My name is Les Woodrow, I'm a detective working for the Arcane Investigations Special Police Squad. Recently, there had been an outbreak of mages summoning powerful succubi, and setting them loose on officials and investigators alike. Unfortunately, I've been assigned to tracking down affiliates of the Mage's Academy who are practising unlawful magics instead.
"Good morning, Detective Woodrow. I'd like to see you in my office." Les looked up at his boss, a broad shouldered man with a powerful collection of bone structures. Chief Fleischer had many notable qualities, but among the most referenced was the magnificence of his beard. It was as bushy as it was made of fire, and the crackling orange flames dancing off of his chin made sure you knew that it was certainly not made of anything else. Les stood up carefully, putting down his mug of internal monologues, and followed his boss into the square room.
"Now, Woodrow," the Chief of magical police began. "There's been a murder. I'll need you to take your sorry rear end down to the Freising University immediately."
Les rolled his eyes. He'd miss lunch. His gluteus maximus, cursed the other week to be vocal, apologised for Les' rudeness. "I don't suppose I'd be able to take this assignment on my own?"
"I'm afraid not Les, you've been assigned a partner. You'll be taking a new recruit from the Foundation with you."
"What was wrong with my old partner?"
"Ulthrike the Almighty, dread behemoth of the deep, quit the force. Getting too old for this, apparently." The chief shrugged his shoulders, and then shrugged Les' shoulders just for good measure.
"I swear he's immortal."
"Be that as it may, Detective Robertson will meet you in your car."

True to the chief's words, the fresh faced and overly serious man manifested inside of my vehicle just as I was turning onto the Bundesautobahn 92. Naturally, I offered him a cigarette on arrival.
"I don't smoke." Robertson said after a moment. Les glanced at the man, and sure enough he was not currently emitting soot.
"Ah, I apologise. Would you like a cigarette?"
"Thank you."
Les tried to keep his focus on the road ahead of him. "So, what's your name? If we're going to be working together we may as well get to know each other."
"Riley Robertson, thaumatology specialist."
"You know, the Foundation should stop trying to mix science and magic." Les glanced over his shoulder as he changed lanes, choosing instead a nice carpet over the harsh asphalt that had been there before. "I'm afraid that you're going to be quite out of your depth if you keep clinging to such notions."
"I shall do my best, Detective Woodrow."
A few more minutes of driving took them into the trees, and once they'd recovered from the crash they were well on the way to the academy. The building was coated in a nest of turrets and towers of many different shapes and qualities. One tower in particular was in the process of falling over as they arrived; the destination of their venture. From the report given to them by the local dean, the tower had been locked with all people inside. This should make it easier to find the culprit.

The case as it had been handed to me was rather unusual. Not a simple magical murder, which some colleges actually encourage as a method of encouraging students to take up abjuration classes, rather the victim had been murdered in secret, and then had their corpse raised as a thrall. The only people who could've done such a thing would be the two other people currently residing in the decades decommissioned west wing. Before any of this however, we visited the scene of the crime.
Les beat down the smoldering flame spell from his left arm as his partner took to the corpse to smother the fire before it spread too much. It was a little surprising to see the thrall still moving when they arrived. It was even more surprising when it kept talking afterwards.
"Alright keep your hair on, I get the message. No funny business." Robertson replaced the toupee that he had been using to to damp the fire upon his head. Woodrow put away the comedy props.
"Good evening sir. Would you be able to inform me of the identity of your murderer?" Riley asked after a moment. The thrall turned the remains of its head towards the question, and even without a face remaining Les could tell it was vastly unimpressed.
"First day on the job, is it?"
"How could you possibly tell?"
"For starters, it's written all over your face." Riley looked in the nearest pane of glass, and sure enough there were sharpie marks plastered covering his nose and brow. He turned to his partner incredulously, and saw Les holding a distinct crystalline object in the rough shape of a pen.
"Magic marker." He responded.
"But also, it's pretty basic stuff to know that a thrall ain't the same guy as the body he lives in."
Detective Woodrow stepped forwards to the thrall for his own questions.
"Could you tell us the identity of your summoner then?"
"How am I supposed to know one idiot mage from the next?" The thrall attempted to spit on the ground, but he lacked the glands to do so. "Some kinda blue robed man."
Les nodded, and scribbled something onto his notepad. "Were you conjured in this building?"
"Downstairs, some kind of dungeon going on."
"Interesting." The sound of Les' pen again filled the room. "Do you mind if I examine the body?"
The thrall indicated that it was happy to accommodate the investigation, and Les passed his notebook to Riley. Riley examined the book, and found a rather fabulous sketch of a sandwich robbing graves.
Les cast his eyes about the body quickly and carefully. He plucked and examined a thread from the un-corpse's fingernails. It was a light blue hue. He pocketed it with a smile. "Right, I think we're done here. I'll go talk to the witnesses, you perform the exorcism."

Our two witnesses in question were both students of the School of Evocation, taking up residence in the now abandoned wing while they worked on their final project together with the deceased. Since they knew each other personally, I decided to interview them together.
"So, for the sake of the recording charm, please state your names." Les watched the two men carefully as he prepared to ask them questions. They were almost identical in ways that would imply either a close familial or magical connection between them, or a really uncreative flesh mage. They both had roughly rectangular faces, with tight upper lips and even tighter brows. The pair did have distinctions however, one was short and one was tall. One was fat and one was thin. One was currently glowing bright purple, and the other was not.
"I am Alexys Todbringer," the taller man said.
"My name is Dietrich Achtung," the luminous man said.
Les nodded once to both of the men, politely ignoring the ridiculous and obviously false surnames. "Alright. Can you please tell me what you were working on with our victim?"
"We were attempting to marry the powers of Evocation and Conjuration, so that we might make it possible to summon non-physical entities and familiars." Alexys responded after a moments consideration.
"Very difficult," Les nodded understandingly. "Had you prepared a vicar in advance?"
Both men looked quizzically at the detective.
"I think you misunderstand my associate," it was Dietrich's turn to speak, taking time with his words to ensure he was understood. "There was no vicar involved in this process."
"Oh of course, a christian wedding would be completely unworkable."
"Naturally."
"Jewish then? Associations with Kabbalah would make it ideal."
Both interviewees nodded in unison. Dietrich's glowing hue shifted towards the orange spectrum.
"Back to the matter at hand. What would you gentlemen say your relationships were to the deceased?"
Once again, Alexys was the first to speak, leaning in towards his interviewer.
"To be quite honest, Iskandar was unpleasant as conjurers can be. A very rude man who I wouldn't hesitate to eliminate from the equation if not for his relevant expertise."
Les then leant towards Dietrich to hear his opinion.
"Iskander was a liar and a thief. He stole the heart of my former lover and told me she had run away. I only found out that he had taken her internal organs a week later."
Individually, this information might've been more use. When Les considered both however, it was almost as useful as if they'd said nothing at all. The detective stood up from his seat and ended the recording his attractive attitude had been taking.
"I shall have detective Robertson take your alibis in the morning, for now I suggest we all hit the sack. I'll have to ask that neither of you leave the academy grounds until this is all over."
A levitation ban was perhaps more strict than necessary, but frankly Les had had enough of suspects floating out of his reach as he was about to convict them.

One exhausting night of hessian pugilism later, Robertson was gathering information in the university. I decided the best thing to do was to pay a visit to the on-campus bagel shop. I had ordered ham and stilton on poppyseed, and was waiting for it when I spotted an all too familiar face in the line behind me.
"Delightful replication charm, Alexys," Les chuckled politely at his reflection.
"You do live up to the job, Detective Woodrow." The tall man nodded his head in return as he dropped the illusion, revealing his true form from blue socked toes to blue hooded head.
"Please, Detective Woodrow was my father. Call me Detective Les Woodrow."
Les took his bagel from the server, a rotund man with a hole in his midsection, and followed Alexys outside. As he stood there adjusting to the sunlight, Les wondered if Alexys had something to talk to him about.
"I have something I need to talk to you about," said Alexys, looking furtively over his shoulder. "There's something Dietrich isn't telling you."
"Well spit it out then." Les barked behind his bulging bagel. He had no time for nonsense.
Obliging, Alexys coughed up a small silver key. Les took a napkin and carefully picked it off the floor.
"That will let you into the dungeon under the Evocation department, I would suggest you investigate it thoroughly."

"What are we expecting to find down here?" Robertson was following behind, cautiously holding the lit torch away from his face. Possibly an overreaction with the advent of electric lighting, but to each their own. Les was too busy with his internal monologue to notice.
"It's probably a storeroom or something, but if that thrall was created here then there's probably some traces of magic still in the area." Les inserted the key into the stout wooden door, and slowly pushed it open. "Huh, wasn't locked."
The pair of detectives entered the dank room, and immediately it was clear that this was no ordinary cellar. The walls were covered in splashes of blood and the tools of torture. The floor was marred by deep concentric channels, centred on a pile of discoloured skulls. The air was thick with the scent of iron and that crackling feeling that surrounds impressive magic stuff. Robertson had to take a moment in the corner to empty his stomach, after all he needed to make room for dessert. Les took a few minutes to give the room a cursory examination.
"Looks like a pretty standard necromancy lab, we won't get much from this." The younger detective started his own sweep, before Les reminded him it was bad form to clean up a potential crime scene.
"I thought raising the dead was illegal?"
"Eh, probably. But it's not our jurisdiction." Les turned then to the back of the room, examining a dusty old desk that had once been home to a computer, as evidenced by the computer shaped disturbance in the piles of dirt and the sticky note declaring that the computer was out for repair. Instead of there being a computer on the desk then, a solitary thumb drive sat motionless on the surface, as one would expect for an inanimate piece of electronic hardware.
"Charmingly on-brand," Les said as he retrieved the modified digit. "Riley, you bring your laptop?"
In short order the macabre memory stick was loading its data for the detectives to read, and they poured over its contents carefully. Luckily it was a waterproof laptop. They passed over photographs and audio recordings, as well as an old shopping list that was probably left in by mistake.
"Alexys said this would be interesting," Robertson commented as he watched the footage of a glowing man thoroughly unburying a body.
"I think we have all the information we need, would you be so kind as to gather the suspects?"
"Where to?"
"Where else? To the Denouement Parlour!"

