouldn't get taken but he said he wanted to see his family. I don't know what to make of that, but I hope he's happy now.
Kira, Elise and I made our way to Westminster. I'd never seen so many bobbies in one place before. They parted just enough for us to make it to the Parliament building. A few days ago I'd have been terrified, but it felt comforting. Strange days indeed.
Parliament was empty, except for an army of Unlondon's monster guards. Most of them guarded the door, and a few guided us through the maze inside the building. If they weren't there I swear we'd never have found our way. We came out in a room with a tank at the center large enough to hold a person, but it was empty. Just a slick of liquid along the floor that led to another open door. The bobbies can't talk, so they just motioned to the door with their hands.
I mean what were we gonna do? Run back outside?
There was a set of stairs going down. We could hear the door close behind us, and then we heard a loud crash. We arrived at the bottom of the stairs on a sandy beach. There was a little wooden platform with a small steam powered ship, barely visible in the dark, attached to it with a rope. We could see Unlondon looming above us but there was no other way back, except back up the stairs that we'd fled through.
There was a mooring for a 2nd boat, but it was long gone. Aerial surveillance of this area last month didn't see the boats, and Kira and I have no idea where they've come from. Not that it matters, when someone throws you a life vest you take it, not quibble over where it came from.
We knew there was no other way out, so we climbed aboard. Once we were in the water and a decent distance away, something burst at the center of the city. The flames burn bright orange and white. The flesh is sizzling and screaming. The whole city is dying, and the monsters with it.
If this river is an approximation of the Thames, we should reach open water soon. I honestly think the ship knows where it's going somehow. We barely have to steer at all. Elise found a note in the engine room. It said "Gather your friends, gather your things, and gather your light. The path to Undublin is dark but ends, and if you can make it, I'll save you a pint."
I'm looking forward to taking him up on that.


It was always disconcerting to dream someone real, no less someone he knew in the waking world. It felt perverse, like voyeurism writ large, a life laid bare and helpless, open and shivering. This was made all the worse because, unlike the props and sets of normal dreaming, lifelike or otherwise, this one seemed to be just as confused and alarmed as he was. She turned, stammering and looking around with confusion that would have been comical, if it were not so unexpected. The room was shadowy dream-set, that indistinct facade that drifted behind scenes until called upon to define itself. Easily accepted by the sleeping mind…but apparently not so by some dreams.
“W-what the fuck? What the fuck?”
He sighed. Perhaps not eloquent, but succinct.
“I know you, ma'am, don't I?”
She spun, eyes wide and staring. Memory finally bubbled forth from those bright blue eyes framed in a fog of pale red hair. Somewhere in the ranks at class, top-left quarter, near the isle. Quiet, unremarkable…not even his type. Why the dream-
“Mr. Parks? What…is…is that you? What the fuck is going on? What's happening?
He shook his head, absently trying to pick up her name…something monosyllabic, Trish or Dia or something like that. He sat, the chair condensing just enough to matter to the scene at hand. She must have made more an impression then he'd thought.
“Young lady, I hate to break this to you, but this is a dream. You, yourself, are a dream, the candyfloss of the mind, and no more substantial, it-”
“What are you talking about? A dream? Are you fucking crazy?”
Frowning, he leaned forward, peering at her as she fumed. Overly distinct…but then he could hardly remember the real girl. Likely a doll set, head pasted to body, lifted from a thousand commutes and daily passing. He liked to consider himself an articulate dreamer, and it was somehow off-putting to see so much detail put into such an offhand moment. Like gold filigree and inscription on a bolt holding down a toilet. All the same, he smiled…variety was the spice of life, in the end, even if it was not to taste.
“The argument could be made that dreaming is a kind of madness, but no, I'm quite sane, at least in the waking world. These sort of 'meta' dreams are somewhat of a rarity for me, more a participant in things.”
She stared, eyes wide, panting. Pretty, but nothing to dream about. The vagaries of the mind, he supposed.
“Oh god…you…what did you do? What did you fucking DO?! I was…I was driving home, and I felt sleepy…did you fucking drug me? Is that what this is?”
He chuckled through a rising nervousness. This felt odd. Wrong, even. He'd long since passed the age of night terrors, but wasn't immune to the odd, toxic turn of will. The mind digesting threat and fear in a safe environment, a vaccine against subsequent terror. He'd no desire for strong medicine tonight, though.
“My dear, I'm…sorry for whatever mental cramp formed you with such detail, but I've done nothing to you, and have no plans or designs for such. I think I'll dream of oceans, now.”
“You're crazy, you're crazy, you're fucking crazy you son-”
Her insult was smothered by waters, a mass of ocean condensing like fog from the air, trickles of light passing through the waves. He turned away from her insulting form, dismissed as he looked for flitting fish, floating and breathing the waters as air. Perhaps a reef tonight, or even some grassy shallows…no caves or deep dives tonight. He felt oddly unsettled, struggling to form the glittering shapes and rising swells of fish and reef. Was he really so very sensitive that one familiar face could unsettle him so? Puff and nonsense. He focused, gently, drawing the fluttering smears of idea, like animate paintbrush swatches, into clearer form.
