The seat that was provided was a harsh gunmetal black edifice, warped enough that it was effectively impossible to place all four legs on the floor at once. It made an obnoxious clacking sound when Dr. Johannes Sorts shifted his weight, the noise echoing through the unnecessarily large concrete room. Row upon row of harsh florescent lights buzzed overhead, the sound only momentarily drowned out when Dr. Sorts shifted his weight back again. Clack.
Agent Schaffer cast an irritated glance over the top of a manila folder. He closed it and clasped his hands atop the blank cover, leaning forward across the scarred and pitted old cafeteria table between himself and the doctor. Apart from the comfortable padded folding chair he occupied, the doctor and the table were the only other things in the stadium sized chamber.
"You do, of course, know where we are and why we are here?" Schaffer asked, the first he had spoken since security had escorted the twitchy little doctor into the room.
Dr. Sorts rolled his eyes in open contempt but cast his gaze towards the unfinished floor and mumbled, "I'm not stupid. I also know you stuck me in this chair to make me feel uncomfortable. I know what this room was used for before it was re-purposed to contain th—that… goddamn thing."
Schaffer watched the doctor very carefully, noting the difficulty with which the other man spoke. He opened the folder again, noting that the enclosed psychological profile had indicated a marked increase in the subject's paranoia in the past months. "Doctor, that was the only other chair in the room. We did not bring it in here to torment you. It's not like we entertain guests here."
"Yeah, t-two chairs in the room, and you got the good one. Call it what you will," Sorts grumbled, shifting his weight again to send a clacking sound to bounce about the distant walls. "The floors in here are rough and dirty, only worn smooth in tracks where the forklifts moved the pallets around. How much manpower did it take to yank up all the old shelves that used to be in this storage room just so it could be a glorified lobby for you… I mean that… that fu—goddamn thing…"
"Would you like to trade seats?" the agent offered calmly.
"I think I'm fine where I am, annoying you with this unbalanced chair." Sorts squirmed back and forth until his chair made a squealing noise on the concrete.
"Doctor Sorts, you are a level 2 researcher. Given that you lack the clearance, could you explain exactly how you learned about me?"
Sorts gripped the edge of the table with pudgy hands and finally met the Agent's eyes with a contemptuous glare. "Don't talk like that. You and I both know wh-what…" The doctor licked his dry lips and swallowed before continuing. "You and I both know what we're talking about. But I'm the only person who can speak honestly here. You lack the capability."
"You didn't answer my question. This is a grave security breach. Given your own specialized research into memetics, you understand the severity of this leak and how your very knowledge of me is a dangerous liability."
"So what, you're going to terminate me?" Sorts screeched. "The only person who can deal with… that goddamn thing?"
"Your open discussion of…" Agent Schaffer paused to consider his words carefully. "…this matter caused a memetic containment breach that infected the entire breakroom at site 19."
"Memetics is bullshit!" Sorts interjected. "A meme is when I say 'Knock, knock' and you say 'Who's there?' It's not a virus, it's not a weapon. It's not a compulsion. The other researchers in the breakroom are not sick—any more than they already were, anyway."
"Doctor…"
Sorts laughed. "Meme is a fucking stupid word to fancy up the concept of a running joke, one of the more irritating concepts that mouth-breathing crap-flinger Richard Dawkins has inflicted upon an undeserving world. I hate the very word. 'Mmmmeeeeeeem.' I pronounce it 'maim' every time I can because I hate it so much."
"I thought it was pronounced that way." Schaffer frowned.
"You thought, you thought, you thought eight things tonight!" Sorts laughed, then rubbed his forehead. "Oh god. There I go. That's an obscure one, I don't expect you'd know the reference. But see? A meme is only as good as the amount of people that understand its context. Context is the key to unlocking these things. I learned about that goddamn thing by paying attention to the context. I talked to the people who were rotated out of working containment in here. I noticed the peculiar pattern in their speech. I deduced the rest."
Schaffer raised his eyebrows. "You'd never seen me before now?"
Sorts just narrowed his eyes. "I know enough about that goddamn thing to know this is a ridiculous waste of resources. Where is it right now? That old supply closet over there? The one that has a fancy electric lock and the old faded 'fertilizer' sign that was obviously recently added? All the other doors in this room are either sealed off or specifically go somewhere. Seriously pathetic misdirection there."
Schaffer had heard enough, he stood up from his seat and gestured to the aforementioned door. "Yes, that's where they keep me. Would you like a look at the room? Perhaps, since you have learned so much about me, you can offer some insight into future containment procedures."
The two men strode towards the old closet, which Schaffer opened with a wave of his unique key card. Schaffer picked up a clipboard from the reverse side of the door and read the introductory language that had been carefully prepared to make otherwise straightforward containment procedures sensible.
Schaffer cleared his throat and recited the lines he had spoken only a few times before, when he was first assigned to security for this containment chamber and during scheduled testing:
"Hello, I am SCP-426. I must be introduced this way in order to prevent ambiguity. I am an ordinary toaster, able to toast bread when supplied with electricity. However, when any human being mentions me, they inadvertently refer to me in the first person. Despite all attempts, there is yet to be a way to speak or write about me in the third person."
Sorts made a derisive sound and waved towards the object sitting on the middle of a shelf in the otherwise empty closet. "That goddamn thing. That goddamn thing is a goddamn toaster."
"No one else has ever been able to refer to me in that way before, Doctor Sorts. How did you do it? Your file said you had a talent for defusing memetic effects."
"That goddamn toaster is not a meme! It's a goddamn toaster!" Sorts snatched the containment papers from Schaffer's hands and read through them with a scowl. "We have no cultural references to that goddamn toaster. People who never heard about that goddamn toaster refer to… to it as if it was themselves. Memetics has absolutely no application here. Maybe I'm the normal one and you are all just goddamn idiots."
"I notice that you have great difficulty referring to me. When you do, you only do so to damn me… to speak of me derisively. Do you suppose that it is your intense dislike of me that allows you to avoid my effect?"
"I didn't say that goddamn toaster had no effect on me. Sure, it's hard for me - that's me, as in Johannes, I can use that word properly - to talk about that goddamn toaster any way I want. Clearly the mere concept of that goddamn toaster has the property of defining itself in the psyche of the individual who thinks of it. It's a glitch in logic. Where you can only refer to that goddamn toaster as yourself, I choose to refer to it as th—"
"Yes, I get the picture, Doctor Sorts. Are you aware of my secondary properties?"
"I don't care about your goddamn properties! Secondary, tertiary or otherwise!" Sorts flipped through the attached test logs. "You're doing a piss poor job of containing that goddamn toaster though, I tell you what. I could keep this goddamn thing in a box under my desk and do a better job. I sure wouldn't start thinking of myself as a goddamn toaster. I'm not replacing my concept of self with it."
Schaffer hadn't thought much of the pudgy doctor before he started ranting, and he had to fight to keep his voice level when he replied. "Doctor, please calm down, you're becoming very agitated. This presents a unique opportunity for us to work together, to do some tests regarding our interactions and your ability to avoid my effect."
"I don't want to work with a goddamn toaster!" Sorts hung the clipboard back up on the door and reached for the handle.
Schaffer put a hand on the Doctor's arm. "I meant me. I want you to work with me."
Sorts whirled upon the agent with a furious grunt, shoving the larger man square in the chest with all his might. "That goddamn toaster should just stay locked up! I'm clearly not immune to the influence of that goddamn toaster. I don't want to have anything to do with … with that goddamn…"
Schaffer stumbled backwards for a moment but regained control of the situation as his training took over. He redirected the smaller man's momentum and whirled the doctor face first into one of the closet's bare walls with a metallic clack. "That's quite enough, Doctor Sorts. You don't really have a choice in the matter." The agent leaned in and growled with a sharp twist of the doctor's arm, "Do you really want to do this?"
Sorts rolled his eyes back up at Schaffer over his shoulder. "Alright, alright." His words were slurred by the way his lips were rammed against the dirty wall. "I'm sorry. I get the picture."
"Okay. I'm going to let you go now and you're going to deal with me like a rational adult." Schaffer released the doctor and took a step back, running his hands down the front of his black uniform. Something tickled the back of his mind, perhaps it was the way Sorts' eyes cleared of panic too quickly, or perhaps it was the absence of a familiar weight at his hip.
Sorts whirled around, revealing the pistol he had yanked out of the agent's belt on his short trip to kiss the wall. Schaffer stepped forward and put out his hands but the doctor slid away, keeping himself out of reach. Sorts held the pistol low, aiming at the agent's unprotected groin and legs.
"Doctor Sorts, that is my sidearm."
"Listen to you! It can't have a sidearm. It's a goddamn toaster!" Beads of sweat were thick on the doctor's brow. "You're talking crazy because you can't tell the difference between you and a stupid inanimate object. That goddamn toaster needs to stay in here and it would be better if everyone forgot about it."
"If you do not stand down and return my sidearm immediately-"
The toaster hit the ground after two shots, and the doctor kicked it into the corner of the closet for good measure. After using Schaffer's key card to lock the door to the goddamn toaster's containment chamber behind him, Sorts dropped the pistol into the pocket of his coat and wiped his brow.
Taking a deep breath, he strode out of the empty storehouse, past the ever-present security cameras, and returned to his office to file a report on the incident.


