Martch 20, 709. The first day.
The witch is eager to learn, I shall give her that, and is patient with the complicated spells that I am teaching her. While we were training, she asked me what my name was. I answered her curtly with my holy name, the one Doctor Ristrumm gave me when I was but a child: Jaelen. She seemed satisfied by the answer, and we continued training until the sun went down. After we adjourned the training, I devoutly prayed to Lord Jack and asked him for forgiveness hours into the night. The witch watched me intently from her bed. She will not break me.

Martch 20, 709. The second day.
It is truly peculiar how neither the patrons in this inn nor the owner downstairs notice the fact that there is no one else coming through the door. They seem content to stay within the inn. Even the owner himself seems to have not noticed that his supplies are steadily dwindling, yet constantly being replenished. The witch showed me that trick this morning, as the barmaid served us the morning's breakfast.
The witch told me that the Doctors had taught her that spell before she lost her memory, which I assume is years before the Great Breach. According to her, they told her to only use it if her life was in peril from “the bad things” and needed a place to stay. It seems like the Ancient Doctors taught her how to keep herself safe in the event of a siege, teaching her how to sustain herself with a never-ending supply of food and to delude those who were trapped with her to maintain the spell. The abomination of her magic knows no bounds.
Breaking from the strangeness of her fell magic, I taught her something more complicated today: the Deludah Liviin, meant to break the minds of anything that comes her way- barring humans of course, for that would be a catastrophe for all when she faces the Holy Foundation.
Interestingly, she seems to be unused to the casting of spells in the New Tongue, as she cast her other spells in the Old. From this, I decide thence: on the morrow and on the succeeding days, I shall also teach her the New Tongue. It would be a disaster if she communicates this simply with the Doctor Cardinals in her containment.

Martch 20, 709. The seventeenth day.
Much to my relief, the witch has now mastered the vernacular of the New Tongue. She is a fast learner, and her liberal use of the Mamorre spell to aid her mind has made her learn even more quickly. She can now write simple poetry and prose using the ink and paper that I have made her summon with the Sign of Learning. She can be an asset to the Foundation yet.

Martch 20, 709. The nineteenth day.
Today, my normal conversation with the witch diverted to the topic of the man Seth, who rescued her from her pitiful state and made her remember a portion of the memories she had lost. She confessed to me that she remembers Seth and their involvement, but she knows not of what caused them to split ways, or why they came together in the first place. She told me that Seth seethed with anger when she told him that she remembered not of their time together, which was the reason for him to propose their diverging and performing different tasks for the same goal of destroying the Foundation. Seth tasked himself with contacting his friends among the animals and leading them to the Holy City, while the Witch chose instead to head to the nearby monastery immediately in search of ways to enrich her powers.
At this, the witch broke into tears, expressing guilt for the lives she had taken in her pursuit of strength. When she did, I found no anger in my heart- only pity for the girl who had committed terrible crimes for a misguided cause. I comforted the child crying in front of me, reassuring her that all would be forgiven in the eyes of Bright if she made amends for her sins.
Tonight, she seemed to sleep a little easier- and I was glad.

Martch 20, 709. The twenty-eighth day.
My student seems to have taken an interest in my prayers tonight. While I was reciting the Procedures that the Ancient Doctors used to contain the Great Dragon, she asked me what the Great Dragon was. In response, I told her of Saint Alto and his Holy Quest, undertaken during the time of the Great Breach. I told her of his twenty divine items, and how he used them to break the back of the Great Dragon during the Attack on Monastery Nineteen. She listened to me intently as I told the story, her eyes bright and inquisitive, and I could not help but wonder just how much of a childhood she has had.
I have only been on this world for twenty-three years, yet even my days in the scholarly monastery were bright and full of laughter. My brothers and sisters there were welcoming and gruff both, and I made friends with all of them as I grew into a young man. Though the witch is hundreds of years my senior, she seems to have the mind of a blooming girl, one that would only be six or seven years my junior. Though it is heresy to think of such things, I wonder what would happen if I lecture her on the theology of the Church, the origins of the Foundation, and the content of the Holy Texts. Her powers come from Lord Bright after all, just as all Expunged derive their powers from Him.
I will think on it on the morrow.