It only took a few minutes for the suspects to get together. Honestly I wasn't expecting a cover of 'Bad Case of Loving You', but it killed some time as we waited for Dietrich and Alexys to arrive. Chief Fleischer decided to drop by as well to see how Riley was getting on.
Les paced at the front of the room, in the designated pacing zone, as he collected his final thoughts.
"Gentlemen, thank you for gathering today." He looked at the two students, both holding baskets of fruits and nuts. "Please take a seat."
Robertson stood behind the students alongside a sergeant, ready to make the arrest as soon as Les finished expositing his reasoning. With a curt nod from his superior, Les ceased his pacing and moved to the dedicated debriefing pedestal in the centre of the room.
"Earlier this week, we were called here to investigate the murder of your fellow student Iskander. I believe that after two thousand, three hundred and thirty-nine words of combined exposition, dialogue, and description, I believe I have deduced who our culprit is."
The students shifted in their seats uncomfortably, Dietrich shifted from his neutral cyan glow to a more alarming ochre. After a moment of silence Alexys spoke up for the pair of them.
"Are you going to tell us, or just stand there posturing?"
Les considered the question for a moment, before deciding that unveiling the murderer was probably more important than his yoga routine. It would probably make concluding this investigation a bit easier.
"Very well, you see me and Detective Robertson received a startling and informative piece of evidence regarding one of our suspects this afternoon. With the data contained, I can reveal that our suspect is..!"
For one moment, the room was silent, Robertson's eyes darted between the students, Dietrich almost stopped glowing entirely, Chief Fleischer's eyebrows furrowed intently, The Suspects paused halfway through a bar of 'Living on a Prayer'.
"Alexys! Sergeant, lock 'im up!" Les proclaimed loudly. The sergeant was upon tall man in an instant, and in a moment he was in cuffs, then in another moment in shackles, and three or four moments later was bound up in a very official looking sarcophagus. Robertson nodded to the sergeant before walking over to Les.
"Good man, that Sergeant Lockimup," the older detective mused. "What can I do for you, Riley?"
"Forgive me, I'm afraid I'm slightly lost as to how you came to the conclusion that Mr. Todbringer was our culprit. Didn't the flash drive we received concern Mr. Achtung?"
Les smirked as he took a printed sheet of paper from his pocket.
"A clever ruse. Do you remember when we were examining the body, and I located a dark navy thread beneath his fingernails?"
"It would match either of our suspects' robes, this hardly seems conclusive."
Despite Robertson's protests, Les continued to smile as he handed over the piece of paper. He clapped the confused man on the shoulder, and stepped past him to talk to the chief of magic police. Riley looked at the note to see it was a printed document, the personal shopping list from the flash drive alongside the supposed evidence, and highlighted in red was a note to pick up some fresh dark navy socks, fitted for larger feet.
"Well done Detective." Chief Fleischer nodded his approval as he lit a cigar on his beard. "I'll be sure to inform the commissioner of your success, I assume your partner wasn't too troublesome?"
"Not at all." Les lit himself a cigarette, though it took a more dedicated effort to light it on a beard not made from fire. "In fact he was a huge help throughout the investigation. I believe he has the potential to go far."
"Well, I'm sure there's no better man on the force for him to learn from."


"3"
"2"
"1"

My wings stretch out as I hop off a weak cardboard box; only to fall back to the hard concrete. No matter how many times I flap my wings, or try to soar, it's no use… I'll still end up on the ground. I dust myself off and walk back to my sad excuse for a tree just to repeat the process: Jumping off the box, flapping my wings, falling, and getting back up.
Could I even be considered a bird? I mean, I can't even fly anymore. I broke my wing, and it never healed right. I can't exactly live among my kind. Hell, I'm just a tube with legs and useless feathers.
I get back up and waddle over to the edge of the alleyway, looking left and right for any other birds. Coast clear. Scanning the street I see a blue door. Perfect! I start down the path towards it, picking up speed. The faster I can get in, the faster I can get out. I hop up a few stairs and finally, the faded blue door is in front of me.
On the side railing are some overgrown bushes. I squeeze through the bars and hop up the bush. The railing is cold on my feet, but I'm near the doorknob. Bending my knees I launch myself off of the railing onto the handle. I peek into the keyhole reaching a tallon in. The door swiftly unlocked allowing me to hop on the handle and get inside.
This was a normal routine for me, but recently there hasn't been much inside. I look around the tattered house. Vases and chairs knocked over, torn up blinds and couches, sun bleached walls and floors. I finished looking around the kitchen, but I didn't find anything other than old mush. I hear a loud cawing and creaking noise, rushing out of the house, my feathers standing on end.
I make it back to my alleyway before I catch the scent of rain. I walk towards the box, pushing open the deteriorating cardboard with my wing. Stepping into the box I close the door behind me and step into my soft nest.
Something is going on. I haven't seen a single human around in a while, well, ever since the Blue Moon. It requires me to get back to scrounging for food, and honestly it never used to be hard.
The dumpsters are either empty or full of rotten food that not even rats would eat. Yet there are so many more birds around that I can't exactly fight or get past, so the dumpsters are my only option.
Actually, that's how my wing broke. I was looking for some seed, and a couple of big pigeons shoved me from a ledge. I landed on my right wing; one sickening crunch later and I never flew again. The wing still aches when it's about to rain.
There are so many more birds around, and the new ones are so dumb. They run in packs and start fights with each other way too often. Although, they may be stupid, but at least they could be considered birds.
There is a slight popping noise on top of my flimsy box. I reach a wing out and push open one of the flaps and stick my head out. Down comes a thick water droplet onto my short beak. It sends a shiver down my feathers. I shake my head and close my box once more.
“I'm going to need to find a new box after this.”
I sigh and put my wings around me and attempt to sleep the storm out. Unfortunately, I'm soon awakened by someone entering my little box. I look up to a seagull closing my soggy cardboard door.
“Excuse me. Who are you?” I jump from my nest.
“Good evening Iris. I'm Dr. Hoygull with the Avian Division.”
“Why do you know my name? Why are you here? What do you want?” My feathers started to stand on end.
“Well, I heard about you from a friend of a friend. Your wing is broken, correct?”
“Why do you want to know?” Snapping back, I outstretch my right wing, bending it a little.
“Oh…” He steps toward me. “Iris, we have a proposition for you. Of course, it's dangerous, but you'll have food, shelter, and a family.”
“I'm listening.” I tilt my head, eyes trained on his.
“You're going to have to follow me. I can't disclose everything here, and it would be best to get back to HQ.”
“Uh, why would I follow you? You're a random stranger and you just barged into my nest!”
Of course. Maybe this is some crazy dream? I haven't even heard of this ‘Avian Division' before. What could I even contribute to a group? Then a weird guy just bursting into my door? What was this? One of those scary human movies?
“Please, the rain seems to have stopped. Please, follow me. We can walk there.”
“How do I know you're not fucking with me?” I step back.
“Look, we're desperate, and we need more birds to help. This isn't a trick, and we really need you,” he says putting his wing over his eyes. My stomach growled, and I shifted to hide my embarrassment.
“Alright. If I help out The Avian Division what do I get?” I squint my eyes, staring daggers.
He sighs “If you come with me I guarantee you will have dinner tonight, even if you don't join us.”
“Okay… I'll help you.” I look to the side, still not completely sold on it. Though, I need something to eat tonight.
Dr. Hoygull exits the box and leads me down the alleyway. The route he takes is quite confusing, and seems almost unnecessary. It took about an hour to get to this ‘HQ'. The walk up to this point is uncomfortably quiet.
“Where even are we? You said it was within walking distance!”
“We're almost there, calm down.” He turns to look at me, before turning back to keep walking.
Within 10 minutes a large structure appears on the horizon. Gates, upon gates, upon gates. It is almost surreal. The walls tower above us and are made of a bleak gray brick. It has to be at least 50,000 square feet, maybe larger!
Dr. Hoygull lifts a key card to the scanner and the gates slowly open.
“We're not exactly meant to tell people where we are or what we do, so everything said today is completely confidential. Do not tell anyone,” he says before walking into the building.
I hurriedly follow him inside the gates and into the building. I couldn't believe what I'm seeing. So many birds! There are perches made of wood on the ground, and of plastic on the windows. I stand for a second forgetting where I'm meant to go. I snap out of my daze and continue to follow Dr. Hoygull.
He led me through doors and hallways. Until finally he opens a conference room door with another bird sitting at the mahogany table. Dr. Hoygull gestures for me to sit at one end of the table, and I hop up onto the perch.
“Good evening Iris. Welcome to the Avian Division.”
I tilt my head, blinking in confusion. “Uh, what? I know you said the name before, but what is the Avian Division?"
"We are a group of birds working towards a solution to the current problem," replies a larger gray bird. "Dr. Ash, nice to meet you."
"Uh, Nice to meet you too. But, how am I supposed to help then? I'm not a doctor, I've never even been to school." I shift on the perch.
"We are aware of that Iris, but we believe you could be helpful. We are prepared to make an exception for you to join us here at Eta-4, and furthermore, the Foundation."
"Alright, but why do you want a blue feathered house bird? I'm not exactly special."
Dr. Hoygull slides a clipboard with a rather large stack of papers attached to it. On the top written in bold letters reads ‘Employment Contract.' My eyes skim the rest of the page.
“We cannot tell you more without you signing. I hope you understand.”
“Alright. How do I sign?” Curiosity has always gotten the better of me. Though, if I can get out of that box, I don't care what happens.
“Can you write?”
I shake my head, and Dr. Hoygull slides over an ink pad.
“Just give us a footprint.” He smiles.
I press my right foot into the cold black ink pad before pushing it onto the signature line. This may have been a mistake. I feel a heavy stone in my stomach after pushing the clipboard back.
After cleaning off my foot, they go over everything with me. Opening my eyes to horrors I could never imagine. It turns out the humans have turned into birds because of the blue moon, among other things. They've been losing members left and right, which is why they are so desperate. They told me about all of these ‘SCPs' and how they are required to continue to contain them all around the world despite the absence of humans.
“So. What did you need me for?”
“Well, you're good at puzzles and opening things, correct? Please, follow me.”
I nod. Dr. Ash and Dr. Hoygull get up from the table. I follow them out of the room, and into the foyer of a larger dome-shaped area.
Dr. Ash scans her key card to open the white doors. I look inside of the circular room, it's almost blindingly white. On the side is a control panel, and in the middle is a silver cube on a white pedestal.
“We want you to open that cube.”
“Can we get the cube down?” I tilt my head looking at them.
Dr. Hoygull nods and steps over to the pedestal then pushes a green button on it. The ground makes a whirring noise; the white column descends to the ground just before clicking into place. I step up to the silver cube.
It's so shiny, I can see my reflection. I get distracted for a second. No, I have to keep focus. I try to jump onto the top of the cube, but I only make it halfway. I flap my wings trying one more time to climb on it. Only to slide right back down the side. I walk up to it, looking around the sides.
It is only slightly taller than my old cardboard box, so why couldn't I get on top of it?
“Well? Can you open it?”
“Maybe? I've only ever opened cages and cans before. I'm not sure I can open this…”
Dr. Ash and Dr. Hoygull exchange worried looks. I gulp, feeling a heavy weight on my chest. I take in a deep breath.
“But, uh, I can try.”
I push at the side of it, trying to move the cube off the pedestal, but it is too heavy. It only moves a small bit. Barely enough to count. I take a step back. I spot a latch near the bottom. It looks to be a normal popping one.
Why am I such a weak bird? I am just a parakeet, not as big as Dr. Hoygull and Dr. Ash, but I should be able to move it! How am I meant to open the box? Am I the right bird for this job? What the hell is in that box that made it so big and heavy? They aren't stupid, they have to have known about this latch.
I press the button on the side of the pedestal causing it to go up again. I feel the jolt of the floor locking into place. That is my cue. I push against the cube again. I nudge it a little bit farther towards the side, but it's still far away from the edge.
I ram my body against the side once more, closing my eyes and pushing with all my might.
Suddenly, the weight disappears, and I flop onto the platform. There's the noise of hollow metal hitting the ground. I push the button to go back down to see the top. I hop off the pedestal and walk to what was the top of the cube.
On the top there are two latches like those on a birdcage. I hook my beak under the latch and push it up and over. The same with the other. I move over to the side to push it. Though, that didn't work. I look around for anything stick like.
“Can I have a stick?”
Dr. Hoygull walks over with a pencil in his beak and gives it to me, before pattering back to his previous position. Pushing the pencil into the gap between the door and the side panel. I wedge it further in until it wouldn't go in anymore. I pull the pencil out, and the door pops open with the pencils removal.
Moving back to the front, I see three pegs with two nuts on the end of them holding the metal plate into place. I grip one of the nuts with my foot trying to unscrew it. The first of two came off. I go for the next one, but it's screwed on tightly. I move pegs, successfully getting both nuts off. The next peg was only slightly harder than the last.
I felt as if my body is failing me. A looming fear creeped its way into my mind, then questions flooded past my concentration. If I didn't do this quickly would they just throw me out? What would they do if I failed? How am I gonna do this? Oh Medila, please help me.
I shook my head, trying to regain control over myself, and came back to the original nut. A little bit of working it and finally, the nut came unscrewed. I pull the bolts out of the box and pull off the inside panel.
Inside, is a glass panel with lines cut into it like a maze. Multiple pins sticking out as well. On the panel is a square, a circle, a triangle, and an octagon both on the other side of the glass and cut into it. I grab one of the pins, moving it to the other side; freeing the circle pin to move. I push the circle pin up and over to the right, then down and to the left.
In the way of the circle pin is the octagon pin. This is tedious. Besides, what did they need so desperately out of this box? I then move the circle back and through the hole. The pin's lighter than I expected. I put it to the right and work on the octagon pin next.
I somehow managed to push all the pins to the top right side, which is an issue since the square hole is on the left, octagon hole on the bottom right corner, and the triangle hole closer to the middle. I grab the square pin and move it to the middle before pulling it to the top and freeing it. I go back to the triangle and pull it down and to the right. Repeating that pattern until the triangle became free. I place it with the others.
Finally, I am left with the octagon. All I have to do is drag the pin down and to the right a little more. Though, this shape didn't want to come out! I kept turning it, but the edges kept getting caught on the sides of the hole. It took me a solid minute and a half to get the shape out, but I finally did it.
The glass panel slides right off revealing a circle plate with an odd shape cut into it. Nothing that could be made from the current lineup. Maybe I'll get lucky? I pick up the triangle and try to shove it into the hole. It didn't fit, but the triangle pops open and a golden screw fell to the ground.
Picking up the screw; I look at the hole. There wasn't an obvious place to put the screw, so I set it down. I look at the circle piece and peck at the side trying to get it to open. This one opens and reveals two flat golden pieces, but this one is more of a puzzle piece. I repeat the process for the other two shapes giving me 6 pieces in all.
Am I meant to put these together? Maybe make a key with the pieces?
I shake as I grab one of the pieces and try to shove it into another piece. They don't go together. Maybe if I put them into the hole where they go it will work? I pick up one of the pieces and push it into the hole, and it clicks into place. I sigh and feel my heart slow. Confidence is definitely a hell of a drug. Picking up other pieces I start shoving them into place.
I got overconfident and went too fast.
I feel my body heat up as I take out the incorrect pieces. My breath quickens, my knees feel weak and I notice that Dr. Hoygull and Dr. Ash turn to each other and start whispering. I slow down in response.
I push the screw into the middle and the door pops open. I'm met with a hissing noise and in front of me are a lot of small seeds, forming almost a mountain against the inside wall of the cube.
I realize how much I am shaking, and my stomach lets out a growl in response. I start pecking at the seed. It tastes so good compared to the rotten dumpster food I had gotten used to. Dr. Hoygull and Dr. Ash turn to each other for a second.
“She could be a liability. I mean, what if that seed was poisoned?”
“We did find her in a decaying cardboard box. This is probably the first meal she's had in awhile,” Dr. Hoygull replies.
They continue talking for a little bit, but it fell on deaf ears. The two doctors turn back to me, satisfied looks on their faces.
“Welcome to Eta-4.”