A possible future…
Jack Bright pushed his way past the holo-sign reading "Closed to Visitors" and made his way up the polished carbonate stairs to the monorail. There was a single car waiting for him. A large red button on the control panel read, "Press this."
He did so, and the sleek silver conveyance whispered up the side of the mountain. The view out of the diamond-glass windows was spectacular: the vermillion hues of the setting sun reflecting off the hair-thin lines of the orbital elevator leading to Sunlight One, the world's first permanent launching station to the deep space colonies. A zeppelin ghosted past the mountainside, one of the new superheavy models that could convey two thousand passengers across the Atlantic in comfort. It was the dawn of a new age.
But it was the past that he had come here to meet, not the future.
He disembarked the monorail, then followed the instructions from the e-mail up the craggy mountain path, to where a waterfall cascaded down into a clear alpine pool. There was an old man standing on a ledge overlooking the falls, looking down at a brass plate, now encased in diamond-glass to protect it from the elements. His hair was white, and his back hunched with age, but the eyes that turned to regard Jack were still as stark and intelligent as the day they had first met.
"Hello, Alto," Jack said.
"Alto… Alto Clef. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time," Clef scoffed. He laughed, a long, hard laugh, and then he coughed hard into a handkerchief, hacking and wheezing. The white cloth came away speckled with blood. "New body? Looks good on you."
Jack Bright nodded in reply, then came to stand next to his old friend. He looked down at the plaque. "At this fearful place, Sherlock Holmes vanquished Professor Moriarty, on 4 May 1891," he read.
"Funny, huh? The man didn't even exist, and here they've put a memorial to him. Reichenbach Falls, the setting of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's last great swan song. The final tale of Sherlock Holmes… until his fans and editors made him write more stories, the whining fucks." He pointed down at the churning white water, far below. "Imagine, Holmes and Moriarty, the master detective and the Napoleon of crime, struggling to the last breath, clawing and pummeling each other as they plummet to their dooms. Such a fitting end for two great men."
"Is that supposed to mean something?" Bright asked. He put his hand in his coat pocket, felt the small-caliber handgun he'd secreted there. The note had said to come unarmed, but he hadn't survived this long by being stupid.
Clef reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a grubby piece of pink paper and handed it to Jack. The younger man read it carefully, then nodded. "How long do you have?"
"Two months at most," Clef said.
"We still have several doses of Five Hundred left," Jack said. "I could authorize to have one lost and recovered by the GOC. As a favor to an old friend."
"I think not," Clef replied sternly. "There comes a time when a man realizes it's time to die. For me… that realization came last week. That was when I got a report that young Kroger took down a Tier 4 Type Green on his lonesome. Took it down in a way I never would have thought of: smart as hell. That kid wasn't even born yet when I started this job. And then it hit me: I've done all I can. All I can do from now on is take up space and get in the way of the younger kids who will carry the work forward." He smiled. "So. Time to die."
"I sense… a personal indictment… in those words," Bright replied slowly.
"Yes," Clef said.
"You think that I, being immortal, will hold the Foundation back, and stop it from moving forward."
"I am afraid," Clef said, "of what it will imply when the most powerful and influential member of the Foundation is an SCP himself. I worry that… not now… not a hundred years from now… but someday, you will have lived so long and become so strange that you are no longer human. And by then, you may be too powerful to stop. So that threat must be nipped in the bud now."
"What if I never become a threat?"
"You will," Clef said firmly. "No one who lives as long as you will can stay human."
"And so you've come to try to kill me," Jack Bright concluded.
"I've come here to kill you," Clef corrected. "Not to try."
"And how did you plan to do that? They've been trying to kill me for over a hundred years. I don't think even you've found a way."
"I didn't. Kroger did," Clef smiled. "Like I said. The young man's smart as hell."
"I see… and your plan?"
Clef told him. He explained, step by step, Kroger's plan for killing Jack Bright. He left out no details. He told him exactly how and why it would work, why the plan was foolproof, and in the end, Bright had to admit that Clef was right. This plan would work. It would kill him.
"It's a good plan," he said. "But there's one problem with it."
"And what's tha—"
Before Clef could finish his sentence, Jack drew his gun and shot him, twice in the chest, once in the head. A perfect Mozambique.
The old man slumped and plummeted off the ledge into the water. Jack put his gun back in his coat. "Bye, Alto," he said. He turned and walked back to the monorail, wiping his face. It was certainly spray from the waterfall, but although Reichenbach Falls was freshwater, it still tasted a bit like seaspray.
He was on his way down the monorail when the implications of Clef's words hit him.
"I didn't. Kroger did."
Someone else knew how to kill Jack Bright.
The realization chilled his borrowed heart. He gripped the armrest on the monorail seat hard, in a white knuckle grip.
No… not just someone else. If he knew Clef, possibly the entire GOC knew how to kill Jack Bright. An entire worldwide organization with the backing of the goddamn United Nations, thousands of highly trained agents dedicated to finding and killing him…
Suddenly he was very aware of just how vulnerable he was in this monorail car. This small, enclosed space, bound to the monorail tracks… a perfect killing ground.
He closed his eyes and waited for the killing blow.
It never came.
Instead, the monorail made its way down to the bottom of the mountain, and the doors opened. His driver was waiting there for him, with his armored limousine. "Director Bright?" Lyn put his hand on Jack's shoulder, concerned at the Director's pale face and trembling hands. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Jack said. He looked up at the mountainside, at the distant cascade of falling water. "Perfectly fine." As the driver pulled away, something else occurred to Jack Bright, something that made him laugh out loud at the bitter irony of it all.
Jack Bright also knew how to kill SCP-963.

Somewhere else…
"Mister Kroger?" the man in the black uniform asked.
"Speaking," Kroger said.
"No," the man in the black uniform said. He handed Kroger a card. It was pure white, except for a single, swirling symbol on the front in stark black ink. Kroger understood.
"Mister Treble Clef?" the man in the black uniform asked.
"Speaking," Clef replied.
"Better." The man in the black uniform nodded. "I have a request…"


"Your ID, sir?"
You nervously present your ID badge to the heavily-armed guard, who scans the barcode with a handheld reader, checks the display, and hands it back to you with a nod. Whatever this meeting is, it must be more important than you had thought. You're under no illusions that the Foundation considers your research to be of any particular significance, so it was hardly a surprise that you received such a sudden summons, but this level of security says that you may be getting in over your head.
Inside, it's a standard teleconference-enabled meeting room - a long table with chairs along one side, facing a wall-sized display screen. You spot your name in front of the chair at the near end of the table, and quickly take a seat, docking your laptop and engaging the normal e-meeting software. While that loads, you take the opportunity to glance down the table at your fellow attendees, and have to fight an urge to run for the door. Many of the men and women (and the dog, especially in the Egg Walker) at this table are instantly recognizable to anyone in the Foundation, names that junior researchers speak only in hushed tones, for fear of summoning their owners like some sort of old-world demon. That feeling of being in over your head increases by several orders of magnitude - what do some of the top researchers in the Foundation need with a lowly geophysicist?
In the table's center seat, Dr. Gears looks down the table at you, then back to the laptop in front of him. "If everyone is here, I believe it is time we begin." With this, he enters a brief command, and the wall display flashes to life, showing a similar room elsewhere, with twelve seated figures, all of whose faces are being digitally obscured, and whose seats are labeled not with names but with numbers. You begin to wonder if someone spiked your coffee with some new SCP-grade hallucinogen, when O5-03 speaks up.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sure you're all wondering why you've been pulled off your respective projects for an emergency meeting. Since some of my colleagues here haven't yet finished reading up on the situation, I think a brief summary is in order. Doctor Gears, if you would?"
Gears nods. "Thank you, sir. Approximately one month ago, several civilian observatories noted what appeared to be an asteroid whose orbit placed it on a trajectory that could lead to an impact with Earth in the near future. We picked up on this discovery through the usual channels, and have since confirmed that the object is a rocky asteroid that will impact Earth in nine days' time." With this, several folders appear on your desktop, including photos, reports, pages of calculations, and various other data. "I took the liberty of borrowing Doctor Philbert's geophysical modeling setup," so that's why you couldn't log on yesterday, "and if my interpretation of the results is correct, we are facing an IK-class natural disaster, with casualties estimated at approximately three billion over the next ten years. Doctor Philbert, do you concur?"
Well, now you know why they wanted you here. You quickly scan through the log you've been provided of Dr. Gears's run on GeoMod, and everything seems to check out. "I, er… Yes sir, I concur, pending a more thorough review of the data," you stammer. You quickly log onto GeoMod and begin crunching numbers like there's no tomorrow.
"If this is a natural object," interjects O5-10, "why are we talking about it? It may be tragic, but we are busy dealing with objects and creatures far more dangerous than some rock."
"Given the rather unique resources at our disposal, we are particularly well-positioned to avert this disaster. In addition, the entire purpose behind the Foundation's acquisition and study of anomalous objects and entities is the protection of humanity. Failing to use our resources to at least mitigate an event of this scale would be contrary to that core purpose." It's impossible to read what Dr. Gears is thinking, but you could swear he just lectured an Overseer. Apparently the top brass really do play by different rules. It's at about this time that GeoMod returns the results of your new inquiries.
"Um… Sirs?" you nervously butt in, and every head in the room swivels in unison to face you. "I've been going over Doctor Gears's projections, and just checked the data against Foundation records. According to the model, if we don't do something, the geological effects of the impact have at least a 40% chance of breaching containment at Area 4." THAT got their attention. You don't have nearly high enough clearance to know what they actually keep in Area 4, but you know that in all likelihood any single SCP there could kill millions if released. If all of them got out…
There's a few seconds of hushed conversation at both ends of the conference, then O5-07 speaks up. "If Doctor Philbert's calculations are correct, then we have no choice but to act against this asteroid. All that remains is to determine how. Suggestions?"
What follows could be politely described as a "spirited debate", and impolitely described as a "verbal clusterfuck". The various researchers propose ideas, only to have them rejected by others. Ask 343 to get rid of it? Already tried, he said no. Shoot it with 044? No way to boost its range or get it into orbit fast enough.
The only idea everyone agrees would work is the use of the armament of the Mare Imbrium facility. Unfortunately, using a warhead powerful enough to deflect the asteroid onto a safe trajectory would also produce a flash bright enough to be seen even in daylight, with half the planet as witnesses. Given how close the object is already, and the time needed to prep the missile, there's really only time for one shot. The argument shifts to whether it's worth effectively announcing the Foundation's existence to civilians worldwide, and neither side appears much inclined to change their opinion. As the shouting match continues, an idea occurs to you, and you promptly get to work running the numbers to see if it's practical. Orbital mechanics aren't your specialty, but compared to modeling shockwaves traveling through variable-composition rock strata, some basic calculations on a ballistic trajectory are a walk in the park. Finally, you have your answer.
It could work.
"We could drop it in the ocean," you blurt out. The senior staff relax their grip on the various weapons they were fingering, and turn to you, with expressions ranging from mild surprise to "what did I just step in and why is it talking?". "A low-yield strike could deflect the asteroid enough that it'll fall in the ocean instead of hitting land, without producing a flash that could be seen from Earth without a telescope. It's not a perfect solution, given the size of the tsunami it would generate, but at least we'd maintain containment. We wouldn't even need to modify the astronomers' memories - an ocean impact is well within their margin of uncertainty, since they don't have access to our data, so they wouldn't even know anything was amiss."
The looks of surprise fade into contemplation. "Might work," says one researcher. "Can't use the Atlantic, don't want to risk waking up 169," says another, leaving you to wonder what SCP-169 is and how an asteroid strike would only wake it up.
"I believe," says Dr. Gears, "that taking SCP-169 into consideration, either the Indian Ocean or the northern Pacific Ocean would be the safest areas to bring down the asteroid. Doctor Johns should be able to model the tsunami well enough to give us a more precise target location. In the meantime, we should have Mare Imbrium begin preparing a missile, and send word to the Demeter and the Guardian to prepare for emergency relocation, and direct them to the safest locations they can reach by time of impact. Is this plan acceptable?"
After most of the researchers present nod their assent, O5-03 speaks up. "We will need some time to review your recommendation, but it would be best if you began preparations as soon as possible. The relevant personnel will receive the final order to proceed or abort as soon as we have made our decision." With that, the display goes dark, marking the official end of the meeting. As you close the meeting software and disconnect your laptop, you realize that you may have just personally sent a tsunami towards some of the most densely-populated coastal areas in the world. Is this what dealing with Keter-level threats is like? The senior staff must handle this kind of thing constantly - you can't even imagine the kind of emotional baggage - you are cut off mid-thought by a simian voice behind you.
"So, who wants lunch?"