Martch 20, 709. The fiftieth day.
My student seems to be plying both her mind and her body well. During the past three days, I have taken the focus off her spellwork and instructed her more on the theology of the Church, the nature of her divine magic as an Expunged, and her form in meditation. She seems to be receiving it with beautiful grace, engaging me in wondrously theological and philosophical debates on a wide range of topics. She has memorized the first thousand Procedures now, including her own. Though her work on her enlightened calligraphy may need improvement, I am sure that it is nothing that she cannot improve with more study, meditation, and lecturing.
As I write this, she peacefully slumbers in her bed. I am sure she dreams now of the Saints and Lord Bright, just as any budding member of the Church should. She bade me good night again, like yesterday, and it makes my heart full with just how far she has gone since I began teaching her.
I am already planning on engaging her on the divine nature of Bright in as soon a time as ten days from now. She has quickly grasped everything that I have taught her from the scriptures, Procedures, and theology, and she can soon go even farther than that. She is not just an Expunged now- she is a student of the Church, and is already shaping up to be a gifted member of the Foundation in both her divine powers and her grasp on the divine natures. Though it had been hard for me before to admit it, I am proud of her progress and her whole-hearted devotion to the Creed.

Martch 20, 709. The hundred-and-fiftieth day.
Sigurrós celebrates her seventeenth nameday today, by her own want to be a member of the Foundation. Though time outside is as still as it has been since we started, she has already come so far in her studies in her divine spellwork, the mundane studies, and the higher fields. She no longer harnesses her mind for her own gain, but also for the sake of the Lord Bright and the Holy Foundation. She no longer harnesses her powers to kill or to destroy, but also to create and to learn. I am proud to call her my student, and on the morrow I shall anoint her with beer and water as a fully-fledged member of the Foundation.

Martch 20, 709. The hundred-and-fifty-first day.
Today, I anointed Sigurrós as a scion of the Foundation, with the patrons and owner of the inn standing as witnesses. I met her eyes as I poured the ceremonial beer and water on her head, and I can say that I have seen nothing else more devout or beautiful than her in that sacred moment. After that, the entire inn danced and celebrated with unconsecrated beer and delicious food, feasting in honor of the girl-who-was-redeemed. Tomorrow, Sigurrós shall break us free of her time knot spell and banish the invading animals from the Holy City of Arnven, reclaiming it for the glory of the Church and the Lord Bright.
This is truly a glorious day.

The Arnven Chronicles
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Articel: A Meal à la Nälkä
Original: Ein Mahl nach Nälkä-Art
Translator: Einer von Rabe
Image: It's by the author, so CC Comaptibel.