⏪The Outback Sends Its Regards | ◀Domino Effect
"No," Agent Olguin conceded. "No, it's not great. Last known location: Middle of Nowhere. Presumed heading: Away." He dropped his copy of the briefing back onto the conference table. "Shoot, that ain't nothing to go on."
Bishop's morning had been up-and-down thus far. As soon as he'd arrived at Site-297, Director Isabel explained that she had arranged for a field operative - one Agent James Olguin - to assist him in tracking the escaped detainee. Bishop was meant to find his new colleague waiting in the station's conference room, which would serve as their workspace for the time.
Bishop ended up being the one waiting. And when the agent did get there, the introduction was limited to 'Hello', 'How are you?', and 'Let's get down to reading'. The two had then sat in silence until Olguin was caught up and were now evaluating their prospects for this mission.
"Well, we know it's got to do with SCP-3502."
"The kangaroos, eh?"
If you'd actually read the briefing instead of just skimming…
Bishop sighed and confirmed, "Yes. The kangaroos."
"Alright, that's a start." Olguin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "But we would need info on them: where they've been spotted, where the signs are, dates and times they've been active…"
Oh, so just everything that Containment Technicians and Researchers have been recording for over a year now?
"We do have that information."
"Oh." Olguin paused a beat before adding, "Well, good then."
"We just have to go pull up the archived files on the computer -"
"And you can print all that stuff off?"
"Well yeah, but -" Bishop wondered why they would do that, instead of reading the data directly on the screen.
"Great. I'll let you get to it then." Olguin pushed away from the conference table and stood up.
"Huh? What about you?"
"Y'all are still shortstaffed here after that incident. Hannah has me pulling some guard duty while I'm here."
Hannah?
"Director Isabel?"
"Yeah - probably just up at the desk, watching monitors. So I'll catch up with you in a bit." Olguin left the room before Bishop could muster another response.

Bishop had papers organized in stacks across the table of the conference room when Olguin finally strolled back in, hours later. He had acquired a can of Coke during his time away. "So," he asked between casual sips, "how's this coming along?"
Bishop gestured in exasperation toward everything he had assembled: individual incident reports, detailed testing logs, spreadsheets summarizing weeks and months of data, graphs indicating trendlines over time - all cross-collated by dates and categories. His eye narrowed at Olguin's cola.
Olguin picked up on that and explained that he'd just had lunch. "Why, have you been in here this whole time?" Bishop compared the clock on the wall to his own watch and was unhappy to find that, aside from trips to the printer and back, he had been indeed. "Oh! Well… sorry, pal. Go get after a bite to eat; leave this with me for a bit."
Bishop gladly obliged.

Bishop was stunned when he returned to the conference room; he thought displays like this were just for television characters with big conspiracy theories. Pens, highlighters, and thumbtacks - all in assorted colours - could have been scrounged up from around the office… But where could the coloured string have come from in the short time he'd been gone?
Olguin, without taking his eyes off the chart-sized map spread across the corkboard, spoke over his shoulder: "Ah, you're back; great timing. I didn't want to shuffle everything around too much, but I couldn't find this missing guy's file on the table there."
"Well it's in our briefing folders."
"We have a summary profile in the brief." Olguin traced his hand down a gridline and placed a pin where it intersected a road. "I mean his full profile - all the background stuff."
"This is pretty much my first real day back after the medical leave." Bishop thought back to the last time he had handled the actual paperwork. He grimaced at the memory. "It's in my office, maybe. I'll go have a look."