"And so," Dr. Samet continued from his wheelchair, his right foot still in a cast after that terrible, accidental firearm discharge, "We must now proceed with the application of-" He stopped, staring at Dr. Bright in some kind of horror. "What is that?"
Bright smiled calmly, as his assistants continued to aide him in the final calibrations. Laying on the table before him, in pieces at the moment, were the three pieces of a rather ugly looking metal staff. Wires and cables trailed off at odd angles, and continued to look more bizarre the more the Lucky Bunch fiddled with it. "It's a staff, Samet."
"I can see that much, 963," the doctor, without a clue, snarled. "But why do you have it here?"
Firmly grasping the now assembled staff, Bright turned on Samet with a scowl. "My name is Dr. Bright. And this is to attract 682's attention. How were you planning on getting SCP-963 onto 682?"
"Well, ah, a launcher, and, ah, hmmm…"
"Exactly. With this prototype, I shall endeavor to anger it, to the point which it comes for me. From there it will be child's play to get 963 inside it."
Samet nodded. "Of course, of course, 963 - but what does it do?"
Some people never learn. And other people continually insult a vengeful immortal who holds no regard for human life. The really stupid people feed Bright straight lines. "This." He raised the cane to point in a vaguely Samet direction, and pressed a button. Immediately, a purplish arc of electricity arched through the air, grounding itself in Samet's injured foot. The doctor screamed, desperately rolling his wheelchair backwards, even as the bandages caught fire. "Hmm, Dr. Samet, it appears as if you have some sort of metal in your cast. Wonder how that happened."
As Samet's lackeys hurried to put their boss out, Bright turned to Dr. Light and nodded. "All right, Sophia, we know what we're doing. What're the current odds?"
Dr. Light checked her clipboard, frowning. "2-1 it doesn't work. 5-1 you get in it and rampage across the site. Side bet on that one, even odds are that you use said rampage to kill Samet over there. 10-1 says something goes wrong, and you get stuck inside 682. 20-1 odds say that this goes bottoms up, and we all end up as you, somehow."
"I like those odds."
"963!" Samet yelled, as his foot smoldered. "You! You, I! You-!"
"Dr. Samet. Understand this." Bright stalked over to tower over the other researcher. "I am about to be put in the most dangerous SCP we've ever discovered. I will offer you this deal then. If you cover your feet in barbecue sauce, I will stop at them."
And with that, Bright turned, and stalked down to the staging floor.

Jack Bright awoke with a headache, his memories fuzzy. There had been something… Barbecue sauce, maybe? No, something else… Oh yes, the memories came flooding back to him, him standing there with his staff, the beast charging, lightning and teeth, blood and pain, and that horrible indescribable feeling as he jumped hosts.
But now- Things weren't right. He could feel cold stone beneath his back, which implied that he was lying down. And he could hear other people moving around him, so there was a good chance he was still in the Foundation. And there was always barbecue sauce. Wait, what?
"Jack? We really need you right now sir." A familiar voice called from above. Slowly, Jack opened his eyes, his face fixed in a pre-emptive frown. Standing over him, in a rather strange looking chain mail hauberk, was a familiar looking Mexican man. Something about him-
"I know you, don't I?" The other man leaned down, helping Jack to his feet.
"Not really sir. Please, you have to come with me." His grip on Jack's arm was firm, his other hand holding firmly to a long staff. Jack stopped, suddenly, watching the other people moving past. All of them were dressed the same, a chain mail hauberk with gold rings in a circle over the heart, surrounding a ring of red rings. All of them held the same staff.
"You're D-113. You're the first, aren't you?" Jack couldn't help but stare. It had been a long time since that first one.
"Well, the answer to that is yes and no. And yes. But not really. Uhm. Right, we do it your way, stupidly blunt. You see sir, none of this is real." As he gestured at the castle walls, and the people around him.
"Well, duh. Credit me with a little sense."
"Oh, okay, right, that makes things, uhm, easier. See, your mind, it isn't ready for this. It can't, uhm, really deal with how 682 sees things. So, it came up with this as a defense. Only, it's not just your mind. 963 is involved, and somehow, bits and pieces of the leftovers of those you've taken over are being animated, to help. Only, it's still part of you. Uhm. Does that make sense?"
"Not even a little bit." As they pushed through a great wooden door. "But I do understand where you're com…ing… from." Jack stared upwards at the sky, for once, without a voice. Above him was the thing, the creature, what we in our limited scope called SCP-682. And it was glorious. A beautiful, nightmarish, disturbing yet intriguing creature, spread across the sky, the ground, the horizon, hell, everything that wasn't Jack and his castle. Barbecue Sauce.
"I, well, then, whoo." Jack frowned more deeply, as several armored people suddenly ran up beside him. Even the old man was there, although he shouldn't have been. He could feel the impact lessen even as they stood there. "Right, sharing the load, got it." He wrenched his eyes away from the… thing, turning to his own ramparts. A twisted, mangled castle that Escher would be proud of loomed above and below him, and from every corner, pieces of him stood, staffs in hand, striking out against the barbecue sauce creature. Purple lightning arched here and there, playing across the surface of the beast, carving inroads, yoking it to his command.
"We're stuck, aren't we?"
"Encaged, sir."
"Have to figure out a way to get out. We have some barbecue sauce to serve up."
"Pardon?"
"Figure of speech. Look, I need…" Bright racked his memories, oh so many of them. The answer would be there, somewhere. And then it was there, standing in front of him. Researcher Class 2 Damon Smith, promoted to Dr. Bright in the line of duty. Damon had always had a fear of being enclosed. And that would get them out of here.
"Come on, Damon, take that staff, and link up! Remember how it feels, to be in small spaces. Locked in, no one to hear you, how to get out…" The apparition before Jack raised its staff, as his limbs trembled in fear. A line of energy lashed out from the staff, scoring a long line in the creature above them.
And it began to change. From the inside, the effects were hard to tell, but everyone there could feel it. Something different was happening. The Dragon was moving.
Jack couldn't help but laugh. "BARBECUE SAUCE!" he called out - one of the absolute worst battle cries ever spoken. He wrenched the staff from Damon's hands, not even noticing as he pushed the poor researcher over the edge, not caring as a mouth of the beast snapped up the helpless researcher.
Lines of energy, a mental projection of Jack's control over 682, lashed out in force from the castle construct. He could feel that it was doing his will, doing what he told it to do. He knew some part of his brain was actually inside the creature, controlling it, seeing through its eyes, but he also knew he could never hope to understand how it saw the world. So, down here, he fought a pitched battle, using metaphor and simile to act in his stead.
But it wasn't to last. Even as he found himself filled with the knowledge that he had done what he wanted to do, the dragon fought back. Its ferocious claws ripped into the castle, shattering walls. Its foul breath played along the walls, sending body-forms reeling, tumbling back into the safety of 963. Jack knew he could not last.
With the last of his mental will, he set the creature back, commanded it to return, and then he too retreated to the safety of his nightmares.