Ein Mahl nach Nälkä-Art1

"What exactly did you mean then?" Anaij, currently in the shape of a platinum blonde woman with a face more seal-like than human, frowned at her roommate.
When Klues had returned from shopping in their small town of Sjhlfels am Rhein and started banging around in the kitchen, she had left her spot in front of the small television where she had been watching her favourite show to come over and see what he was doing.
"Healthy cooking," replied Klues. Compared to Anaij, Klues was much more down to earth. He could have passed for an ordinary teenager if he hadn't had four pairs of short tentacles growing on his back.
"I want a balanced diet. I have some doubt that all these tumors and ulcers are doing us any good. It's too one-sided, and think about it. Ulcers are unhealthy tissue."
A pout appeared on the seal face, and her tail whipped through the air somewhat tetchily.
"It sounds unnecessarily complicated and - well, just unnecessary. I'm sure not even Grand Karcist Ion thought about such trivial things. What does Karcist MoKu-Hir say about your experimenting?"
Klues' shoulders slouched in response. He sighed. "At least try it. You can still criticize me later if you want."
Anaij rubbed the bridge of her nose, and her whiskers twitched. "All right, but at least add meat to it! What am I going to eat?"
Klues beamed. He hopped around in the shared kitchen, pulling out pots and cutlery. With a strange tenderness he took a red lump out of the fridge and unwrapped the plastic foil away before cutting it into four pieces and placing it in a pan of sizzling fat.. One of his tentacles pulled a large knife from a board and passed it to a human hand, which then used it to cut vegetables.
When the hobby cook was finished, he proudly placed two carefully decorated plates on the kitchen table. "I'm serving you a grizzly bear steak with mushroom sauce. On the side is a hard-boiled basilisk egg. And here is a raspberry-mealworm tart for dessert."
Anaij eyed at the plates and said, with exaggerated seriousness, "I thought basilisk eggs were poisonous."
The two laughed, then Anaij started poking at the food and cutting bite-sized pieces. Halfway through the meal she mumbled, "Everything is very spicy. I miss a bit of the bloody finish, but otherwise, it's edible."
"Exactly. It's not so bad." Klues suppressed a smile at the fact that his roommate's hairless and scaleless tail was unconsciously wriggling with pleasure.
"And what is this?" She lifted a yellow-orange disc and peered suspiciously at it.
"That's a slice of carrot. And that's a cabbage leaf."
Anaij studied both with fascination, before stuffing them into her mouth and continuing to eat noisily.
—【◉】—
Twenty minutes later Klues climbed the stairs to the upper floor. Anaij had just made herself comfortable back in front of the TV again when she had suddenly risen and disappeared into her room looking a little sickly.
He tapped with a short claw on his roommate's ajar door, which was covered with stickers, posters, carved symbols and signs. "Hey, Anaij? Are you all right?"
He listened. Klues heard moaning. This in itself was not particularly unusual for followers of Nälkä, but this did not sound like a meditation or ceremony, and the next holiday was still weeks away. Rather, It sounded like Anaij was in pain.
Out of politeness, he knocked again before using one of the tentacles to open the door and slipping in.
Anaij's room was, as always, filled with partly-started projects, aesthetic knickknacks, and religious articles arranged semi-ironically across various surfaces. But Klues's gaze went immediately to the bed in the middle of all the clutter. "Are you okay?" he asked, as soon as he saw Anaij on top of it.
Anaij lay on the bed in the fetal position. She was shivering, and her skin was covered with goose bumps.
”Anaij? What's wrong?”
"Lovataar plays with my innards…", Anaij whimpered.
"Was that because of my food? I'm… I'm so sorry," Klues said in a panicked voice. He went over and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. "How can I help? "Would it help if I… I hope that's okay…" He reached over hesitantly, put one hand on her belly and began to rub over it in small circles. Anaij moaned again but gave no clear indication that he should stop and after about a minute she seemed to relax, uncurling and rolling onto her back.
"Stop," Anaij suddenly said. Her voice was alarmingly quiet and, startled, Klues pulled his hand away. Anaij immediately curled up into a ball again, but the atmosphere had changed. Slightly embarrassed, and rather confused, Klues retreated, and closed the door behind him
He took a deep breath and then jumped down to the lower floor, not bothering to use the stairs actually.
Once downstairs, he could already hear Anaij kicking open her door and stomping out screaming in rage.
—【◉】—
"Spit it out: What did you put in it, you lecher?!" Anaij yanked roughly on Klues's tentacles. She also injected various parts of his body with neurotoxin from the sting on the end of her tail.
Not that she really intended to paralyze him, or pull the tentacles clean off; to be honest, she was more embarrassed than she was angry.
"Nothing! I swear! It was just vegetables and meat. Even the mushrooms were boring samples from the normie supermarket."
Anaij sighed, pulled one of the tentacles one last time without much pleasure and stood up. "Then why did I get euphoric?"
"I don't know either … I swear I didn't put in any kind of aphrodisiac. I was just -" then suddenly Klues was all silent.
Anaij noticed right away. "You just what?"
"Nothing important … Well, I was just singing a song from Walpurgisnachtskinder while I was cooking -"
"You listen to nälkä-classics? Which song? Hey, why won't you answer?!"
Klues blushed slightly. That's when the penny dropped on her. She grabbed at a tentacle and wrenched on it again. "Don't tell me it was 'Herzrasen'! You know it's about Klavigar Lovataar!
"OUCH! I thought ‘cooking with love' was just a saying, okay? I didn't know it would give you a climax!"