Bishop's office was on the western side of the building. The setting sun beamed between the slats of the shades, casting a glare off his computer's screen. He rose from his seat and turned to adjust the blinds; when he turned back, Agent Oulgin stood just across the desk.
"Need any help?"
"Jesus!" Bishop startled. "Don't sneak up on me, man."
"Oh," Oulgin shrugged. "Alright, sorry. So, help with something?"
"Well, it doesn't look like anybody put that folder in my office for me," said Bishop as he sat back down. "I was going to just re-print a copy, but there's an issue with file corruption…" He tapped at his keyboard.
"Did you turn it off and on again?"
"The computer," - Bishop clenched his jaw - "works fine. It's the file that's corrupted."
"Oh." Oulgin glanced around the room. After a moment he offered, "Maybe it'll be quicker if I go ask Hannah where the -"
"No!" Bishop stopped him there. It was an extreme circumstance, but he still didn't want to go to her and say he had mislaid the paperwork. "I'll ask Amir later. He probably filed them somewhere."
Oulgin tilted his head. "Okay. Sure. We can work with what we've got for now."

…

"A-ha!"
The sudden outburst snapped Bishop out of a daze. It was as loud and expressive as his partner had been all week.
Olguin leapt up and strode to the map display, where he began removing certain pins according to a calendar printout in his other hand. "So, looking at the whole picture it seems pretty random," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "But if we focus just on this timeframe…"
"What are you thinking?"
"Well," Olguin replied, "if we ignore the incidents that happened before last summer, and highlight just the ones between then and now…" He trailed off again, glancing between another sheet of paper and his latest handiwork.
"Then what?" Bishop caught himself sounding more impatient than he'd intended.
"So, the yellow pins are these more recent incidents," Olguin explained. "The red pins are showing the places where they've been found bringing the stuff they steal. And the green strings are for the GPS signals, when they've been trackable."
I'm not colourblind, you dope! Get to the point!
"Now, this cluster of yellows," - an orange highlighter scrawled a border around one group of the pins - "that's from this past month." Another circle was made for the month prior, and for the one preceding that. "Do you see it?"
Bishop tilted his head, squinted. "They're … moving?"
"Expanding," Olguin clarified. "Westward, towards the Site here."
Bishop's eye widened. Now it was clear: apart from some overlap, like links in a chain, each month's activity was shifting to the left of the previous month. "We've gotta tell Isabel!"
"Tell her what? None of this gives us anything on the guy we're actually looking for." Olguin had a point. The task at hand was to locate the loose POI. "But, if we're going to find him with these kangaroos, then we've got someplace to start now."
Bishop thought back on the hours spent so far, poring over data and drawing lines across maps.
I thought we started days ago. And just what are we going to do now? Drive out that way with binoculars, look at kangaroos until we spot one that's actually a big bug-eyed bearded man?
"How will w-" Bishop began to ask, but Oulgin predicted the question and had his answer ready.
"I have a Ford Focus."
Almost predicted.

The plan agreed upon was to set out at dawn the following day, before the afternoon heat would become unbearable. Bishop was tired of being the first one into work and then waiting for his partner, but to his surprise Agent Oulgin was already in the parking lot outside Site-297, leaning on the door of a large SUV.
"Where's the Focus?"
"I've already had two big coffees, mate," Oulgin yawned. "This is as focused as I'll get." Chuckling at his own attempt at humour, Oulgin explained that he had reconsidered the terrain they might be covering today. "Thought some four-wheel drive might come in handy. Hannah made a call, and I was able to borrow this from that other Site's motor pool for the day."
With their packed lunches, spare water bottles, and a tote full of other supplies tucked in the backseat, they pulled out onto the road and started heading east. Bishop finally decided to broach a subject which had been nagging at him. "So… you and the Director are on a first-name basis?" This morning wasn't the first time he'd noticed it.
"Oh. Right - not in line with 'proper decorum', is it?" Oulgin smiled. "Old habit, I suppose. We actually worked quite a few of the same assignments, back when we were both just rookies."
This low-rent field agent and my Site Director started their Foundation careers at the same time?
"And she's in charge of a whole project now?"
"One ambitious lady. I could see it then too. Always eager to get on the highest-profile assignments, wanting those missions they hand out medals for." After a beat he added, "But then you're not supposed to show them to most people, so who knows what the point even is." Olguin looked like he might have more to say on the subject, but instead he suggested they put on some music.
The two men found unexpected common ground as Bishop rifled through the centre console and listed their options: Soft pass on Midnight Oil, they agreed; hard no to Air Supply; both were disappointed at a complete lack of Kevin Bloody Wilson. Ultimately they settled on INXS as the best way to wake themselves up. Bishop mused on his situation - suddenly being away from the labs and out doing fieldwork - while Michael Hutchence sang of a New Sensation.

As they drove on, Bishop regularly compared the vehicle's GPS display with a printed map folded in his lap. "Hey, slow down a bit here, okay?"
"What? I'm hardly going the speed limit."
"3052 affects any driven vehicles which do not decrease their speed as they pass the signs," Bishop recited.
"So if I were going twenty over the limit and I slow down to ten over, that's fine; but staying at the limit is a problem? That's dumb."
"It doesn't matter what you think is dumb," Bishop snapped. "That's how the anomaly works! We've studied it for months, run tons of tests, and that's the conclusion! Now slow down before -"
A blur of black-and-yellow flashing by his window only just registered in Bishop's field of view.
"Oh," Olguin glanced in the rearview mirror. "That was one of those signs, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Bishop sighed, "it was…"
The pain was dull, yet intense. How many times had civilians described this experience to him before being amesticised and cut loose? And still the strange crushing feeling was nothing like he could have imagined. Darkness bled through Bishop's vision, until all was black.
◀Domino Effect


Lantern Bearer

▸ More by this Author ◂

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F.A.Q.

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Free Port 05, more commonly known as The Pillars, sports several unique and peculiar jobs. Scrambler hound riders are responsible for neurally interfacing with large, multi-limbed creatures that are used as a mode of public transportation. Even construction work isn't boring in The Pillars, because as the city expands, construction workers are required to go to uninhabited heights of a pillar, with simple climbing equipment as the only thing separating safety from free-fall into the smoky abyss, to build more room for the city to expand.
However, of all the peculiar jobs in The Pillars, the most essential of all is that of the lantern bearers. The light of the lanterns you see, doesn't just provide well-appreciated visibility in the foggy streets of The Pillars, but it also keeps at bay The-Shapes-In-The-Fog. Every citizen of The Pillars knows about the large, indistinct beings lurking nearby, silently swimming through the gaseous expanse.