The clawing, scrabbling hands at his face and throat were abruptly all too real.
He gasped, then croaked. The water was no detriment to breath, how? Why? His mind skittered and tumbled, trying to process how suddenly it was strangling. He turned, and there she was. Eyes wide and rolling, hair a gauzy fog around her, hands outstretched and grasping, ripping at his face and throat as a trail of shrinking bubbles drooled from her mouth and nose. Her face was blue, veins bulging and tight, her body stretched behind her.
Pain. Deep pain, fear, AIR.
He swung his fist, the force drowned by the sludgy dream-weakness so common to sleeping panic, the force unable to even turn her wide, panicked, accusing face away. He gripped her hands, dragging those killing fingers from him, her scrambling limbs growing slower by the second. The bubbles stopped, her twisting ended, face frozen in a wide-mouthed scream of terror. She started to drift away, and down, tumbling slowly into the deeper blackness. It felt so real, all of it, the nails in his throat, those mad, gripping hands. The terror ate away at the edges, a seam lifting, rush of light and-
Dr. Parks woke, the end of a moan dying on his lips, limbs tangled in sheets. He blinked, breathing heavily, the darkness of the room broken only by a window's patch of starlight and his clock. Still many hours before dawn. He took comfort in this even as he shook away the gauzy haze of nightmare. Insane. Just insane. God, it'd felt so REAL! He touched his neck, feeling foolish for it, finding it unmarked and whole. He breathed deep, closing his eyes and lazily freeing himself from the sheets. Maybe his sister was right, maybe he did need to get out more. Dumb. Just a bad dream. More of gravy then of grave, and all that. He sighed, easing back into the pillow.
He drifted on the edge of sleep and dream, hesitant and fretting, like the superstitious trembling at the entryway to a dead man's home.
The dim daylight. Class, words, pounding on heads like stubborn nails. He liked it, yes, but it was long grinds broken by brittle moments of light. Absent thoughts, rote information, as well known as his own home. Thoughts of fishing, of open ocean soured by ill-tasting memory. Such an odd dream. No reason to dwell, especially today. Weekend was coming, time enough to even daydream then. Maybe he would actually call the travel agency. At least, see the local aquarium.
An empty desk drew his eye like a missing tooth draws a tongue.
Dr. Parks stared, blinking twice with an otherwise frozen face, those near the empty seat suddenly busy with notes or bags. Nothing. Nothing. It was nothing at all. Odd foresight at best, a noticed cough or odd posture, dismissed by the waking mind to make fodder for dreams. Sickness noticed by the unconscious, ignored by a busy will. He recovered swiftly, stifling the desire to ask, offhand, if anyone had seen the missing girl. Her face, drowning, blue and gasping, seemed to hang before him every time he looked to the empty seat. Rush along, no review, happy class. Music and paperwork, the solace for the busy mind.
Her name was Eleanore, the police said. People called her Ell. Had he been less paralyzed with fear and confusion, he might had congratulated himself for at least getting close.
They'd come that evening, just as he was finishing. Normally not a concern, kids wander, but hers was odd. Overdue at home, left her boyfriends house without issue. Car was wrecked, dumped off the road and into a tree, but no body. No blood, no anything. Purse and such still in the car, just strange, like she'd just vanished out of her car. He sat, face a mask of concerned confusion, as inside he curled up and rocked, buffeted by the memory of her accusing, panicked screams. There was no way, it was some sick, mad coincidence. Impossible. Even if it was, how? Why?
No, he'd seen nothing, heard nothing, sadly just another, unremarkable student. No, he didn't know if she had friends or family, he'd been unaware of any relationship. The most interaction they'd had was class discussion and occasional questions after class. Sorry there was no more help to offer. Of course, he'd tell them the second he heard anything. Hopefully some misadventure with alcohol, turn up chagrined and broke in a day or two. Pleasantries, gentle threats.
He walked home, feeling as if a massive, scarlet “M” burned and glowed on his back.
She was still there. God in heaven, she was still there. Why was she still there?
She lay, sodden and blue, on the dream-floor, so clear and sharply, drippingly real, like a Dore illustration in the middle of a snowfield. Nothing else, just her, sloppy and cold, a few small pools of water around her, hair splayed and plastered to her like exotic seaweed. He could smell the wet and the salt, and under it the odd, curling bite of fish…and perhaps rot, even. Drips were still coming from her nose, puddling against her blue cheek.
Misplaced guilt, stress, panic, no, nonono, away, away with it.
No water, now, forest, green fields, peaceful flowers and drowsy sun, light and warm memory. A young man, afield, freed to explore for the day, chasing grasshoppers and June bugs through tall grass, a waving corn field just to the side. Woods ahead, a spit of timber between fields, full of forts and old cans, the odd deer or fox besides. He was far back, a boy of no more then ten, eyes sparkling with nostalgia when he tripped, spilling forward on to the cold, wet mass. He pushed up on his hands, feeling the dampness against his palms and body, a clinging web against his fingers. He looked, and saw the masses of red hair tangled in his fingers.
She was still there.