Footnotes
1. A meal à la Nälkä


Agent Adrian Andrews struggled against his bonds. The bonds were metal, of course, and also powered by a sturdy system of fuck-off hydraulics, but what sort of agent would he be if he didn't put up a fight?
Below Agent Andrews swam a vat of genetically-engineered muzak sharks, silent death cloaked by a grocery store ambiance. With the push of a button, Cowboy George could drop him to a messy, commercially bland death. But no, that wasn't his way. Wasn't any of his foes' ways. Talk, talk, talk talk talk talk, get into his mind and hope he doesn't find the crack in the carapace, and surprise surprise, he always does.
That was assuming luck held up.
Cowboy George was an odd fellow. Blue, jaunty, a chinchilla in a trenchcoat and Cowboy hat. Not coded as gay or bisexual like the other rogues Andrews had faced in his successful novel and film franchise, but hey, times were changing. Prone to smile or sneer or whatever word fit the shape of his chinchilla mouth. They aren't all perfect.
In fact-
No, snap out of it!
Andrews exhaled and held his breath, pushing back the padding gas for a precious few seconds. He had to think. This had to work.
“Well, Mr. Andrews, you're tougher than you look.” Cowboy George took a step forward, illuminated by the dim but cinematic lighting of his Cowboy Lair. “You survived my henchmen, my sexy and inconveniently none-too-loyal assassins, and even my obligatory donation to the Minnesota Freedom Fund and other such charities.”
“You're pathetic,” spat Andrews. “That donation was really easy to make, because it was for a good cause and I was financially capable of doing so as a special agent of the SCP Foundation with a modest salary.”
“Of course, of course, that's what they all say. And they're right, you know.” Cowboy George chuckled, a high-pitched titter that undermined Andrews's previous observation re: gay-coding. “But ah, though you could donate to a good cause, you couldn't donate the sum of your strength to get past my most devious of traps. Remember?”
Andrews grit his teeth. They'd warned him of the Unspecified Off-Page Framing Device trap back in briefing, but who could've thought he'd be its next victim?
“Oh of course you do, silly me.” A grin. Cowboy George evidently found this funny. “Now, shall we talk?”
“Fuck you. I'll never tell you how to get accepted to the Parawatch Wiki.”
Cowboy George held his grin for a few seconds, before lightly tapping the button on his remote, bringing Andrews down 10 centimeters, 190 above the shark tank. “You're an obstinate one, Andrews. Tell me, have you heard of Cowboy Hephaestus? You remind me so much of him.”
Think, think. “Must be a swell guy, Cowboy. Friend of yours?” Keep him talking.
“Oh, no. Not quite.” Cowboy George began pacing, and Andrews wracked his mind for answers. “We were… not quite on good terms. Back when I met him, I was quite a different man. Rudderless, desperate, not quite so independent. I was working for a man, you may know him as Cowboy Galileo. Awful, but surprisingly rich man. But I'm getting off track.
“Cowboy Hephaestus was a lot like you. Cocky. Self-sure of his protagonist status. Destined to meet his end at the fins of an aquatic muzakal menace.” Another press of the button, and another 7 centimeters down.
“It's all Cowboys with you folk.” Andrews's fingers felt around the cuff. Crack, crack, where's the crack?
“It's a wild west, Mr. Andrews. Not like home.”
“What's a guy like you's home life? Can't be too good, if it puts me where I am.”
“Well,” and Cowboy George barely noticed as Andrews felt for the lockpick on his cufflink. “I was… not always the charming chinchilla you see before you. I was clumsy, desperate for a best friend. Oh, of course, still as anthropomorphic as always, but… the spark wasn't there. And that's when I met him. Saul Syzslak.
“He was only seven years old when we first met, mind you, but there was something there. Potential. A spark of something bigger than the sum of its parts. Saul had dreams, but moreover, he had the potential to achieve said dreams.
“Our pact was simple: he animated my adventures, frame by perfect frame, attentive to every minute detail of my existence. In turn, I bring him fame. Fortune. Universal acclaim, and I mean universal, dear Mr. Andrews. From the dimmest star at the edge of the universe, to the second dimmest one at the other edge, from the dead expanse of the Bellerverse to the bustling cityscapes of Third Law and death's end and the lamplight beyond the edge of the universe, I vowed to etch his name on the very fabric of reality.
“And you know what? It worked. Saul became a world-famous animator almost instantly, achieving untold fortune and fame through his talents. The world was his oyster, packed to bursting with the pearls of his labor. When he died, old and rich and happy, that man was a household name wherever the concept of ‘household' could manifest. I made sure of it. Not even-”
Cowboy George didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as Andrews broke free from his bonds, lunging forwards and catching the railing by the tips of his fingers. From the sound of it, Cowboy George had stumbled back in surprise.
Moments. Agent Andrews had moments to pull himself up before Cowboy George came back to make him pay. If he could just pull-up…
Two clacks, boots on metal. Cowboy George was standing. “You know, Mr. Andrews.” Several more clacks. “It isn't nice to interrupt.”
Hard leather fell upon his fingers mid-pull, and Andrews screamed.
“Hah. I never pegged you for the type to feel pain, Mr. Andrews.” Another stomp.
“The Foundation spent… how much time, stamping the humanity out of your kind?” Another stomp.
“Well, goodbye. As they say: ‘Ooo ooo ooo ooo, ooo ooo ooo.'”
One final stomp. Agent Andrews's last words were a scream.