Bright could feel the soft texture of a bed beneath him. Cotton sheets from the feel of it, so not his own bed. Thin mattress, the smell of disinfectant, the leather straps on his wrists, neck, chest and feet… Yes, he must be in Medical.
"Subject is waking up, Overseer."
Bright opened his eyes slowly, aware of the feel of cold metal pressed against his temple. His eyes flicked first to the figure holding the gun, one of the Overseer's goon squad, none of them actually worth remembering. Then, to the sound of the voice, the lovely Dr. Light doing her medical duties. Finally, to the last remaining space by his bed, filled with a monitor screen, on which a black outline of a person could be seen.
A mechanical voice, carefully filtered to remove any identifying markers, spoke to him. "Please identify yourself." With or without identifying markers, Bright still knew who was behind the outline.
"Dr. Jack Bright, Level five Researcher, Personnel Director of far too many sites, yada yada yada."
"Who is your sister?" The voice continued. Bright knew it was the questions that needed to be asked, to make sure he was himself.
"Claire Pierce. And, in answer to your next three questions, 31-20-35, the Ebola virus, and purple monkey dishwasher."
"Identity confirmed. Dr. Bright, what is your last memory?"
Bright thought hard for a long moment, then spoke. "I was… going up against 682, wasn't I? Yeah, I had the staff and everything! Guess he didn't snap up 963, huh?"
"Dr. Bright, SCP-963 was in contact with SCP-682 for the better part of a week. For the first 36 hours, SCP-682 remained in a comatose state. Shortly thereafter, it proceeded to grow large claws, and tunnel its way through its containment, causing a massive breach. Incredibly, SCP-682 only injured one researcher, and then allowed itself to be meekly shepherded back to its containment. 682 paced its room for another 24 hours, at which point it again went comatose. 10 hours ago, SCP-963 was excreted from SCP-682's brow. A team retrieved it, and immediately placed it upon the body you now wear. You have not stirred since. Can you add anything to this?"
"Sorry Six, I got nothing. Although…" Bright frowned, and licked his lips. "Why do I taste barbecue sauce?"

Someplace else entirely, the dragon curled around its newest acquisition. Such a tiny little man thing. It had never thought that the foul creatures could possibly teach it anything. But one of them had.
The beast circled around the memories of Damon Smith, absorbed them, made them its own. And, in learning how to fear, it added one more tool to its vast arsenal, one more way that it could change itself, and finally eliminate the scourge it called man.
Coming (Relatively) Soon!
Chapter Three: Confessions of a Teenage SCP


<< Back to Interference
I heard white noise, unbearably loud against ears so used to silence. I turned around, my heart racing, but it was just Cyrus messing with the radio.
"There won't be anything," I said, approaching him. "Just static…"
He switched to AM and spun the little tuning dial very slowly towards the left end. No flickers of human voices or music, just the hiss of white noise. It hurt to listen to. At the very left end, he stopped, and there was sound, an unidentifiable one—I had never heard anything like it before. The pulsating of an alien's thoughts, the sound of the very farthest reaches of space. I felt Rob the snake suddenly wind tighter around my shoulders.
"What is that?"
Cyrus yanked the radio's electrical cord out of the wall socket; Rob immediately relaxed. "Unholy."
I guess I should have pegged him for weirdly religious, he carried a Bible around all the time, but I never really noticed until now. It was probably the only thing keeping him from completely losing it like the others. I wondered for a second why I hadn't gone insane, but I tried not to think about it too much.
We left the classroom at the sound of hundreds of running footsteps, fleeing down the stairs to the ground floor. I was about to throw open the door to the office to hide, but Cyrus dragged me into a janitors' closet instead.
"Don't go in there," he said, almost inaudible over the footsteps and screaming. "Don't ever go in there."
I almost asked why, but I stopped myself, not wanting to know. I opened the closet door just a crack and looked through into the hall.
They weren't after us, I quickly realized, they were running towards the edge. They jumped. All of them, too many for me to get a count. None of them were afraid. Their running steps were utterly drowned out by a great roar like the sound the ocean makes during a storm, but much larger, more terrible than any ocean or any storm or any tangible thing on Earth. They all tumbled into the whiteness. I had known some of them. I had known all of them. I heard their monstrous sound tear out of their throats, it came from the fog and the air. The roar grew to a deafening volume. I felt like perhaps I should jump too, but when I stood to do it, Cyrus pulled me back.
"Wednesday," he said, almost breathless with panic. "Wednesday."

I woke up.
Above me were a few people wearing gas masks and talking amongst themselves. I couldn't hear them, their voices were only a murmur, at least until my head cleared itself a little. I rubbed my eyes.
"She's coming around," said one of them.
I tried to speak to them. I knew I spoke their language but I didn't completely understand what they were saying.
"Hmmh," I mumbled, attempting to sit up. Everything felt heavy.
"What do you remember last?" said another gas mask, but one of his fellows swatted him.
"Don't ask her now, dipshit. Wait until she's at least lucid enough to speak properly."
"Sorry."
"C'mon."
One of them scooped me up and threw me over his shoulder. Another yelled in surprise.
"Snake!"
"Well don't scream about it! Where?"
"On her shoulder…"
"Is it alive?"
"Yeah - "
"Don't worry about it - "
"Can we focus for two seconds and leave? Dunford, Barnes, stay here, we'll come back."
I felt like I was falling from a great height. Had I jumped? If I did jump, then the other kids who jumped must have been around there somewhere too…
Had I just dreamed the whole thing?
"Where…?" I said, my mouth not working right.
"Don't talk yet, you'll have plenty of time for that later."
They took me outside, and I heard many voices. They took my clothes and undid my hair and pushed me into a tent where I was soaped and hosed down by a cranky-looking woman in a white coat. I stumbled into a different tent, and the woman directed me to a metal chair. Cyrus was there too, looking far more alert than I felt.
One of the gas masks handed me Rob, who was pretty wet and maybe a little stunned from the shower. He promptly curled up in my lap.
All of the people in the tent were adults - none of my classmates in sight. The gas masks who had carried me out were not there either, but there were what looked like doctors and nurses and people who looked maybe they might be in the military, though something was off about them. Each had some sort of symbol on their shoulders or their chests, something I didn't recognize. They conducted their business with lowered voices just barely above a whisper.
A man wearing a white coat and small round glasses was speaking to Cyrus too quietly for me to hear. Cyrus seemed to listen, I guess, but wasn't responding.
The man grew frustrated with Cyrus's silence and approached me carrying a tape recorder.
"My name is Dr. Krell," he said in a cool voice. "We represent the SCP Foundation."
>>


<< Back to part three
Agent Erika Sarin sighed for a moment before raising her megaphone once more. "Okay, ladies and gentlemen," she said, her voice booming over the school parking lot. "I need you to follow the men in labcoats, please, for decontamination and testing. Boys go to this tent, girls to that one." Sarin gestured like an airline stewardess pointing out those incredibly convenient exits everyone hopes they'll never need to use, then walked briskly to Dr. Krell in the basketball courts, pushing aside gaggles of confused students and teachers.
"At approximately 9 AM this morning," said the dispassionate voice of Dr. Alan Krell, "a burst of noise on all radio bands came from this location, somewhere inside Eastwood High School. We were able to triangulate the source, but the noise is still unidentified. Arriving here, you may or may not have noticed that half of the student body - about 800 students - disappeared, by which I mean the north half of the school went completely empty."
"That would usually mean a day off for us," said Agent Dunford.
"Pieholes shut during briefings, please," Dr. Krell said without missing a beat. "Questions from local law enforcement and civilians have been quelled for the moment by Agent Young. We're from a poison control center, you got that? Type three chemical grenades have been detonated for deniability, so keep your gas masks on if you want your blood to continue staying inside your body."
He turned for a moment to look at the building. It looked, aside from the Foundation personnel milling about, like an utterly normal high school.
"How many casualties have we got so far?" said Dr. Krell.
"Eleven students, aaaand…" Agent Jacobsen scanned his clipboard. "Two faculty."
"Alright then. All of you get inside. Make sure your walkie-talkies are on channel 4. Take note of any and all anomalies."
Continued in part four >>