Henrick, a lantern bearer on duty, watches one of the blurry beasts swim past in the distance, as he leans against the railing of one of the numerous streets built into the sides of the humongous pillars of black stone, lantern in hand. He sighs and moves on, as the thorny tentacles recede back into the thick fog.
Lantern bearing is tough work, because it means that you have to sleep during the day in order to gather the energy required to walk for miles during the night. Granted, there is not much difference between day and night in The Pillars, as there are no celestial bodies on the sky, since there is no sky at all. The fog seems to have an illuminating quality to it, ensuring that there is always light. Day and night are simply arbitrary terms used to indicate the time periods during which people are out and about and when they are sleeping. It is also just convenient for the people to be tucked inside when the lanterns go out, allowing the bearers to relight them in peace, without fear that someone would be caught in an unprotected area and end up getting snatched by A-Shape-In-The-Fog. This still happens from time to time, as there are still always people out and about, Pillars has a nightlife just as any other city, but it is rare.
Regardless, this kind of schedule means that lantern bearers rarely see or interact with people, aside from other lantern bearers. For outsiders, this facet of their nature brings an air of mystery around the profession. Henrick, however, prefers the silence. The serenity that looms over the usually hectic streets of the The Pillars during these nights is peaceful for him, comforting, even, as long as he forgets why the torches need to be lit in the first place. This is why he feels almost annoyed when he is approached by another lantern bearer, while standing on Callifer Bridge and watching motes of light jump out of his lantern and dance through the air into the torches on the sides, breathing brilliant life into the previously snuffed sources of warm, orange light.
"How's the route going?" he shouts from across the bridge. Henrick has met the man before, though briefly. His name is Kieran, but that's all Henrick knows.
"Same as every night," he responds.
"Seen a lot Shapes?" Kieran asks. Henrick doesn't know why.
"One, just a few minutes ago. It swam away though."
"Got it. I myself saw a big one. You do the upper layers of this pillar right?" he asks and points back at the pillar he just came from. Henrick confirms.
"Yeah, might wanna be careful then. I saw it drifting upwards. Seemed pretty ballsy too, it came unusually close." Henricks interest is piqued.
"Oh yeah? How close?" he asks.
"Like, maybe 30-40 feet off the side. Close enough that I could make out some details on its hide. Scary shit." Kierans face goes paler as he recalls his experience. Henrick decides to make a mental note of the story. He nods.
"Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep it in mind," he says as he walks past the man to break free from the unsolicited small talk.
"Yeah, no problem. Stay safe out there!" Kieran shouts from behind.
"Yeah, you too!" Henrick responds, picking up the pace.
Henrick exits Callifer Bridge and enters the streets of Arwen's Pillar, which has already been lit on this level. He looks up at the upper layers, their bottoms slightly obscured by fog, and sighs as he begins to ascend the winding, wide staircase around the mysterious monolith.
There are a lot of things one could hate about The Pillars. The air is always humid and chilly, eldritch horrors lurk just out of sight, and the bottomless void that surrounds everything is a nightmare for acrophobes. However, one of the things that most often comes up when discussing the cons of the city, is the amount of stairs it has. These are a necessity, as the city has been segmented into multiple vertical layers, and people frequently travel from one layer to another within the same pillar. Of course, there are other methods of vertical movement, but not everyone can afford continuous rides on a scrambler hound, and on a busy day a long line can easily form in front of the elevators. Those who are magically inclined also have the choice of using teleportation, but lantern bearers don't have the permission to use any of these methods while on duty. They are required to use stairs, as any more direct way of travelling from one layer to another could mean missing an unlit lantern. At least it's a good leg exercise, Henrick figures.
After too many steps, Henrick's legs land on the cobblestone street of Arwen's Pillar, Fifth Layer. He takes a moment to steady his breath, as he looks around. The buildings here are larger, their details more intricate, than the ones down below. That is usually how it goes in The Pillars. The higher you are, the better your living conditions are. Those on the highest layers, from the 8th to the 9th, live in abundance and luxury. Those on the 1st and 2nd layers can't afford more than a dingy apartment, if even that. The only exception to this system is The Three, the largest layer, which is built around and within three pillars. A sort of city central, though big enough to be a small city all on its own. Henrick wishes his pay was high enough that he could afford a house on the Fifth or Sixth Layer, but alas, lantern bearers are criminally underpaid for providing such an essential service.
Henrick goes to move on, but something catches his eye. The light of another lantern pierces the fog, but it isn't bright enough to belong to a bearer. Behind the dim point of light, the silhouette of a lumbering form shifts.
"Ey! Who goes there?" Henrick shouts as he approaches.
"Oh, don't mind me, bearer," a voice calls out. "My old girl couldn't sleep so I decided to take her on a little midnight stroll."
Henrick comes closer, the light of his lantern revealing a stout old man, and the scrambler hound stomping next to it. The dozens of powerful hands sticking out of its grey back twitch warily, as it senses the scent of a stranger, its four-segmented snout sniffing the air.
"Be careful if you come any closer. Her sight isn't what it used to be back in her working days. You don't want to spook her," the man chuckles. Henrick looks at the 300-pound animal's six legs, each as thick as a tree trunk and tipped with five sharp claws, and comes to the same conclusion.
"Well, don't stay out for too long. This area is unlit, and I've heard that there's a large Shape lurking somewhere nearby," he says. The old man gulps. The scrambler hound senses its handler get nervous, and shifts uncomfortably.
"Noted. C'mon Gretchen, let's go back home," he says and pats the animal on the shoulder. "You have a good night young man!"
"You as well," Henrick says and lifts his lantern to bring safety to the streets.
A good while passes by uninterestingly, with Henrick fulfilling his duties and slowly forgetting about his colleagues warnings, sinking back into that comforting silence of inaction. That's when he feels the fog around him suddenly move, as he notices something approaching him fast from the corner of his eye.
Henrick goes to dodge, but he's too late, as a wooden cart is launched out of the fog, colliding with him and sending him sprawling and his lantern flying.
As he crawls out of the pile of wooden wreckage, dry heaving due to the sensation of something twisting and pushing against his lungs, a series of thick appendages slither out of the white, snaking their way through the air towards Henrick. He lifts his face and his eyes lock with three brilliant points of white light in the middle of a large, dark mass, and above a jagged, slowly opening maw. He screams, but The-Shape-In-The-Fog is silent.
One of the tentacles shoots out, wrapping itself around his leg, its thorns puncturing his skin. He chokes on his own scream as he frantically attempts to take a hold of something, but his fingers find no purchase in the slick stones that line the street. His eyes roll wildly in their sockets, trying to locate the only thing he knows can save him from an unknown end, the lantern.
A beautiful ray of hope glimmers from behind pieces of twisted wood and metal, but the light dims and Henrick's stomach drops, as he realizes that there is no way he can reach it. Another tentacle grabs at him, as he is dragged closer to the edge, the ground pushing something deeper into his lung. Henrick's lashes stick together, as he closes his eyes and prepares for the end.
The darkness behind his lids brightens, as he gets pulled out of the stony safety into the white infinity… except, he can still feel the ground beneath him. In confusion, Henrick opens his eyes and there above him, stands the old man from before, with a lantern in hand. The Shape recoils, letting go of Henrick. It pulls its appendages back to shield its skin and eyes from the searing light, as it retreats back into the fog.
Henrick attempts to get up, but his body disagrees, as the pain in his side makes him press back against the ground. "How did you…" he stammers.
"I dropped my pocket watch on my walk before, and came back to look for it. That's when I heard your screams and came to see what the fuss was about. I noticed the lantern in that pile over there and snatched before the beast even noticed I was there!"
"That was… very brave of you," Henrick says, pushing through the pain. "I owe my life to you."
The old man waves his hand dismissively. "Don't mention it. C'mon, lets get you to a healer," he says and goes to help Henrick get up.
Off the side, obscured by the unending cloud, a tentacled being looks at the limping pair.
One day, the lights will be quenched and then, we take back what's ours.


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"Single Issue Voters" by: ManyMeats
Stay tuned for more. This was inspired by the satirical work from Stellaris called "Xenonion".
http://www.scp-wiki.net/manymeats ~ManyMeats's Author Page~

She stared at the television, barely catching a word as each channel buzzed in then out. The white fuzz was cut by the dulcet tones of traffic filtering in through the cracked window; a pleasant spring Sunday that seemed so innocent before the programming suggested otherwise.

Tchh…

We join a broadcast in progress. The anchor, a stern man in a blue wool suit, sat far too on top of his news desk. "The President's address from the Rose Garden was interrupted yesterday by Big Giant Spacerock who announced they will be seeking the Republican Party's nomination. The announcement, which beamed directly—"
And just as soon as it was getting good the channel was flipped.

Tchh…

"You know, I heard programs only have something like 20 seconds max to grab and capture the attention of a casual viewer. Any truth to that rumor?" Bemused as he was, her husband couldn't even bring himself to watch the television anymore when he had even the faintest alternative.
She flipped several more channels. "Huh?"
"I'm sure you heard me."
"Yeah but it's funnier if you think I didn't."
"Yes, you're very funny. So clever."
"Anything good out there?"
"Not much," he smirked looking out the window, noting how suave he looked in his reflection. "There have been an awful lot of choppers headed to and from Site 17 today though. Wonder what's going on."
"What do you think about this 'Big Giant Spacerock' running?" She ignored his plot hook in favor of her own, although the two were inextricably linked.
"Oh, I dunno…" he slipped his hands into his pockets and turned toward her, his shadow falling across her face and blocking the midday sun. "It was certainly a bold way to announce. Not like it really resonates with voters on any legitimate level though."
"That's kind of weird to say when it hijacked the brains of everyone in the Western Hemisphere at the same time. It kind of literally reached every voter in North America."
"Yeah but that's cheating. Like…how can you start your run by breaking campaign advertising law?"
"Well, who is going to stop it? The FCC? No, I really don't think so. I, for one, am thankful we have a candidate that can cut through the red tape and just get their message out."

Tchh…

The TV flitter across another news desk, this once flanked by three pundits each trying to talk over each other and one unfortunate moderator silently clutching papers.
A large 60-something man in a poorly tailored suit was the first voice to win out, "What's clear as day here is that they are not a legitimate candidate for the Presidency. They are not a natural-born citizen. End of discussion. Finito."
A well kept 50-something woman with a shrill voice spoke up and cut through the others. "What guarantees do we have it will even keep its word and avoid Earth if elected? How do we know it can be trusted?"
Last but certainly not least, a steady-spoken 70-something gentleman was gradually rising up out of his seat, demonstratively pointing a finger to the other side of the desk, wagging it around like a mace. "I'll tell you what this is a test. This is a call from the beyond that we need, we need to…we need to put our faith in God and trust not in the words of false prophets. We need to—"
The moderator sighed as the channel was changed.

Tchh…

"Next thing I know you're going to tell me that it can really 'reach across the aisle' or some other lame talking point like that. Cheryl, I know you're smarter than that. It's an autocrat, plain and simple. The same ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag every other politician serves up." And with that, her husband turned back toward the window and away from her ironically narrow view.
"Well, David, I just think you should be open to its plan. And that you should also consider the alternative."
"That our votes are being held hostage by a sapient exoplanet and if we don't elect it the damn thing might pass close enough to sunder Earth's mantle? Yeah, that has occurred to me."
There was a long silence between the two. Betty flipped more channels.

Tchh…

"Honey?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Have you ever thought about a third party candidate?"

More from ManyMeats


by Nagiros

Their coworkers dreamed of the hyperreal, but Kassidy was left with paper cuts.
Slice went the file on their desk, flirting with the bloody pad of their thumb before its departure. The paper came to rest on the mahogany wood — now with a little more red next to the title.

Inbox Item #045T
to Dr. Kassidy Kara, Site-17 (URGENT)

They found it easy to hate that paper, for so many reasons. In both their dreams and in the waking world, it was a scar that marred their otherwise immaculate office. But dreams were dreams, and work was work, and Kassidy was smart enough to separate the two.
Unfortunately, Inbox Item #045T seemed intent to ignore that firm distinction.
Their morning and their nighttime routines were near-identical, separated only by their substantiality. In each, they turned the knob on their office door and saw #045T sitting on their mahogany desk, just as it had been yesterday. Half the time, they'd cut their thumb on its edge, and they'd wake up feeling frustrated. Their coworkers were visited by hyperreal butterflies dancing across a glittering cosmos: an occupational hazard of the Unreality Department. But their nighttime reprieve was haunted by visions of the same blood-thirsty paperwork they'd put off for a week now.
Maybe it carried a memetic agent that nagged their subconscious until they finally signed on the dotted line. Kassidy wouldn't be surprised.
Days at Site-17 seemed to contract around them, spent avoiding the paperwork which demanded their attention. Nights, meanwhile, stretched each cycle until they felt as though they had spent an eternity in their office, staring at the page beneath them, refusing to offer their signature. It was an endless debate that always ended the same, bloody, way. Soon the telltale effects of sleep deprivation began to manifest — strange, perhaps, because they slept soundly each night.
But Kassidy kept up appearances well enough; dreams were dreams, and work was work, and they needed to separate the two.
One night, they opened the office door as they always did, and was unprepared to find a simulacrum of themself seated in their office chair, thumbing the corner of the file on their desk. The fake-them was composed of cream-white documents drawn up in jet-black ink, crudely stitched together to form the semblance of a human being, made by some dexterous origami artist who only existed in their head.
The paper simulacrum looked up at them as they entered, and extended #045T towards them. They took the file from its hands, and it dragged a paper finger over the dotted line, as though to say, "Sign here, please."
The file was in shreds faster than the paper-them could blink, dragging deep wounds over Kassidy's palms. They grabbed the thing by its neck, pulling it over the desk towards them.
"Why are you doing this?" they cried.
The simulacrum was silent. Then, it peeled off a sheet from its body and handed it to Kassidy.