Doctor Michael Viktor Magnus flashed his ID to the guard at the gate, who let him through with a quiet nod. His name was on the list of visitors for the day. You had to call ahead to a place like this.
The grass was always so impeccably kept. It almost didn't look real, but I guess that's what you paid for right? Here and there he could spot flowers in various states of decay. His footsteps were measured, his feet feeling like lead. May fourth. It was a shitty day.
Dr. Magnus finally reached the familiar spot; crossing from the path to the too-perfect grass that surrounded each neatly placed headstone. He came to the place where his heart had died so many years ago, and dropped to the ground, sitting cross legged in front of the gravestone of his wife.
Dr. Helen Magnus, devoted scientist, loving wife, killer butt. God, how he hated the inscription. She had picked it, so it wasn't even a question if it would go up on the headstone or not, but still. Sitting there gave him so many complex emotions. Finally he cleared his throat.
“Happy Star Wars day, love. May the Fourth be with you. I'm sorry that I didn't come earlier in the day.” He lay the simple wreath with the toy lightsaber in the middle at her headstone. His eyes were as dead and heavy as granite as he looked at nothing in particular. “I'm so sorry. I just…I'm so sorry, Helen.”

The crackle of electricity surrounded the pair as the dimensional transfer subsided, leaving the pair of scientists crouching on what used to be the floor of their lab. “Did….did we make it?” Helen Magnus' voice was trepidatious.
“Holy shit I think we did. You did it, Sugar! Holy shit, we made it!” Michael Magnus stood up, holding his wife's hand, looking around. The first thing he did was look up at the sun, which was still mercifully in one piece. “I think we're even in the right place.” He looked around, taking in the smooth walls and shelves lined with various bits and janitorial bobs. It had taken them months to find a spot suitable to end their transfer, and this closet was the only constant between their dimension and this one.
“I wasn't sure if I could stabilize the transference properly.” She pulled a small device out of the pocket of her lab coat, and tried to turn it on. It buzzed for a moment, then sparked and died. “Okay, so the chronograph is fried. When do you think this is?”
Michael shook his head, and grasped the doorknob, opening it to a plain grey hallway. Above the door was a sign reading “Soap from Corpses Products.” “I have no idea, but that's a really lame cover name, if this is what I think it—”
A quiet click of a hammer being pulled back on a handgun interrupted his thought. “And who the fuck are you?” Dr. Kensington asked quietly, flanked by two security guards.
Helen peaked out from behind her husband, and smiled as winningly as possible, “Would you believe interdimensional metaphysicians?”

Michael Magnus planted his hands behind him and reclined slightly on the grass, looking up at the sky. “I know things were desperate in our dimension, but we probably could have survived a bit longer. I don't know if we had waited any longer that we would have been better off. I keep replaying it over and over in my head.” He stared into the blue sky a while longer, still admiring the unbroken sun as he had most days. He sat up and reached under his lab coat to the shoulder holster which held the oversized revolver that his wife had given him. Engraved on the barrel were the words, For when even my bark is too quiet.
He called the gun “Helen” now. He'd also fired it more times than he ever thought would happen in one life. The Foundation had found a way to exploit his wife's achievements in the end, and put him to the slaughter to power it. One final twist of the knife of a disgraced administrator. They needed him to die to keep their pet monsters protected.
Unfortunately for them, he was always an adaptable man. He'd quickly taken to the dangerous situations they'd thrust him in. He'd become a pretty decent shot with the revolver that bore his wife's name, and a steady attendance of lessons in Giancarlo DeLuca's self defense courses let him hold his own up close. They wanted someone to lay down and die, but dying hurt too much to get used to.
He lowered the heavy revolver down to the undisturbed ground of his wife's grave. “I miss you so much. I don't even.. .I feel like I can't be myself without you. All the jokes, the humor…the sense of fun and adventure. It's all gone, it died with you.” He pressed the lever which slid the cylinder out sideways. Only four chambers were currently loaded, he hadn't reloaded since the last couple of shots he fired. Sloppy, Break would have his head for that.
“Stupid…” he muttered to himself, as he let the shells fall out of the chambers, spinning the cylinder slowly with his thumb. It wasn't good for the gun, but oh well. He reached into his other pocket, and pulled out a small cleaning kit, beginning the yearly ritual of cleaning Helen with Helen.
“You'd be proud of me, sugar. I finally ‘grew up' I guess, and moved up in The Foundation. I know that was never important to you, but… after you died, it became important to me. I couldn't stand the thought of ever not being able to protect someone I loved again…”