I need to write this down, because I forget things sometimes, and I think what I heard today was important. Not to me, the time for me or almost anyone else alive on Earth today to make a difference has passed, but someone, somewhere might be able to make something of this, or at least find it helpful, or something. Once I'm done, I'm going to seal it up in a pipe, coat it in wax, and chuck it into the ravine. Maybe someday someone will read this, and try to put things together. If they're allowed to.
I'd love to start at the beginning, but I'm honestly not sure when the world started to end. Could have been years and years before the final bits, or it could have been all at once. Everything was so grim, what with warmer air, cooler seas, too little gas and too many people, things could have been unraveling for ages before things bubbled up to the public eye. What I and others remember most was when the Disney Magic sank. It was then, I think, that most people started to think that things might be worse than they seemed.
The Disney Magic was a big cruise ship, one of those liner jobs that tools around islands and stuff. One day, the news was all screaming about how it suddenly just went down when it was trying to put in to port. The weird thing about it was how there was no video of it for a long time. Some still pictures of it floating fine, but none of it actually going down. Then, somehow, a tape showed up, and the news started playing it. I have to imagine they didn't review it first.
The ship was puffing along, strong and fast, little boats bobbing around it, looking like every vacation lover's dream, when suddenly it stopped. I mean stopped, just a dead halt like it had just slammed into a mountain. You could see people go lurching forward all over the deck, a bunch of junk fall off the sides, a real mess. It's all still for a few seconds, then suddenly there's this foaming behind the ship. Most people assumed it was the engine trying to fire up again… then the arm came up.
I'm not sure if it actually was an arm, but it was some kind of limb, and it must have been a hundred feet long at least. It reached up along the side of the boat and… just ripped it open, I mean unzipped it like a coat, and you could see all the people inside screaming and running… it was awful. Then you saw something lurch up, a big, spiny shape pushing against that gap, shoving in… then there was an explosion on its back, and the camera whipped up to show a couple of jets whizzing by… then it ended.
I remember just sitting there, stunned, looking at the TV, barely noticing the president coming on to declare a state of emergency. I think it was two or three days later when the TV went under full government control, but it may have been a week, I'm not sure. Internet got clamped later, but soon all you could hear, read or see was “remain calm, everything is under control”. The oddest thing was that life really didn't change much for a while. Bills still came, still had to work, go to school, all that. Just a lot more scared faces, and a lot more weird talk.
Pretty soon we were getting told that whole towns were being evacuated, that there was a plague, or a riot, or a terrorist bomb, or some other nightmare. My brother down south said that they got moved because of a huge wildfire. The weird thing was, he said, that the fire moved oddly… seemed to shoot right for gas or brush, and didn't travel evenly. That after a while, he swore he saw what looked like a twenty foot tall man of fire walking and eating everything. The call got dropped right after he said that. I haven't talked to him since.
So things got worse, little by little. People kept being moved, and there was no real way to communicate with each other anymore that was really reliable, so it was hard to say just how bad things were. Still, word of mouth was still going strong, and it was creepy. Crazy shit, really, stuff about zombies in the north, killing frenzies in the east, a place near the ocean where the ground was alive and eating people, a cult screaming about the second coming and killing people to buy off god… I started pulling more and more away from people, just to get some ignorant peace of mind. Looking back, that probably saved my life.
Finally, one day, I woke up and there was blood on my window. It was outside, and I could hear some insane shit going down outside… screaming, clanking, gunshots, and a smell like burning wires. I hid. I'm not ashamed to admit it, I left my fellow man to rot, and hid inside for almost a full week, long after the noise stopped. After the fifth day, the electricity and gas gave out, along with the running water. When I finally got hard up for supplies, I poked my nose out, and saw that the whole west side of the world was gone.
Now, I don't know for sure if it actually is gone, but there is a cliff that starts thirty feet to the west of my house, and I cannot see the bottom of it. I also can't see the other side of this ravine, so for all intents and purposes, that part of the world is gone for me. The suburb I was in looked like a war zone, blood and broken stuff everywhere, houses carved up… no bodies though, which I still think was weird. I scrounged up some food and stuff from some of the houses, then went back home.
I've been doing that for a while now. I'm not sure how long, really. Might have been years and years, or just a few months, it's hard to say. Sometimes the sun just sticks in one spot for what feels like days… other times these clouds roll in, and you can't see two feet. There's… things around, too. I run at the first noise, but I think they're about man-sized, and they seem to like metal. Other, little things scramble around in the rubble sometimes, so I try and keep clear. One time, a thing that looked like a pill bug the size of a cat crawled out, looked at me, and screamed “STOP!” in perfect English. I hid inside for days.
There are also these big blimp-things that float around sometimes. They have little bug legs on their undersides, and they look kinda like maggots, but with eyes all over. They eat everything when they land, but most of the time they stay high up. One of these had just passed when I found the hurt guy. He was all ripped up, and looked like one of those S.W.A.T. Team guys you see on tv sometimes, but his combat suit thing was all ripped to hell. I dragged him back home, and then we talked.
He said that he had been hunting the blimp-thing, but had gotten attacked. He wouldn't say by what, but he looked like he was on his last legs. I fed him some canned beans and some water, and he seemed to come around a little. Asked me who I was, if I was alright and all that. He seemed kinda shocked when I said he was the first person I'd seen since the rest of the world vanished. He told me it wasn't gone, just relocated, but wouldn't say what that meant. I helped heal him up, and kept asking who he was, but he wouldn't say. Finally, he said screw it, that his orders were probably no good anymore anyway, and told me.
He said he worked for a foundation or something, and that they were like a combination jail and research center. He said that he was one of the agents who went around trying to find strange stuff and keep it from hurting people. I said he was doing a hell of a job so far, and he laughed pretty hard. He said something had happened, and that a bunch of these things had gotten loose at the same time, and caused this foundation place to lose control. He said it became a “GH-0 'Dead Greenhouse' scenario”.
I asked him what that meant, and he looked at me for awhile before going on. He said that's what they call a situation where everybody on earth dies, but the earth itself is still ok and can support life. I asked what did that matter if everybody's dead, and he smiled strangely. I asked him if anyone else on earth was still alive, and he said yes, but carefully spread out and contained. After that, I just sorta sat and digested things for a bit, and the man started stretching and checking his cuts. He was starting to pull his boots on when I asked what happens now.
He said that they have to “reboot” things. Said they have the technology to recreate almost anything, and that making people is actually pretty easy. Said that they would clean out and contain things, rebuild the broken cities, and repopulate them. It would take a long, long time, but he said they would eventually get things back to the way they were before. Even said they could recreate memories and stuff. I just sat, kinda stunned, and watched him as he just kept going along, getting dressed like this was all no big deal. I told him he was nuts, that there was no way people could just forget, that this could all be just swept away. He stopped, looked at me, smiled, then said “Why not? It's been done before.”
I don't know if that man was crazy or not, but I think he was sane. As he was leaving, he said something about putting my house underwater. Please, don't let them brush me away. Don't let them hide us. Try and find more, I know there's got to be more people who tried to leave something behind. Don't let the world die in vain. Remember us.