A Theory on Nocturnal Objects
by Dr. Kassidy Kara, Site-17

[…]
It is supremely unlikely that the anomalous does not affect the world of dreamers in equal measure to the world of the waking. Each quirk of narrative and reason within a dream might be indistinguishable from an anomaly, warped and twisted around the rough weight of some indistinct concern. The realm of the nocturnal is where the deepest fancies and tortures of mankind are made manifest.
For what are dreams but a microcosm of their dreamer? If a dream is persistent, urgent, demanding, then surely it is the prerogative of the dreamer to resolve the turmoil of the waking world. Surely they would not allow themselves to be tortured forever.

[…]

Slice went the file in their hands, and Dr. Kassidy Kara woke up. Their heart sank as they watched the dull morning light forecast their future: #045T was alive, and it wanted blood.
What had once been one paper clone become two, then four, then eight, reproducing behind closed doors and all offering them the same page. Then their desk became paper, then their chair, then the room itself. One night they dreamt they opened their office door and felt the sterile crunch of paper where a metal knob should be. The cuts were deep that night.
By now, mountains of other paperwork were stacked on their desk, framing the dreaded #045T beneath their height. Their coworkers had begun to notice a change, although they hadn't yet pinned down what it could be. Their performance was tanking — they had already received a notice that they and the Site Director would be having a meeting on Tuesday. It was only one page of paper; why couldn't they just sign it and move on?
Soon the comforts of the office were banished from their dreams, replaced by a field from some distant childhood memory, blades of grass swapped with piercing stalks of pulpwood, earth supplanted by aggregate shreds of manilla filings. On the horizon lumbered a rough beast of black ink and white space, turning a blind head towards them before they ran. Sometimes, when they fell and cut their legs, it screamed.

For what are tormentors but a microcosm of the tormented?
And what is paperwork but a microcosm of its bureaucracy?

Then they dreamed of nothing.
They were alone, floating in a mute void, greeted only by the sight of the bloody file. They swam through the inky mire, took the document in their hands, and read it for the millionth time again.

Inbox Item #045T
to Dr. Kassidy Kara, Site-17 (URGENT)

Termination Order for SCP-████ via Hyper-Reality Scrubbing Techniques
by Dr. Thomas Graham, Site-17

Per majority consensus of the Overseer Council, SCP-████ has been slated for decommissioning. Due to its extradimensional and contra-perceptual properties, the most expedient method of neutralization is a total scrub of its identity across baseline reality and baseline temporality.
The Ethics Committee has ruled that SCP-████'s nature as a sapient human-adjacent anomaly is irrelevant to its containment efficacy, as is its decided opposition to termination.
The Finances Department has estimated that a non-lethal neutralization of SCP-████'s effects, while feasible, would be considerably more expensive than a scrub of baseline reality, and is therefore ill-advised.
[DATA REDACTED; FURTHER INFORMATION IS NOT NECESSARY TO INCLUDE]
Due to the nature of this procedure, consent by a representative of the Unreality Department is required. We expect a reply in a timely manner.
Please sign here:

One thousand paper-men whispered in their ear. A meadow dark cried out for signage, flanked by a blind titan of inevitability. A hand reached from the inky void and extended its padded thumb forward.
Kassidy held a knife tipped with fountain ink. One stroke and someone else's hand would be on the chopping block — the paper cuts and the paperwork thrown out together. With their signature, they could dream of cosmic butterflies again, and all they had to do was sign SCP-████'s death warrant.
The pen hung over the paper, and Kassidy made up their mind. Slowly, they scribbled out "SCP-████" and wrote in the margins, "Dr. Kassidy Kara, Site-17". Then, they finally signed the paper.
Inbox Item #045T fell to the ground, its purpose satisfied. The signature was meaningless — just spirals of ink on paper — but the termination order overflowed with absolute force of will, warping and twisting around the space Dr. Kara had once occupied.
At 4:25 AM, a request for their personnel file retrieved only a 404 error. Similarly, a virtual black hole appeared where their social media should have been, and several documents filed in the archives of the Unreality Department spontaneously imploded. A later search would find their office cluttered by incomplete paperwork, but marked with an empty rectangle of space on their desk where a termination order should have been. It was almost as though they had never existed.
Beyond the reach of time and space, Kassidy slept, and dreamt of something new.


The entire process, from the first cellular division and the first tightened bolt, had turned out to be a monumental waste of time. The Mekhanists and Sarkicists, in their esoteric ways and alien dogma, had been warring globally well past the point of reason. And not once had either side genuinely stopped to think why they persisted in the face of an unending conflict with so little to show for it. It all boiled down to theological dick-measuring in the end, but hindsight might as well be its own eldritch god for how impossible it is to overcome. The culmination of this petty tug of war was rarely discussed by either religion, because it was frankly humiliating for both sides. Throughout space-time and less definable manifestations of reality, such pissing-contests always had the same result: the invention of apocalyptic weapons.
The Tin Men and the Tumor Men had given each other 1001 years to finish their respective weapons, which were meant to possess a spark of life and duel in a holy arena until one was utterly destroyed. The mystical artifice that would go into each animated engine of destruction would be implicit proof of the associated religion's inherent superiority. Or so they quasi-reasoned, with their loose screws and rotten neurons. With the official commands from Bumaro and Ion issued to every available cultist on each side, they began to build, ceaselessly and fervently.

Among the Tin Men, it initially seemed like the prospect of definitive victory was working its own miracles. The various sects and sub-divisions of their religion had temporarily agreed to set aside their squabbles and vendettas for the sake of a common and all-encompassing goal. The anomalous world, always teeming and twisting with conspiracies, almost felt like it had gone dormant as one of its greatest factions collectively withdrew into obsessive creation.
Century by century, they would gaze far up at their Clockwork Titan taking shape and marvel at their technological prowess. It didn't matter to them that every few decades there'd be internal competition and intrigue of the most banal sort. Parts of the blueprints for their ultimate weapon would often go "inexplicably" missing, and at one point there was a week-long slaughter which no one saw coming and no one was sad about. There were no proper burials, and the deceased were simply tossed into an unnamed furnace by the thousands to be recycled for spare parts in the ongoing project.
From their perspective, the mad devotion made the passage of time seem irrelevant. But to an outside observer, there was no end in sight for the construction of the Titan. Like willing slaves under intangible whips, they would all too gladly work until they suffered a fatal accident in the conveyor belts, melted their electronic brains from overwork, or otherwise outlived their usefulness. The first century had produced but one colossal foot, and they were behind schedule. In order to make it in time, they would send messengers and diplomats into the world outside their hidden construction site, with the goal of trading favors and resources with other anomalous groups. Many important relics of Mekhane were exchange for stranger devices still, and by the time they had completed the legs, only the Heart remained. It was far too important to simply give away.
The arms of the Titan came next. Rather fittingly, they had to intimidate the outside world into helping them through violence, because all they had left was their para-technological arsenal. But such armaments had become terribly obsolete due to the Titan taking up so many resources of the Church. The anomalous groups of the outside world did not even need to team up in order to drive back the Tin Men. In fact, they didn't have to do much of anything in terms of retaliation. These combat units became incoherent and rife with yet more in-fighting soon after leaving the construction site. Those who didn't execute one another under pretense of heresy or desertion eventually came back with empty hands and shifty eyes. Numbers dwindled, resources became scarce and even their ironclad conviction began to rust. But the holiest work could not, would not be abandoned.
When they started building the torso, a grim realization reared its ugly head. Their components would run out in fifty years, and the Titan could not be simply stored away and finished in the next millennium. The cultists went from gifted technicians and engineers to thieves and scavengers. No matter how godforsaken any corner of reality was, if it had components, it would be plundered and disassembled until it didn't exist anymore. This had the side-effect of staining the pristine and elegant beauty of the Titan with mismatched and haphazard designs. It was almost blasphemous, but the only greater blasphemy would be giving up, especially since they had come this far.
But none of that compared to what happened when they had to build the head. In the dead of night, those few hundred cultists who remained capable and devoted did the unthinkable. Robert Bumaro himself became a sacrifice. Even if he could still weep, his followers would not listen as they ripped his processing core from the mechanical throne. Throughout the whole palace, everything from digital choirs and plasma lanterns were silenced and snuffed out. None among the cultists knew how to hide what they had done. They never spoke of it again, and whatever passed for sleeping inside their augmented minds became impossible.

Among the Tumor Men, the construction of their Cancerous Dragon wasn't nearly as methodical, but no less horrible.
They sharpened its obsidian claws and fangs one by one. Many ended up falling inside the mouth of the creature or mutilated by its unconscious spasms.
Its wings were made from the flayed skins of dying stars. The remnants of alien civilizations which still needed their light and warmth were euthanized, without having even the time to scream.
Whatever they did to create its hateful, fire-spewing heart, not even Ion knew. And truth be told, he didn't really care.
After the abominable homunculus drew its first ragged breath, it roared for ten years straight. Those who survived the ensuing maelstrom of nightmares dimly wondered if it was because the Dragon contemplated its own existence and found it wrong. If the creature could speak, it would only utter a single phrase, which would be entirely ignored by the blood-soaked and laughing cultists. Ion was the only one who noticed the connection, and he laughed even harder.

At long last, the day of the duel had arrived. As the towering monstrosities entered the arena, the earth trembled and the sky turned crimson.
The Clockwork Titan drew its continental sword, and the Cancerous Dragon ignited its putrid entrails.
All of reality froze utterly, such was the tidal wave of anticipation and ecstasy.
The monstrosities annihilated each other, without the slightest ceremony or spectacle. They existed one moment, and then they did not.
There was a long and leaden silence, followed by untold wailing and gnashing of teeth and gears.
Others would be forced to admit it was a horrible mistake, but ignorance and zealotry of such epic proportions were undying. The feeble and psychotic justifications they invented were cold comfort in the wake of a millennium of pointless suffering. The remains of their cults were torn to shreds, then crumbs, and finally nothing.