An explosion rocked Site-29, a moment before the emergency alarms started blaring. Dr. Magnus stood up from his temporary desk and readjusted his glasses. He reached down to his office phone, and pressed the hotkey on it for the security office. A moment passed before a voice clicked on the other end of the line, “Security, how can I help you, deputy director?”
“What's the situation,” Dr. Magnus said, his voice calm and composed. The other members of his staff in the room looked nervous, speaking to each other in low voices.
“We've got intruders at the loading docks, heading down the freight elevator to sub-level six. At least six assailants, multiple security personnel are already injured,” the voice on the other end of the line explained, muffled sounds of orders being barked in the background came through the line.
“Understood, I'm on sub-level six. Please send security forces to my location for crisis-coordination. You have my authorization to call in MTF Omega-88 to this location,” Magnus said, kicking open the footlocker under the desk and retrieving his ballistic vest. Ever since joining the Alchemy Department, he'd had to requisition far more of these than he was comfortable with.
He drew Helen from his shoulder rig, and checked the chambers. All six were loaded. He tugged the last few straps of the vest tight. “Stay here, I'll be back with security forces when we have the situation under control.” He said, reassuring the assembled research staff in the small laboratory. He thumbed back the hammer on Helen and strode out into the hallway, activating the tracker beacon on his phone for the security forces to find him.

Dr. Magnus replaced the missing cartridges of the well-worn revolver, sliding two replacement rounds into the empty slots. He snapped the frame of the revolver closed and replaced it in the holster under his left arm, with the smooth precision of repetition.
“I don't know what to do anymore, Helen. I'm not sure which one of our experiments left me like this, but… I'm not getting older. I might be doomed to do this forever, and I don't know how I can do that. I thought this would be fun, doing research and growing old together. Retiring and seeing the world when it wasn't doomed like ours was. And now…what?”
Magnus' hand reached out, and touched the headstone. The granite was cool and dry to his touch, steady like Helen had always been. His head hung, and tears welled up unbidden, but not unwelcome.
“How do I do this without you? How do I get up, fighting every day to try and make this world a better place without you in it? Why should I even try?”
The quiet clack of sensible heels gave way to soft footsteps behind him, as Dr. Rights knelt down beside him. “I would imagine, because she would want you to, Michael.” One of her strong hands gripped his shoulder, and the other placed a small wreath with a tiny bottle of Patrón worked into the middle next to his. “Star Wars day was only ever second to Cinco de Mayo for Helen.”
Magnus looked up, his glasses having slid most of the way down his nose. His face was a mess of tears and he looked like hell. “Agatha…what are you doing here?”
She smiled that caring smile at him, and gave him a quick squeeze, “Well, dummy, it's not hard to track down the deputy director of a department, now is it? And if I remember correctly, May fourth was never a good day for you.”
Dr. Magnus took a deep breath and wiped the tears from his eyes, adjusting his glasses. “I'm surprised you remember at all.”
Dr. Rights smiled at no one in particular, and smoothed out her skirt, in a familiar gesture. “It took quite a bit of work to undo that particular bit of amnestic fuckery. I wasn't going to let them erase one of my friends though.”
Dr. Magnus laughed quietly under his breath, shaking his head at the sheer lunacy of their lives. “Well. I guess I'm glad that you did. Being here alone is hard enough.”
Dr. Rights nodded, “So, what have you two been talking about?”
Dr. Magnus paused for a few moments, before quietly saying, “How I don't know how I'm going to keep doing this job forever.” Dr. Rights elbowed Dr. Magnus in the side. “Ow, what the hell was that for?!”
Dr. Rights turned and glared at him slightly, “You know, you're the second immortal today who's complained to me about not getting older. Some of us have to keep moisturizing to stay young, assbutt.”
Dr. Magnus shook his head staring into the middle distance between the headstone and Dr. Rights, “I'm sorry you didn't get more time to spend with her. I know you two were becoming friends rather quickly.”
Dr. Rights gently slugged Dr. Magnus in the shoulder. “Are you fucking with me, Michael? Forget me. I'm sorry you lost your wife.” There was a long silence. “Would you tell me a bit about her? Things that…I wouldn't know?”
Dr. Magnus smiled and closed his eyes, taking his glasses off, losing himself in memory for a moment. “She loved eggs, cooked just barely through the whites. She was one of the funniest, most sincere and upbeat people I have ever met. She never missed an opportunity to tell me how much she loved me, to compliment me for whatever she observed about me. When she got brain freeze, I nearly died laughing, she made the strangest face…”
Dr. Rights smiled, “It sounds like you really, truly loved her, Michael.”
Dr. Magnus nodded, “I do, Agatha. With everything that I am.”
Dr. Rights slowly drew herself to her feet, and dusted off her skirt, holding out a hand to Dr. Magnus. “I was serious before, I don't think she'd want you sitting here, crying over her grave. I think she'd want you to get up, take a deep breath, and move on to whatever challenges were next.”
Dr. Magnus took her hand, and slowly got to his feet. “I appreciate the sentiment, Agatha, I truly do. But my heart is in that grave with her.”
Dr. Rights nodded, and smiled slightly, “Of course, Michael. I hate to do this, but…I'm not just here to support you. I am, but… there's a situation in Kiev. Your Director asked me to find you.”
Dr. Magnus took one more longing look at his wife's grave, leaning down to rest his hand on it for a moment, before letting out a deep sigh. “Right, of course. What's the situation, Dr. Rights?”