The priests looked up in horror as there was a great, deep growl from above them. Somewhere, in the vast impenetrable body of their World and their God… metal ground to a halt. It was a horrifying noise that set the entire city on edge. It was not particularly loud, no, nor was it high pitched or rumbling or annoying.
But it meant bad things to come. Very bad, indeed. Although nobody spoke about it, the beats of the gears and their world were slowing down year after year, after beating steadily for millennia. Everyone was horrified. The smaller mechanics, for which they used to modify themselves over time, were unaffected, but the great gears, including the massive golden mountain on which their city was built, were turning a little slower, and sometimes unevenly.
The high priestess even halted her studies on ectogenesis in an attempt to consult with the God, although the great God and World never answered. So she organized a group to set out in adventure, to seek out the source of this slowing, this unevenness.
They chose a group of children, as of yet unchanged by the gears and mechanics that would become part of their bodies come puberty, or when young legs were inevitably crushed between gears in a moment of carelessness. After all, children were small and fast, and expendable, capable of getting into the smallest places.
There were five of them.
They set off through the gardens, first, the ever-shifting irrigated gears, each one almost as large as their city alone, where earth- real earth- filtered in from somewhere above, unseen by gears, and where crystalline growths provided brilliant golden light that made the brass, turning walls of the world glow. They collected food to carry with them in their knapsacks of spun, silken silver, and left for places unknown to the city.
One of them found a way to climb the gears up, seeking out where the earth and water that filtered into the gardens came from, suspecting that perhaps the earth had jammed a gear, or the water had rusted somewhere (although he knew the World and God never rusted). He was a tall child, with dusky hair and pale eyes, who dreamed of one day becoming such as the high priestess, a being of pure metal and energy, instead of his fleshy, tainted birth-body.
Another set off northwards, where magnetized needles always swung to point, deciding that perhaps somewhere the God and World had become a simpler metal, one that could be swayed by magnetism, and that the source of the northern magnetic field could be obstructing it. She was a smart girl, with dark hair and eyes and a strong ambition to perhaps be a priestess herself someday.
The third left the group when they encountered a place so dark that no light could be seen, and had become separated from the group- as he was always a little hard of hearing and clumsy, a poor trait amidst the World and God, where the clicking and groaning of a gear was one of the only ways to tell if one was going to trap and pin you. He wandered into the darkness, afraid and disoriented, until he emerged to the west, although he didn't know that direction.
The last two decided that it was a poor idea to split up, being siblings, twins, an extreme rarity, and being very much connected on a deep, needy level. They found a tunnel that lead down, down, spiraling down into a staircase of pistons and tubing amidst the churning cogs. And they continued as such, down, down, into darkness and towards a light more pure and white than any they had seen before in the distance.
Many years passed before they returned.
And in those years, the high priestess found that their God would no longer convert the children who reached adulthood, to her utter horror. Gears ground to a halt in some places, while others spun wildly or broke lose, now and then. She feared that her five had truly been sent to their deaths, and wept tearlessly for them, her crystalline diopter eyes having no fluid in them.
Their city was ruined, their population diminished. The gardens swelled with fruit unseen before, and sometimes whole plants or strange dead creatures fell from above with the earth and water. A flood had ravaged the city streets, one year, and another year random storms of static and lightening flashed through a neighborhood, burning flesh and stopping gears where they stood, and causing many of the eternally-glowing crystals to shatter and fall dark.
And then he came.
A tall man, with skin tanned darker than any the city had seen, an earthy bonze, his hair golden as the gears and pale eyes harsh and squinting to see in the dim light of the city. His flesh was windburned and lined with hard work and scars, and he carried with him heavy boots laden with dirt and a staff of wood- and a device made of a dark blackened metal, which he used to dispatch a priest who had gone mad and attempted to attack him, bursting his copper-plated skull and scattering wired brains everywhere.
He spoke of another World above, one that was not the God and World, where earth covered everything and plant life grew abundant, and people who never changed into machinations lived and worked, and had believed the world below them populated by monsters and demons that had been locked away to squander out of the view of the sun, a massive light so brilliant it illuminated the entirety of the World. A World that was much bigger than the God and World, that lead all the way to a place, land where the God and World was nowhere below, and nowhere near.
The high priestess claimed blasphemy and had him chased from the city, but in her ticking heart, winding down, she knew and feared he spoke the truth.
Shortly after he left, the woman arrived, her dark hair elaborately braided, her dark eyes smart and sharp with intense knowledge. At first the priestess thought that she had been changed and was to accept her as one of their own, but her shined skin was not metal, but some sort of material that was both hard and flexible and did not break, shattering the points of spears when the guards tried to force her out. Her insides, visible through opalescent and translucent panels here and there, were formed of electricity and wires, such small unmoving mechanics sickening to the priestess.
She spoke of another World to the north, where the unmodified and newly modified lived together in synchronicity, where the entire horizon was blanketed with frozen water in many different forms- both white and granular and sheer, where the sky was endless and black and the sun- an eternal light- rose only once per year and set once per year. And of people who knew such horrible things about the God and World.
The high priestess screamed blasphemy, and bade her to take her leave. The woman refused, and took up residence in an abandoned home, working with information projected of pure light and silver-and-white technology unseen.
From the west came another. His skin was burned and scarred heavily, his hair fallen out, his teeth rotten, but his body muscular and strong. He carried a knife made out of white bone and a sack of dead creatures he called fish, preserved in glass jars, nothing the city had seen before. He heard nothing, but could still read and speak just fine, although he reacted to any movement near him with an animal shout and a swing of the knife.
He gibbered and claimed to have come from a World of water, endless water, where small groups of people and other creatures clung to life on drifting cities and small floating homes. And of creatures, some so massive they could swallow a thousand people whole, and others that were small and so vicious a dozen of them would strip one to the bone in seconds. The water was bottomless, he claimed, and he spoke of seeing the World and God from the outside, and that it was not endless, that it ended where the endless water dropped into falls so high that the people spoke that there was no bottom to it.
The high priestess relaxed the city's vast discomfort by claiming that the boy must have gone crazy in his long years of isolation, and bade that he be rejoined with the God and World, although the metallic woman with dark hair and eyes shielded him with a bubble of pure light and energy before they could herd him into the crushing gears, and they let the two of them be out of fear.
Then the fourth arrived, quite surprisingly alone and detached. She spoke little, and wore only scraps of clothing underneath crude scrapped armor made out of curious shells and a heavy cloak, constantly complaining of the cold. In all, she was quite benign compared to the others, peacefully accepting food and watching the priestess distrustfully. One could have even thought she was entirely unmodified until, in a moment of carelessness, another set of arms reached out from under the cloak to adjust her armor.
It was not until pressured that she spoke of a world below, where she, and she truly, had found the source of the God and World's ails. Water poured in on all sides of this world, salty and rich, bringing creatures and refuse plants with it. Above, a layer of crystals so pure and white and brilliant it was impossible to see the God and World, and in the swampy, still waters down below, pillars supported the God's weight and rocky spires and masses of soggy land that collected around either of these formed small islands.
And it was there that the natives of this land, curious and intelligent, but still shy, and very very strange if medically skilled, had led her to the source of the god's problems. Although she hadn't said much before, she described what she had seen in vivid, triumphant detail.
There was another God, one who lurked below in the swampy waters, and was locked into battle with the God and World. The natives had bade her to dive into the waters, and in the deep, she saw them, trapped under heavy waters- the God of Flesh, whose massive limbs and tendrils and all other appendages she could not even find words to explain had crawled up through the water and the pillars and rock spires and had jammed themselves deep into the heart of the God and World.
But the God and World had responded in kind, a massive mechanical weapon poised over the God of Flesh's heart ready to drop the moment its unending mechanical heart stopped. They were locked in a stalemate, neither one willing to destroy the other for knowledge of it's own destruction.
At this, she had burst out into hysterical laughter, and the priestess looked into her eyes and saw pain and madness…but also honesty.
The priestess, in a rare moment of humanity, asked of the woman what had become of her twin. The woman responded with a confused stare, before removing her cloak, revealing the extra set of arms was not where her strangeness ended, as another set of eyes rested above her ears, and her skull arced back in such a way that there would have been two minds crammed into it. Her back was hunched, slightly, but she smiled, and explained that they were both here. There was nothing to worry about.
And the high priestess finally relented, and simply howled her frustrations. The woman left before the priestess could collect herself enough to reach a decision, and the mechanical woman, the leader of her people…retired to her private labs and collapsed. Her heart, in all it's whirring, ticking glory…could not take any more of this.
And unknown to her and the city, five (or perhaps four, depending upon your beliefs) met in an abandoned home on the edge of the city, drawn together perhaps by fate, or luck, or some greater planning.
“They released the anti-virus into the soil and water long before we ever saw the effects. By now, every inch of the Gods have to be affected.” Said the tall man, shining his weapon. “No more converting anything for either of them.”
“All studies at the polar stations show that the infection rate of both entities have been completely neutralized to 0%.” The mechanical, dark-haired woman nodded, the glowing screens that emanated from her own body flickering the words as she spoke. “Unfortunately, the longer they survive, the greater the chance of either entity overcoming the affects of your Foundation's antivirus.”
“S-so weh hab to keel dem, righ?” The deaf man inquired, shaking and shrugging, the scarred skin on his back stretching as he sat.
“Easier said than done. My people- the people below- worship the Flesh God, of course they do, just as we worshiped the Gear God, but…even they know that killing the Gear God will bring it crashing down upon them.” The two-in-one chuckled, pacing back and forth, all four hands wringing. “…but…both Gods…to be buried together.”
“They won't do it.” The first man grunted, standing from his seat and brushing the golden hair from his eyes, a determined glint to his smirk. “These things ain't real Gods. They're just beings, and they're afraid of dying same as you and me. So we're gonna have to nudge them one way or another. Everything above the God and World's been evacuated, so nobody needs to worry up above.”
“I propose we attack both at once. There is a high probability that they will attack each other simultaneously.” The glowing screens of light displayed the possibility in a simplified animation. “I have already informed the polar stations of this idea, and they predict similarly.”
“Wuh we waitin' foh?”
“…Good question.” The two-in-one chuckled, then laughed, and then cackled with an exhausted sort of delight.
It was no more than a few days later that the high priestess sat in her chamber, and heard something that made her cold metal heart skip a beat.
Silence.
The ticking of the God and World stopped, suddenly, eternally, and instantly she knew in every fiber of her metallic being that it was the end of the World. Before the gear under the city gave way, and everything began to crumbled and fall. The high priestess, in reality, was one of the lucky ones, desperate and strong enough to scamper through the ruins as they tumbled and collapsed in on themselves, falling seemingly endlessly, until she finally reached a point where the gears gave way to crumbling earth. Her sharpened needlepoint fingers grasped at grass and tree roots for purchase, and her crystal eyes looked up.
She saw the sun, a ball of fire so bright yet far away she could hardly comprehend the very notion of it, much less fully accept what she was seeing, and then something came over her head, a carriage hoisted into the air by blades moving so rapidly they flowed into one.
And with the last tic of her heart, she saw four faces (but ten pair of eyes) looking down from the bizarre vehicle, smiling in triumph.
Her heart went still and she fell into the gaping crevasse where once two gods fell to sleep and battle.
And the ocean quickly filled what was left of the hole, as if it had never been there in the first place.


The end of the world starts with a song.
You wake up, still hopped up on the pain pills they pass out like candy here. Someone changed the radio station while you were out, instead of sports scores there's singing. Your head is clearing quickly, not leaving the usual headache behind it, for once. You reach to change the radio station, and stop.
It doesn't hurt.
You look at your arm, at the tubes stabbing into it, and see the sagging skin pull back, tighten, heal. You sit up, and the song grows louder, and you realize that you're sitting up for the first time in months. You wonder if you're dead, if you're dreaming.
You aren't.
One minute has passed since the song started playing.
You try to get up just to see if you can, and you can, and it doesn't hurt. You walk awkwardly, legs still stiff, steps still unsure after so long without use. Your bare feet tingle as they touch the carpet. There is a small cactus perched on the windowsill, and you could swear that it twitches slightly, thorns growing imperceptibly.
Well, you decide, it's a dream. Might as well enjoy it. You step outside into the hallway, and hear the song being broadcast from every speaker in the building
Other doors are opening, all down the cancer ward, and pale people in sky blue hospital shifts are stumbling slightly as they remember what walking is like. You see that some of them still have tumors, those for whom you can tell, and you run a hand over your neck. There's still that small lump. You aren't cured? You feel cured, though…
The small potted trees, placed to give some feeling of life, are rustling as if in a light breeze. You pinch yourself suddenly, automatically, perhaps even unwillingly… it is, after all, a very nice dream. It hurts, but it stops hurting quickly. You walk for the main desk of this, the top floor, the hospital's hospice. The receptionist is standing and staring, and you laugh when you think of how she's been put out of a job. Is this real? Probably not. It seems real, though, and feels real, and by now that's enough. You stroke the lump on your neck again, and it somehow feels bigger.
Two minutes in, and the song plays on.
You need to see the sky.
Three minutes.
You stand on the roof, and hear the song being played from every direction. The grass is green, and trees that had lost their leaves to the sinking heat of autumn are growing new ones, bigger and thicker. People are there, too, just standing and listening. You laugh, loud and without care, and try to sing along, but the song is in words that you do not recognize. It seems as if everything that can play the song is piping it to the heavens, a song of genesis, of life.
Life responds.
A dull ache is there in your neck, you realize. It feels heavier, too, as if padding were being placed on the tumor. You reach your hand up, and feel a mass of flesh twice the size that it used to be. And all the trees put forth flowers at once.
And everything begins to go wrong.
Four minutes have passed since it started.
You see someone down below keel over, suddenly. She vomits, and a sapling shoots up out of the mess. Others begin to clutch at their stomachs, some fall over, many throw up or suddenly vent their bowels. Small plants grow from the waste. You feel nothing but the steadily growing tumor.
You stand, transfixed, until
Five minutes have passed since you first heard the radio sing.
Things are moving faster, now. The grass seems to double in height in a matter of seconds, though from the roof it's hard to tell. New branches are sprouting forth from every tree you can see. Most of the people down below have stopped moving, and you watch as they bleed green that rises towards the sun. It's life, you realize, feeling detached. The hospital was sanitary. You've been fed through tubes for months, but there's bound to be something inside you waiting to grow. You don't care. You've been dying for too long now to care.
You sit down, legs dangling over a rising forest.
Six minutes.
You feel something slip down your side and hit the roof. You feel when it hits the roof. The tumor is spreading, and you watch it bubble outwards, putting forth a tendril here and there, feeling its way. It spreads like living molasses, but full of veins and prickling as it slips over bumps in the surface.
There's something gray in the distance, but coming closer. It's covering the trees, releasing smoke-like clouds as it does.
Seven minutes.
You must be the only one left. The tumor is spreading outwards still, coating the whole roof. It's almost like a gigantic cape. You wonder why you're still alive. The gray has solidified into a mountain of fungus, and you wonder if it will reach the clouds. It's stopped coming closer, though- the trees in front of it have become covered by what look like spider webs, connecting them all together, catching the gray spores and keeping the trees safe. Below you, the roads are no longer visible. The grass has taken over, with an occasional tree poking up from the tangle. The grass , as far as you can tell, is sprouting out and growing connections to nearby stalks.
How can the song still be playing? There can't be electricity, the speakers have surely been in most cases overgrown. It still seems to be coming from everywhere, though not like before. Before, it came from electronics. Now you can feel the voices as if the choir were standing right behind you.
Eight minutes, and you wonder how long the song can be.
The grass below has cut down the trees, joined together and lacerated the trunks, absorbed them and grown taller. The spider webs in the distance begin to cover the mountain of fungus, which fights back with irregular bulges and stick-like protrusions. You have covered the entire roof, and are working your way down the walls, entering windows as you reach them. The people inside have disappeared as far as you can tell. You can tell because the tumor can tell, not with eyes, but you can feel every minute difference in warmth that reaches it, every vibration that passes through the air and the building.
Nine minutes have passed, and you return to your room, slipping in through the window.
Something stabs you when you do. A spike rips through the leathery folds of flesh that were once a tumor. The cactus.
Your skin contracts around the spines, but more keep growing. They impale you, sent into a frenzy of growth by the touch. Spikes erupt from the top floor of the hospital, too fast to be stopped, too fast to be believed. It's odd. You realize, still detached, that you can see it happen. You can see every side of the building at once. The cactus throws quickly growing green balls of itself outward, seeming to double or triple in size before they hit the ground and tear into the grass. It hurts, of course, but that's nothing new.
You try to laugh as you think of a cactus growing here , in autumn no less, but you have no mouth anymore. It's grown over.
The cactus spreads furiously, each mine-like spike ball exploding into maturity in a matter of seconds. They begin to throw their own children outwards as well, and the grass acts as a single being, flowing like water to ice to solidify beneath the baby cacti, not letting them touch the ground. It doesn't matter. The spikes go down and somehow take root. They come up, as well.
Ten minutes, and it's time to die.
Twenty minutes later, and the song abruptly stops. Not that you're there to hear it. Not really. Something survived, though your brain was impaled by a thousand miniature barbs, your body torn from the tumor and used for its nutrients. Some of the flesh survived, carpeting the roof. It may live forever.
It's not a wasteland that you left behind. When the song stopped, so did the changes. At least, so did the speed of the changes. They'll always be happening. They always have been, really. Where the hospital once stood is a world of spikes and thorns, the grass grown together with your cactus to give a clear message to whatever animals may come. Whatever animals there are. You would not recognize them, anyway.
The fungus still stands like a mountain, and will continue to do so, forever. The spider webs grow thick, but no insects will ever be caught. There are no humans left. In some strange spots there are things that were once human. A tower of bone, with eyes peeking out. A hair-covered family of four-armed and legless things, who will continue to etch meaningless inscriptions on crumbling masonry until they at last die out. A cloth-like, almost fluid mass of flesh that wisps through the miles of cacti, parting and reforming around each individual spear.
And the world began with a song.