The dream vanished like a soap bubble in hell. Still there, still dead, still wet and fishy. There were some bits of grass and dirt on her now. He recoiled, hand and body still wet. He willed her away. Alive and away, far from him, anywhere else. She refused. Unmoved, unchanged, whatever the force. No matter the will. He pushed her away, invisible force tossing the lifeless body aside, landing with a jarring, damp thud, limbs and head lolling in repulsive boundlessness. The jolt dissipated field and sun, soon left with a hazy nowhere place…and the body a short distance away, like a nail driven into guilt. He could still feel the wet on his hands, smell the sodden mass of it, like the rot inside a clogged drain, as real as his waking life.
He started to flail, trying anything. Boxes and vaults, all effective until his focus slipped, and then there again, damnably present, dripping and blue. A great pyre, born of a sun's heart seemed the solution…but ended with a reeking, charred hulk, eyes bust and smoking, making him gag and retch even in the dream. Blades then, but the sound, the sight of rent flesh and splintered bone ended the attempt nearly as soon as it began. For the first time since his youth, he yearned to suddenly wake, or for some kind, overseeing soul to wake and console him. In his panic, he didn't even notice the young, befuddled man behind him until he'd approached and grabbed his shoulder.
In his panic, he could be forgiven his rather harsh response.
He spun, visions of old, long-forgotten monsters of closet and hall swarming up in his mind, and he lashed out in sheer reflex, built over long battles with nightmares. A blinding, consuming light, to blast away the evil. The white blast consumed the young man before he could even scream, a thin squeak leaking forth as it charred and split his flesh, burned away hair and cloth. Mr. Parks recalled the light as soon as he realized what he'd done, but it was already too late. Split purple and black skin and nude bone reached for him, collapsing on exposed knees. A twisted hole ringed by stubs of teeth implored silently, stripped finger bones reaching forth on a withered arm. Then he fell, crumpling into a smothering heap, his back all but untouched. He smelled of burnt pork and urine.
Mr. Parks didn't recognize him, nor had the means to, or inclination, spending the remainder of his dream in panicked flight from the two bodies, or in wracking sobs. It wasn't until he stopped for coffee the next day, and saw someone new behind the counter that he realized. He didn't even know his name.

Guilt and fear are powerful motivators. Sleep can be fought, and for some time, but like death comes for all before long. With it came others, known or not. Confused, sad, angry…and trapped. Pulled like crayfish into a trap, the came, and stayed. Alive or dead, they stayed, among the growing stench and horror. The pain, and injury could leave, it seemed, Parks waking with savage wounds from enraged dream-captives. A rolling, endless nightmare that ate more and more into his life. He had to defend himself, didn't he? Even simply waking was no release, sleep revealing the previous captive suffocated, eyes and tongue bulged from blue faces. Withdrawing, more and more, losing small things, then large, but never sleep and it's bottomless reserve of new, pleading, furious horrors.
Dozens lay dead or ensnared when Mr. Parks suddenly vanished from the college, without a word to anyone. His home was found ransacked, foul play suspected, but it was eventually forgotten. People sometimes just vanished, a simple fact of life.

Ranger Washington blinked, patting his face. Something was wrong. He'd been patrolling one of the more isolated paths, eyes open for sign of bear or cougar, rare though they were. He'd just turned to sweep through a small clearing on a overlook of the woods, benches and low stones looking out over a sea of treetops. There had been a man there, a vagrant he'd tangled with a few days before. It wasn't an uncommon sight, sadly, but this one had been odd. Obviously crazy, but unlike the more disruptive ones who came screaming or muttering to molest hikers, this one seemed to have a phobia of people. He'd run, scream, and generally do all in his power to put distance between him and other people. Some hikers had complained, and Washington had finally caught up to him a few days ago. He'd rambled, moaning about keeping away, that he'd just end up dead. He'd hauled him back to the ranger's station and handed him over to the police as a vagrant. He'd been reaching for his radio to come and re-capture their wayward homeless when he'd suddenly…what? A sudden blackness…had the vagrant attacked him? Patting himself, he could feel no injury…and he'd been asleep on the bench when he'd approached.
The sudden, overpowering smell of decay shattered his thoughts.
The smell made him gag, worse then any rotten animal or garbage pit, and as he turned, fighting down his gorge, he saw more. A hazy, foggy place, with a earth floor…and bodies. God, how many bodies! They littered the ground, in various states of decay, in whole or in pieces. It was like something from a war zone, the sheer amount and varied forms of injury. Washington put his hand over his mouth and nose, trying to screen the reek. As he looked, the mass of death rose to a small hill, with high stones in the center. On it sat the vagrant, rocking and emitting brief, shuddering sobs. Washington, staggered, let his mouth work soundlessly, pulling his gun by pure reflex. He shouted as it suddenly shimmered…and fell apart noiselessly into slow falling flower petals.
Mr. Parks raised his head, bleary eyes laying on the figure on the edge of the field of death, watching his confusion and fear starting the slow curdle into pure horror. He moaned, hands outstretched in helpless pleading.
“I begged you not to be known by me! I begged you! I told you I'd dream you to death!”
The slumbered grave mound seemed to swallow his cry, unnoticed and unmourned, as the ranger started to scream.