Sarie looked on as great plumes of smoke rose from the fire which was engulfing her town. She sat with her back against a smooth rockface, weariness weighing heavy on her heart. The mountain absorbed the stale white light from the sun, causing the rocks to glow with heat. Sarie tucked her knees to her chest. Her loose-fitting leather greaves gave her skin rashes whenever she moved, but it didn't bother her — the pain kept her from indulging in her fantasies.
She wasn't going home.
The thought first crossed Sarie's mind when she began her hour-long journey to the top of the mountain, like a warning from some supernatural being. She had waved it away as the paranoid ramblings of a half-awake mind. Before the sun even peeked over the horizon, she and four other girls marched across the long stretch of desert which separated their farms from the main town. Bidyan, a middle-aged drunkard who was the de facto leader of the trailblazers for some reason outside of Sarie's knowledge, met them at the local tavern.
“You there,” Bidyan hollered at Sarie. “You know how to walk a trail?” He leaned back on the large barrel of beer that acted as his seat, causing the boards at the top to bend under his weight. The other girls glared enviously at her, who stood like a lamb trembling before a sheepdog.
“Yea, I do,” she choked out.
“Huh? Speak up, girl. Enlighten me, ‘cause you know I don't give a damn about this whole ‘trailblazing' thing.” He put an unbranded cigar to his lips, sucking at the fire before puffing out a large ring of smoke.
“W-Well, there's a technique I learned, you see. I put my hand on the wall beside me, so that I may see which way the trail is heading. And I carry a torch in my other hand, so that I may see where I am heading. That's what my father said to me.”
Bidyan put out his cigarette on the side of the barrel, leaving a dark ring in the wood. A woman from inside, the owner, yelled at him to stop messing with the alcohol. He sauntered over to Sarie, covered her ears, and shouted something in response that made the rest of the girls cringe. Bidyan waved them back to their homes, which was met by grumbles of protest before they each left. He walked with Sarie to the edge of town, pulling another cigar from his shirt pocket.
“You see that mountain, yea? It's called Gaj Hill, ‘cause a man called Gaj discovered it and he was too stupid to know the difference between a mountain and a hill. Now forget that, it's not important. The story, I mean, not the name. You see, girl, there's a trail around the side of that mountain that takes you straight to the top. Just keep walking that way.”
Sarie nodded. In her mind, a bright light extended from Bidyan to the trail before her, marking her path. She watched it snake around the mountain three times before stopping blissfully at the summit. With a final pat on the back, Bidyan sent her off on her way. She hadn't even thought about checking her gear before leaving, the morning light acting as her cape.
Sarie sat inside of the opening of a large rock arch to recover her energy. The sun was now blazing high in the sky, sending deadly waves of heat to the desert below. The fire had mostly died out, leaving only a few remaining buildings on the outskirts of her town. The last of the townspeople were flooding out of their homes and away from the town, some carrying coats of flame with them. Tiny images of fathers holding sons, mothers holding daughters, and friends holding friends filled Sarie's vision.
The sun shifted again, making the sky swirl around it. Sarie took this as another warning, and sat up, ready to continue further down the trail. If she could even save one life, then it would all be worth it to her. With the sound of wind flooding past her ears, Sarie's mind wandered again.
Sarie was a child the day she saw the sky go wild for the first time. She had always thought that it was strange whenever the sun performed a miracle. Despite her father having said that clouds flipping in front of her eyes was normal, that it was something that had been happening since he was a child, she couldn't shake the anxiety that it gave her. Whenever a miracle happened, she would spend the next week lying in bed with cold droplets of sweat wetting her back and face, wishing for sleep.
On that day, she was hiking with her father back when his face was clean-shaven and he had enough energy to walk more than five meters before collapsing. The two of them stood on a hill which overlooked a bustling market town in the valley below. Market stands with massive, brightly-colored overhangs that shone purple, pink, and red in the sun swayed with the wind. Her father pointed out the lines of caravans which ran through the town in an interlocking series of trade paths. Sarie spent the next hour staring in wonder at the merchants and their monstrous wagon animals, which looked like they could fit in the palm of her hand.