The page does not (yet) exist.
The page scp-169 you want to access does not exist.
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“That's funny,” you think. “I could have sworn…”
You click on the Recent posts link. Maybe there's something in there about it. No, there's no explanation. It doesn't look like there's been much activity tonight, either. You hit View categories, then announcements.
Forum Category
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“Now that's odd,” you begin to think. “Maybe they're doing some major site maintenance.”
You tap the red link in the upper left hand corner of the page.
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The page main you want to access does not exist.
• create page
Now your fingers are getting a little jittery. You click SCP series, and a thousand copies of [ACCESS DENIED] are staring back at you. You open them over and over.
008, gone.
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You frantically press refresh again and again. The page scp-series you want to access does not exist.
And then, with no prompting, your screen jumps, and there's a white page with grey text.
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You're completely dumbstruck. But the little clock on the computer screen says 3:47 AM, and it suddenly hits you how late it is. You have to get up tomorrow. And in the morning we'll probably all get a PM from Gears about how the server crashed or something. So you turn off the monitor, and snuggle into bed.
Maybe it's the low rumble of vehicles on the street outside your window, or a faint creak down the hallway. You stir a little awake, and squint at the clock by your bedside. You pull the sheets up over your shoulder and groan lightly, dozing back to sleep.
And then there's a smash at your bedroom door, rocketing you upright. You throw your hand up over your face at the blinding light. Arms reach out and grab you, dragging you bodily from the bed. Your hands are wrenched behind your back, and you struggle against the limbs pinning you to the floor. As a black bag is pulled over your head and the cord is tightened around your neck, you scream and scream into the dark muffling cloth.


He cautiously made his way through the ruins. He had a name, but it had long since been forgotten. His name was now a word that had been written under a drawing in the margin of a journal he didn't remember keeping. His life had become one of service to the Foundation. Now the Foundation was no more, and he had returned to the site of his greatest failure.
Just what was the agent's greatest failure, he wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps it had been leaving the site without making sure everyone understood his instructions. Perhaps it had been failing to ensure that the robots had all of their moving parts protected. Perhaps it had been allowing his paranoia that the containment procedures on 359 weren't sufficient, and he had to see for himself, to get the better of him, which had been his reason for leaving in the first place. But whatever it was, within a day of his leaving the site, there was no longer a site to return to.
The news had come from one of the Level 1 personnel who arrived at 359's roost. The vine had somehow hitched a ride on one of the robots, he claimed, and had killed anyone who saw it. People had been sent to the lab with flamethrowers to attempt to contain it with minimal collateral damage, but to no avail. The more people it killed, the faster it spread. By the time the situation had reached the point where activating the on-site warhead would have been a viable option, anyone who had the security clearance to do so was already dead.
The agent had called in an airstrike on the former site, but the vine had already spread far beyond the site by the time it was cleared. Within a week, the entire American Midwest was overgrown.
He and the remaining survivors had erected a shelter, a massive steel dome with a glass roof to let sunlight in. He knew the plant couldn't put down roots in metal or glass, and the glass was too high for any vine to reach without roots for support. He had thought they would be safe in there. He had forgotten the ingenuity of the plant.
He had lost track of the time the survivors had spent inside the dome when the attack came. The vines had crept over the glass window and smashed it with the rocks held in their roots. Next had come the Great Rain of Mice. Dead mice began to fall through the broken skylight, erupting with vines the instant they hit the ground. The survivors had been caught completely off-guard. Within hours, the dome had been completely overrun.
So now, dressed in a thermal insulation suit specifically designed to shield his heat signature from the plant, he returned to where it all began. He wanted to understand where everything had gone wrong. He had already seen that the plant had stacked various porous objects against the dome to reach the skylight.
As he climbed over the numerous skeletons, humans and otherwise, entwined in the mass of vines, he saw something sitting in the middle of the room. It was one of the robots that had been used to maintain the plant after Incident 307 had killed a D-class personnel. One of its arms had long since rusted and fallen off. As he approached, he could see a plant growing out of it, with its roots set into the rubber casing on one of its hydraulic tubes.
He prepared to turn back, when something at the other end of the room caught his eye. It appeared to be a light, but the sun had set hours ago. Against his better judgment, he made his way through the vine-strewn door. He immediately recognized the room he was in. It was the plant's containment cell, and the light, which was somehow still lit, was the hydroponic chamber where the original specimen had been contained. But now, there was something different underneath it.
The hydroponic station had been replaced by a table, with several glass terrariums on it. Inside each terrarium was a sizable colony of mice. As he watched, a vine snaked forward, lifted the lid off of one of the terrariums, and touched one of the mice, which froze on the spot. The vine wrapped around the mouse and removed it from the terrarium. So that's how it's survived all this time, he thought. The damn thing is farming hosts!
He turned to leave, but felt something tug at his leg. One of the seams on his suit had become caught on a thorn. Before he could decide the best way to disengage himself, the vine began to move towards the mice, pulling the seam out of the suit completely.
Instantly, the vines homed in on his heat signature and grabbed the suit with their thorns. He could hear them tearing at his clothes, as a particularly large vine wrapped around each limb and forced him to his knees. As he looked up, a single vine crept up to his face.
It was a plant. It didn't have a mouth. It didn't have a face. It didn't even have a head. And yet, for just a second, he almost swore it was grinning at him.