Eons later, a man with a clockwork face and a woman with transparent skin sat beside their child. As they finished recounting this story, they did their best to assure the young one that such a tragedy would not happen again, that people had become more compassionate and enlightened since then. They pulled the bed sheet over the child, turned off the bedroom's lights and wished him sweet dreams.
The child had trouble sleeping, and secretly turned on a lantern to keep reading the book. It was so full of vivid and moving images on its screen, so much that enticed and enraptured the imagination. Were his parents mistaken? If it happened again, could he even make a difference?
As he eventually fell asleep, he could hear the faint and steady noises of his pacemaker, which his parents had built together for him in a display of harmony between opposing worlds. His dreams were many and marvelous, but they all told him the same thing.
When it comes to war between incompatible principles, the only winning move is not to play.


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⚠ Content warning: This article contains nazism and implied homophobia.

⚠ content warning
Bastian Schaus's… well, everything hurt. The sight of Acolyte Dunst bursting into his sickroom inspired surprisingly little to offset that.
"Well, look at you." Today, Dunst wore a polka-dotted dress, the hem of which ended beyond Bastian's field of vision. Secured to her waist was her favorite belt; Bastian spotted, with a reasonable level of disgust, several more Xs carved into the red leather than last he saw it. The small, blackened vial around her neck didn't inspire much more confidence.
If Bastian had anything to say, and he didn't, it was buried underneath a mountain of bruises.
"Rule number one for celebrities: never trust a meal you didn't cook." Dunst kneeled beyond Bastian's field of vision, rummaging through her bag for whatever she intended to ruin Bastian's day with. "Like it or not, Salz, you're a celebrity. And as, er, dedicated you may be, Lichtenberg's filled with idiots. One sec."
Dunst flicked something metal, and Bastian's heart sunk. The sedative gas was almost formality at that point.
"Rule number two, look the part." In direct violation of his screaming neurons, Bastian's field of view remained fixed on Dunst and the IV bag that wasn't as full as it had been a second ago. "I make a good "girlfriend" for you, don't you think? Didn't even need to gas the receptionist."
The strain with which Bastian attempted to scowl had to count for some kind of exercise.
Dunst finally settled down into a seat next to Bastian's bed, and whatever smirk she'd bore on the way in gave way to an all-too-familiar stern neutrality. "Andino's dead, if you haven't already heard. One of the commies overrode the Hag's controls. The wehrdaemons put up a good fight, but we're still down an initiate." Dunst hissed a theatrical sigh. "So that's one less specialist for the next batch."
Dunst's stare burned a hole into Bastian, who attempted to return the favor. "You can talk, Salz. I'm not so boring as to deny you that."
"Andino was a degenerate and I know you can speak German, Acolyte Dunst." Thankfully, any pain in Bastian's throat was dulled by his sheer rage.
"And you can speak English. Humor a simple Ontario girl, Bastian."
"I'll agree to disagree, Theresa."
Dunst said nothing, merely fiddled with the vial around her neck. If a nurse was coming in to interrupt them, they better make it quick; the moment Bastian would regain control of his arms held a violent uncertainty beyond even the typical malcontent reserved for moments between him and Dunst.
"… so." All at once, Dunst straightened her posture. "I've made some improvements to the BLACK FLY formula."
"By eliminating it from the sum of human knowledge?"
"What is with you people? Genocide is a-okay but the moment I propose a way to kill less people, suddenly you care for 'morality'." Dunst unclasped her necklace, and Bastian's thoughts drifted back to the red belt around her waist. "If we put every initiate through a round of BLACK FLY, let alone those SWJC goons, maybe we wouldn't be getting our asses handed to us by gaggles of queers."
Bastian's arms were still paralyzed, or he would have sat himself up. "You think yourself a doctor. Yet, in the face of an infection, you peddle cancer." Bastian spat. "I've seen BLACK FLY. It's cruelty, under the thinnest veneer of 'efficiency'. A vet puts down sick animals, he doesn't prolong their torment."
The black vial was unclasped from Dunst's necklace, undercutting the brief silence between her next words. "You act like they're people, Salz. Anything less than a rat. Have you considered that, perhaps, utopia necessitates the suffering of rats?" Dunst set the vial down, and rifled back through her bag. "And, perhaps, it's more than rats. Perhaps it's the architects of the new world. Their hidden tumors."
Dunst emerged from the depths of her bag, syringe in tow.
"You're sick, Salz. It's so obvious, how you carry yourself. How you walk, how you talk." Dunst's horrid smile, the one she bore on too many joint missions, reached her eyes and nowhere else as the syringe stuck the vial. "And I can fix you. Make you right again. Bring out the good buried under your dirty little secret."
'What are you talking about', Bastian did not say.
The flick of Dunst's finger against the syringe thundered through his sickroom, loud enough to rattle his skull yet not so loud as to alert a nurse.
"I know you want this. You don't have an alternative." Slowly, steadily, Dunst positioned the syringe above Bastian's neck. "You can hold out for another cure as long as you want, but your reality is terminal. Let BLACK FLY be your new truth." She smiled, and-
The door opened, and Dunst withdrew her syringe without another word. "Afternoon. Just checking up on Mr. Schaus."
A distinctly indistinct voice almost purred in response. "Well, I'm glad to find someone hasn't forgotten poor little Salz." Soft steps against tile accompanied a sudden crack in Dunst's composure; if Bastian could turn to face the man who almost certainly stood at his right, maybe that would explain the sudden drop in temperature. "He smells of your favorite air freshener. Have you been taking care of him, Acolyte Dunst?"
Dunst kept herself from swallowing, but the twitch of her neck muscles would have exposed her either way. "I… worry for him, Mr. Rass. Only wish he feels better."
"I'd be careful with your experiments, Acolyte Dunst. Acolyte Salz has been through quite enough, wouldn't you agree?"
"… yes, Mr. Rass. Thank you."
Dunst collected her equipment (and, atypically, only her equipment) and hurriedly left Bastian's side. Mr. Rass did not move to take her seat.
"Sometimes I worry for you, Acolyte Salz. You're the biggest fish in the pond, but you'll break before you deign to bend." An incredibly cold hand-shaped imprint manifested onto Bastian's shoulder. "It's no wonder the degenerates chose you to make such an example of." Mr. Rass sighed, or otherwise feigned one. "It must hurt, but I ask you not be discouraged. Deceit and swarming is the only language such insects comprehend. But a boar such as yourself… well, they can take you back to the watering hole, but you'll be back. Don't be scared of the rats."
Mr. Rass leaned into Bastian's ear, his breathless words near indistinguishable from the errant thoughts of Bastian's mind. "It's your rancher who should frighten you."
And Mr. Rass wasn't there.

Last Minute Resistance

Black and White and Red All Over

A Cloud Over Lichtenberg


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Ulysses B. Donkman and the Foreboding Forest: Part 2 by: DrAkimoto & MalyceGraves

Ulysses B. Donkman and the Foreboding Forest: Part 1

Donkman Hub!

~DrAkimoto's Author Page~
♠ MalyceGraves' Author Page

June 19th, 1867 - Somewhere underneath what would become the Ouachita National Forest
The shrieks of the angry serpent could still be heard echoing down from the opening far above him. Donkman lifted himself to his knees and started to brush the dirt from his jacket when a twinge of pain reminded him of his wounded shoulder. He shook his head ruefully as he tested the movement in it.
"What in tarnation have I done gotten myself into this time?" He mumbled to himself as he peered into the darkness surrounding him.
After a few moments of staring ineffectually into the dark, he pulled out his matches and lit a cigarette, using the fading light from the match to survey his surroundings. As the light from the match faded out, the serpent above him let out another tremendous shriek followed by the sound of digging.
"Well, I'm certainly not gonna be climbin' out, that's for sure. Tunnel on the left, here we go."
At that, he turned and jogged into the darkness of the tunnel, hoping it led somewhere other than a deep pit. As he made his way down the twisting tunnel, a loud crash accompanied by the screams of the serpent's many faces echoed from the chamber behind him, and Donkman quickened his pace.
With his eyes not fully adjusted, he barely registered the wall at the end of the tunnel, skidding to a stop before he slammed into it. With a muttered curse, he ran his hands over the wall, looking for an opening large enough to squeeze through.
Finding none, Donkman reached into his jacket and pulled out a slender stick of dynamite.
"I reckon this'll have to do." He muttered to himself as he turned to face the onrushing serpent. He tried to clear his mind, trying to project the shape of the tunnel he just passed through, only mildly distracted by his imminent encounter with the many-faced monstrosity.
"Ugly bastard, ain'tcha?" Donkman taunted as the thing slid to a halt a few feet before him. After a moment of stillness, he cleared his throat. "Well, whatcha' waitin' on fella?"
With that the serpent lunged forward, barreling down on Donkman. He dove to the right, just barely escaping the abomination's gaping maw. The serpent crashed headfirst into the wall of tunnel and Donkman flicked his lighter, igniting the entirely too-short wick of the dynamite. "Here, catch!" he called as he tossed the stick into the space between the top of the snake and the roof of the tunnel.
The dynamite bounced once off the roof, then detonated in a massive concussion that collapsed the roof of the tunnel, burying the monstrosity in tons of rock and dirt.
"Well, damn." Donkman muttered again to himself where he lay, partially covered in dirt and small rocks. He groaned and rolled over onto his back. "I think I might need to just sit a spell and catch my breath."