The cleric stepped over the corpse of the treasure hunter, shaking his head sadly. Such a waste of life. And those others they had found in the ruins, they would have been a welcome addition to the fold, had they not let their desire for treasure overcome their wisdom. They had attacked as soon as the Protectorate had arrived, and had quickly been killed by the Crusadori: Knives and clubs were no match against powder and shot.
The wind whipped at the cleric's white and red robes. The painted mask he wore under his hood filtered the dust from the air with each breath, as well as signifying him as a full priest of the Third Order of the Protectorate. On his back he bore the symbol of the Protectorate: two rings, one inside the other, with three arrows pointing inward. A sign of eternity, of strength, a sign that could not be broken.
The cleric motioned for a nearby grey-robed acolyte to follow him. Around them, the rest of the group searched through the ruin grounds, lorekeepers recording what they could recover, crusadori on guard against the savages that lived in the Dust.
The gaping mouth of the ruins loomed before the cleric, broken and decaying. Hardened, gnarled trees plunged their roots deep into the ground, though their leaves bore little shade from the sun and the burning clouds. Within the gate's dark depths sat horrible secrets, secrets he had been sent to retrieve. In his heart, he felt fear: the High Council did not often convene, and when it called one to duty, it called with the authority of all eight Orders of the Protectorate. Failure would not be appreciated.
Underneath the ruins, there was much more intact than on the surface. Most of the rooms and passages still stood, though the contents were well on their way to joining the dust that had fallen in a blanket on the floor and walls. That was a job for the lorekeepers.
Lower and lower the cleric went, guided by the flickering light of his lantern. The place was a tomb, but not one of choice: even now the burns scarred the walls, as did the holes of age-old gunfire. Occasionally, a blackened skeleton could be found, dissolving into sand. Some passages had collapsed completely; others were lined with the worn carved messages of those who died there, or the faint stain of preserved blood splattered on the walls. The cleric could read the dying testimony of these men and women, and he felt an involuntary shudder up his spine.
Even lower they went, until they reached a level filled with great vaults. Some were still sealed, even after all these years. Most were open, empty: many of the relics were destroyed in the Shattering, or lost amongst the chaos afterward.
The cleric stopped in front of one vault. The door had been forcibly torn out of the wall, laying dented on the floor. A small metal sign was on the wall. The cleric brushed off the dust and read the inscription. This was what he sought.
“Speak nothing upon entering, and do not look away until I begin the ritual,” he said to the acolyte.
Stepping into the barren room, the cleric held up his lantern. On the opposite side of the vault stood a thing, a statute. It was the size of a man, with an oversized head and grotesque, haunting features. It was made of something like stone, with some bits of iron bar sticking out of its yellowed skin. Like statues were wont, it did not move.
The cleric locked eyes with the statue. He knew this demon from the holy books: the Sightless Idol, Oon-Shiveen Thar'ie. The Shattering of the World had been wrought by this fallen god. The ancients had been taken unaware, concerned with other affairs, and it was in that moment of weakness that the Sightless Idol wrought its destruction. The gods of old, both benevolent and fallen, were cast out from the world by Oon-Shiven Thar'ie during the Shattering, now existing in a plane far removed from the world that was broken.
The cleric kept his eyes on the statue. Reaching into his pack, he took out a small glass jar. Inside was a single human eye, floating in a clear liquid, attached to a few floating chunks of graying flesh. A few nerves wrapped around a palm-sized ruby pendant. Holding the remains of the god Barat between him and the Sightless Idol, the cleric blinked.
He opened his eyes unharmed: the unblinking Eye of Barat the Still-Living had protected him. He handed the jar to the acolyte and took up a thick tome from his pack. The cleric began to read.
“By S-Cepie and Gōc, by Barat and Alcleph, by Ritez and Khan Py Tharosk-ro, and by all the gods of old, submit to the holy will of the Protectorate and the Third Order of priests, demon who is the Sightless Idol. You are hereby bound by the holy will, and shall know no mercy in repayment for the evil that has been wrought in your path. Never more shall you corrupt and destroy. Never more shall men die at your hands. By order of the Protectorate, you shall be contained within the foundations of the world in the vaults of the temple at Par-Daril, until time itself ends, and the All-Maker returns to creation and delivers judgment upon you.”
The cleric closed the book and took the Eye of Barat back from the acolyte.
“Bring me ten crusadori, loyal men with unbending will. They shall be the guardians of Oon-Shiven Thar'ie until the end of their days. Let it be said that they died in glory against the dark forces. No others are to know of this. When this is done, I will send for you, and you will leave your life to gain a new one in the Order.”
The acolyte bowed and hurriedly left. The cleric looked back at the statue, holding the Eye. In his mind, fear returned. What had happened before may happen again. The circle of fate may very well awake the other fallen gods the ancients had fought. The cleric brushed away the thought: such things were for the Council.
Inside the jar, a few old synapses sparked in the remains of the ancient brain. A single thought shot across the nerves, tinged with weary cynicism:
“Here we go again…”


“I'd think it would be warmer.”
“Huh?”
“The end of the world. I mean, think about it. When somebody says post-apocalyptic wasteland, you picture a desert, right?”
“Mm. I guess so.”
“Instead of the snowglobe we've got goin' here.”
Joe didn't reply to the last one, and Emma glanced at him. Joe's attention was focused elsewhere, eyes squinting against the bitterly cold wind that was whipping small, delicate flakes to and fro. It was a delicate snow that formed a haze in the distance, the light of sundown turning everything a rich shade of blue. The street was not terribly different from how it had been five years ago, when it all happened, but there were…differences. Awnings had torn away from shop fronts and flapped in the wind. Windows were broken in, the stores raided.
And Joe crouched on top of the semi-trailer he called home, eyes narrowed. He actually had lived fairly close to here, although he didn't think about it anymore. After all, five years ago…thing were very different for him. He had a job and a girlfriend, and two dogs. A nice apartment walking distance from the office. Of course, that was before it happened.
It was hard to piece together what had all happened, things had truly happened so quickly. In a matter of hours, chaos broke out that took months to calm. Bombs had gone off somewhere, a dozen countries declared war, and then they were silenced when the…things emerged. Joe had only seen the monsters a few times, and he counted his blessings for that. It was best to hide when they were around, no matter what they were.
Joe liked to think that he had been a pretty nice guy, before all hell rose up, but it didn't matter now. He fidgeted slightly, having sworn that he saw movement far down the street through the haze of snow, but when it didn't return…he was forced to relent, turning and climbing down the narrow ladder on the side of the semi-trailer. They had initially taken up residence in an abandoned home, then an abandoned shop, but in the end…the massive, heavy metal box turned out to be the safest of them all.
Emma waited for him at the bottom. “Anything?” She asked.
“No. We should get inside before nightfall.”
They hurried into the semi-trailer through the small door on the side, pushing their way through several layers of hanging blankets as they shut and locked the opening, before emerging into the warm interior. Joe nodded to David, who doused the fire and shut the chimney slides, sealing the warmth in. The trailer was all but airtight, and they'd wake up chilly, but it was preferable to waking up with something with too many limbs and too many mouths crawling in, attracted by the scent of a fire. Or to never waking up again, carbon monoxide filling the box.
Joe lay back on one of the mattresses, sandwiched between Emma- who nestled against him, and Adam, who faced away and curled up alone. There was little room, and there were fifteen people to share it between them. Joe wrapped his arms around Emma, and glanced up. Emmet was on watch duty tonight, he knew, looking at the young man to make sure he was awake and alert before looking down.
Emma's face was barely illuminated by the faintest light, Emmet's dim watch lantern cast it over the trailer, and she was asleep the moment she closed her eyes. Probably for the better, Joe thought, as the young woman had been out foraging all day, and this life of survival left for little time to stop and think, and only time to eat, sleep, and hope to eat.
They had decent food stores, sure, but this winter had come in hard and faster than any before. The summers were hotter, he noted, and the winters colder these past five years, or perhaps it was some illusion caused by the lack of central heating or air conditioning. He didn't know, pulling Emma close to his chest.
Four years ago, when their little group had formed in a town filled with dead, dying, and things unspeakable, she had been a portly teenager, often short of breath and easily tired, but the years had carved her into a fine young woman, although her hips were still wide and she never lost all the girth of her upper arms, or thighs. She reminded Joe of his girlfriend, who had been lost when she left town to try and find her parents.
Joe suddenly thought about his girlfriend, briefly, and then held Emma tighter. On second thought, maybe their food stores were better off than he had the impression of, musing that she was a little thicker around the waist than she had been at the end of fall.
Then, he was abruptly and deeply asleep. He hadn't dreamt once in the past five years, curiously enough, none of them had. He thought nothing of it.
Then he was awake, silently, eyes wide and glancing about. Emmet was standing, holding the small pistol he carried warily, looking up at the roof of the trailer. Something scratched along. Joe glanced around, everybody else was awake as well, the faint sound of scrabbling hands and claws having aroused everybody's attention.
They stayed awake, until it passed, whatever had been there, tapping at the metal, losing interest, before falling back to sleep until morning. They didn't dare leave the trailer until the sun was up, stepping out under a clear blue sky and a world freshly covered with pure, pristine, untouched snow.
Well, perhaps almost untouched.
When they collected snow to heat for washwater that morning, Joe and Tina, the oldest woman in the group, a stern woman pushing forty-five, silently looked at footprints that led from the distance up on top of the trailer, where they circled about, then left, heading deeper into town. Joe pointed out the elongated toes and paw-pad like impressions. Tina pointed out the long marks in the snow where it had scratched at the metal.
“What do you think it was?” Emma asked, that afternoon. She had spent a lot of time, lately, Joe thought, rummaging through old drug stores and corner shops.
“I don't know. Footprints reminded me of my dogs, but with toes like a monkey.” Joe muttered, going about the messy work of cleaning a deer, a small doe, that they had managed to get. Of course, they only cleaned their fresh kills far away from the trailer that was home.
“Do you think it'll come back?”
He shrugged, and glanced up at her. She had something hidden in her pockets.
“…Dan's been talking about leaving.”
“To where?”
“I don't know. He said that he just feels stir-crazy, and thinks he can walk to the next town, see if anybody's there.”
“Why?”
“Because. I don't know.” Emma frowned, neither of them knew anybody who left town that came back. They had seen a group of travelers, once, and observed them curiously, but they had left the second they stumbled across Joe's own footprints, hastening away. Perhaps worried about contact, and frankly, Joe's group wasn't too keen on it either. “I'm gonna go back to the trailer. Ana wanted help mending some old clothes.”
Joe grunted and continued his work with the deer, until Emma, dissatisfied with the lack of response, turned and left. Joe watched her walk away, and paused when he saw the corner of a box sticking out of her pocket, just barely able to make out a few letters, part of a logo.
FIRST RESPO
He paused, then, and for the first time in a long time, truly thought, deeply, about something beyond survival and the here and now.
Then he turned back to the deer, a small smile on his lips even in the bitter cold, and went back to work. He would talk with Dan tonight, and perhaps…they could find a doctor in the next town. Yes, that would be good.