After a short time, Donkman rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. He swayed a little as he leaned against the wall of the tunnel, then he proceeded to gingerly make his way back to the cavern.
The light flickering on the side of the tunnel was his first indication that he was not alone. As he edged towards the opening into the cavern, he could see two men standing in the center of the large space, inspecting the spot where he fell. Both were of medium height, and they were both dressed in rough homespun, just as most of the frontiersmen he had met. What was different were the beads and feathers woven into their long, dark hair.
After a few minutes of watching them converse in a language he did not understand, Donkman decided that they probably weren't connected to the serpent or the strange brothers. "Eh, I might as well say hello."
As Donkman stepped out into the cavern, the men immediately turned to face him, looks of wary suspicion flickering across their faces. Donkman raised both of his hands in a placating gesture.
"If'n your lookin' for a fight, ya won't find one here, fellas." He grinned at them, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible.
The first man stepped forward and lifted his torch to cast the light more fully across Donkman, his tomahawk loosely hanging from his beaded belt. He gestured with his other hand for Donkman to stop, adding a few more words in the language that Donkman could not understand.
"This'll be a mite tricky." Donkman ran his fingers through his mane, "¿Hablas español, mi amigos?"
Both men stared blankly back at him, then one of them pointed towards the tunnel and spoke again.
Donkman snorted, "Now, you don't wanna head that way, believe you me."
Donkman scratched his chin and looked around, finally stopping on the first man's torch. "Hm. Maybe this'll work."
Donkman pointed to the man's torch and then at the wall, repeating the motion several times. After a brief exchange with his companion, the first man tentatively stepped forward, raising the torch towards the cavern wall. Donkman stepped forward, stopping a few feet between the man and the wall. Noting that both men were watching him, he rolled up his sleeves and cracked his knuckles.
"Y'all gonna' love this one."
Donkman began to put on an elaborate shadow puppet show, his hands and fingers weaving into unnatural positions forming intricate shadow figures on the wall. By manipulating the shadows, Donkman proceeded to show the men about how he'd been tricked into the forest, then how he climbed up the cliff, and finally the disgusting water hole. As Donkman introduced the two foul brothers, the second man motioned for him to stop.
Donkman stopped, keeping his fingers twisted into the shadow that showcased the many-jointed brother. The second man stepped up to the wall and pointed at the weirdly proportioned figure.
"Ak Shu." At Donkman's confused look, the man repeated it again, "Ak Shu!"
"Well, I reckon that's his name then? Ak Shu." Donkman mused.
The man pointed at the shadow figure again, then to the ceiling. With both hands he mimicked something with many jointed limbs crawling like a spider down the wall, before pointing to the right tunnel entrance.
"Now we're gettin' somewheres!" Donkman said and shifted his hands to only show the Ak Shu shadow figure.
The second man held his arms together, replicating the posture of being shackled at the wrist. Then, he pointed down the tunnel and makes a square motion with his hands, then brought one of his hands out and down, vertically slashing the air between the box's borders.
Donkman shifted his hands again, now showing Ak Shu in a barred cage. The man clapped once and shouted something to his companion. The man gestured at the cage, then to himself, then repeated the gesture again. He then pointed to Ak Shu and the space just beyond the cage. Donkman nodded, thinking that he finally understood.
"Like this, then." Shifting his hands again, Donkman portrayed several First Nations people in a cage with Ak Shu standing next to it.
The man clapped once again, pointed to the shadow, then to the entrance of the second tunnel.
Donkman nodded, and changed the shadow again, this time depicting himself and the two men opening the cage. At their pleased nods, he released the shadows and pointed to the entrance before flashing a smile.
Donkman placed his right hand on his own chest. "Donkman."
Both men repeated the gesture.
"Tsela" said the first man, "Ahiga" said the other.
Donkman rubbed at his injured shoulder again before dusting off his jacket and fixing his trousers. "Well, what're we waitin' for boys? Let's getta' move on."

As the silent trio carefully made their way down the tunnel, Donkman noted that this one continued much further than the last. Something stirred ahead, and Donkman's ear twitched.
"Hey now, hold ya' horses." Donkman whispered, gesturing for his newfound companions to stop.
As Donkman cupped his hand and raised it to his ear, the two men perk their heads up, obviously straining to hear as well. It was distant but they could all hear it: the faint sound of weeping.
The three men quickened their pace, steadfast with the knowledge that they were drawing near to their goal.
The tunnel opened into another cavern and the three men carefully peeked into it. In the center of the cavern stood a large cage that looked as if it had been assembled from discarded bone. Inside the cage sat three women, two elderly men, a small child, and a wailing baby clutching desperately at who was probably their mother.
Donkman surveyed the rest of the cavern as Tsela and Ahiga step up and attempted to open the cage. "Ugh." Donkman grunts in disgust, as his eyes play over the bookshelves, tables, chairs, and several makeshift beds- all crafted from human bone.
Distracted by his growing rage, Donkman did not notice at first as his companions struggling to open the cage. Still angry, Donkman stomped over and gestured for them to move. As soon as they complied, he chopped through the bars of the cage, shattering them with a quick sweeping motion. Two of the women immediately rushed out and tearfully embraced Tsela and Ahiga, quickly followed by the rest, the woman with the child.

A tinge of fear trickled down his spine as Donkman turned to the reunited group. "I reckon we best make our way quick-like bef–"
"Before what." The cold and slimy voice that interrupted him was altogether too familiar, and Donkman slowly turned to look towards the entrance.
"Were ya plannin' on'a goin' somewhere with my'a, dinner?" Ak Shu was pressed belly first against the cavern wall where he clung above the entrance.
His many jointed limbs sprawled unnaturally across the rocky surface fixing him in place; his neck stretched backward to face the assembled group.
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Can't be'a lettin' Papa have all the fun, can'a we?" The twisted caricature of a man cackled at them.
Donkman, Tsela, and Ahiga dashed to the front of the group they had only just rescued and braced for the oncoming confrontation. Ahiga readied a bow he pulled from atop a pile near the cage while Tsela hefted the torch, brandishing his tomahawk in the other hand. Donkman remained still– focused intently on Ak Shu.
"I reckon it's your move." He drawled, his eyes never leaving the creature.
At that, Ak Shu burst into movement, his long arms and legs arched unnaturally as he skittered along the cavern's ceiling. Ahiga drew and released several arrows in rapid succession, all of which missed their target as Ak Shu skittered from side to side across the roof.
In an explosion of motion, Ak Shu dove from the ceiling towards them. Donkman grabbed Ahiga by the arm and pointed at the rescued individuals.
"Get them outta' here, Ahiga!" Donkman yelled, pointing again at the entrance to the tunnel. In a rush, the rescued people ran past Donkman and into the tunnel, Ahiga following closely behind.
They slipped past Donkman just in time for him to catch a glimpse of Ak Shu slamming into Tsela. With a swift punch, the torch exploded into shards of wood and embers.
By the time Donkman's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found that he was once again alone, with no sign of either Ak Shu or Tsela. As he peered into the darkened corners of the cavern, he was startled by a loud wet pop followed by a tearing sound. A complete spinal column landed on the ground in front of Donkman, and before the sight fully registers, Donkman is drenched by a wave of cascading blood.
"Now you'sa mine!" Ak Shu screamed as he lunged from the ceiling above.
Slamming into Donkman, Ak Shu wrapped his slender jointed legs around the man, his arms arched over and around Donkman's arms, pinning him to the ground. As Donkman struggled against him, Ak Shu began to squeeze, pushing the wind from Donkman's lungs.
For the second time in as many hours, Donkman suddenly found himself face to face with the realization that he might not make it out of this one. This time, however, at least he can buy his newfound friends a little more time.
"It'll take more than that to stop ol' Donkman!" he bellowed as he reared his head back and bit down on Ak Shu's arm as hard as he could.
Ak Shu jerked his arm up, slamming Donkman's head backward into the ground before taking his own bite from Donkman's chest. His teeth sank deeply into the muscles and flesh of Donkman's chest, grating harshly against his sternum.
With a jerk, he tore a bloody strip from Donkman's chest and chewed it sloppy, spraying Donkman with his own blood. "Delicious! And to think Papa almost'a had ya all to himself."
Donkman squirmed against the thing's arms as Ak Shu lunged in for another bite, only to jerk aside as a sharp whistle interrupted their struggle.
Ak Shu looked up to see Ahiga pointing a drawn bow at point-blank range, tension trembling in the taut bowstring. He released the arrow, and Ak Shu was forced to release Donkman's left arm in order to change position. The desperate jerk caused the arrow to miss his heart and it buried itself in the soft flesh just inside his shoulder.
Ak Shu shrieked in pain, his entire body convulsing in pain. Donkman saw the opportunity, and he reached up to grip the arrow and tugged it loose. With a mighty bellow he drove the arrow through Ak Shu's eye.
Ak Shu wailed again in response, flying backwards and skittering on all fours across the cavern floor. Donkman tucked his hand into his jacket and retrieved a length of rope tied into a lasso.
"You're not gettin' away that easy!" Donkman quipped as he quickly flung the lasso at the fleeing monster, catching it in the lasso's loop. "Now's your chance, Ahiga!" he roared as he yanked hard on the line, ensnaring Ak Shu's upper torso.
Even if Ahiga did not understand Donkman's words, he immediately understood the tableau before him. With his own roar, he unleashed a volley of arrows into Ak Shu's chest and back. The flailing monster let out one final shriek of pain before falling to the ground in a crumpled mass of tangled limbs.

With Donkman using Ahiga's shoulder for support, the pair limped their way into the cavern Donkman initially fell into, to find two thick ropes dangling from the opening in the ceiling. Donkman gritted his teeth as the two of them grab their own rope. A rumbling can be heard emanating from from the tunnel behind them; they had no plans to stick around to investigate its origins. The men slowly pulled themselves up the ropes, the sunlight above them urging them onward through their growing fatigue.
With echoing groans, the two pulled themselves out into the crisp air, only to collapse at the edge, both men gathering great lungfuls of air. They looked at each other with grim determination, ready to be out of the foreboding forest.
The trail was long and winding, but the pair did not stop, and finally Donkman could see the trees beginning to thin out up ahead. Ahiga's rescued family could be seen I the clearing, waving the exhausted men forward. Gripping his aching arm across his wounded chest, he slumped forward as the two of them quickened their pace.
At last, as the pair was about to step out of the forest they stopped and turned back for one last look.
"I really owe ya' one, Ahiga." Donkman said as he placed a hand on Ahiga's shoulder. "We make a pretty good team, if'n I say so myself."
The moment was cut short by the now-familiar shrieks of the serpent, and the ground collapsed beneath Donkman's feet. There would be no quick thinking this time, no perfect escapes, no quips–
Only darkness, as Donkman and Ahiga were swallowed whole.
To Be Continued…

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