There was a power that one gained when they were close to the sky. Standing on the top of some mountains, Sarie swore that she could see the lightly-tanned peach outline of the heavens, like a god was sleeping atop of the world. When she looked down on the cities and people, she realized how small everything really was. Was this what the gods saw when they looked down at the world? Millions of dots, each with their own lives and families and dreams.
Sarie's gaze drifted up as she fantasized, eventually landing on a dark shadow which was rapidly taking form in the sky. Her father rushed over, pulling her away from the edge and telling her to close her eyes. Still in her fantasy, Sarie saw the first glimpses of the destruction. A giant, green meteor with large white streaks plummeted into the earth, obliterating the entire town in an instant. A cacophony of noise erupted from the impact, and the earth quivered. Sarie was knocked from her feet, her father clutching her close to his chest while holding onto a tree stump to avoid flying off of the cliff. Out of a small pinprick in her vision, Sarie watched the meteor rebound off the ground, leaving as quickly as it had entered.
Her father still hasn't told her how many people died that day.
She was now at the base of the mountain. Only an open road which had soaked in hours worth of the sun's heat stood between Sarie and her town. Her legs wanted to give out, to fall to the ground and let themselves die, but she forced them to keep moving forward. Her inner voice chanted "One more step! One more step!" and her obedient legs obeyed. The mountain behind her faded from view, leaving only the image of devastation surrounded by pure ambivalence. Memories of other miracles rushed past her mind as she began to run.
Tears poured out of Sarie's eyes from her impulsive thoughts. Flashes of the sun going out, bathing the whole world in darkness for weeks. Enormous claws manifesting in the atmosphere, dragging across the ground and wiping away entire swaths of land in an instant. Multiple suns appearing in the sky at once, sparking massive heat waves across her town. There was no gift for surviving these events, no lesson that Sarie could take to avoid another disaster. All she was left with was the reassurance that another would occur, and millions more would be swept away.
Sarie's feet began to drag as she wiped a thin layer of sweat from her forehead. The heat threatened to melt her where she stood. Her face flushed with red, her feet catching on each other, teetering on collapse. A painful groan escaped from her lips, and she fell to her knees. She covered her head with her arms, but it afforded her no additional shade. Fatigue filled her limbs, and thoughts of her own death jumped into the forefront of her mind.
A shadow suddenly appeared over Sarie, engulfing her from the blazing sun. She looked up and saw a massive square object falling from the sky. A meteor. Instincts kicked in, and she bolted away towards the mountain, seeking any sort of shelter. The meteor's shadow stretched across the horizon line, completely blocking out the sky. Sarie heard what felt like hundreds of screams from behind her.
Waves of wind flooded past Sarie as the meteor neared the ground, pushing her to the ground and stealing her breath. She flipped to her back. The meteor was now only a hundred meters or so away. All Sarie could think to do was scream. She screamed for Bidyan, for her father, for anybody to save her. Nobody came. The meteor fell closer and closer to Sarie. It was yellow, and her thoughts immediately drifted to the image of a god's handkerchief falling onto the world. She wondered if this was what happened: a god haphazardly dropped it, ignorant to the disaster that it caused. After all, why should they care about the dots living below? They're nothing compared to a god.
It was only a few meters away from her now. The wind screamed louder, obliterating Sarie's thoughts and leaving her in a hurricane of silence. She tried desperately to crawl away, but even her arms lost hope, giving up the last of their strength. Moments before her death, Sarie reared her head back and screamed her final message.
"Gods! Gods please help—"

Incident Report 007-UIOVG68

Individuals Involved: SCP-007
Date of Occurrence: 21/05/2020
Description of Incident: While consuming a sandwich as part of its daily meal regiment, Subject dropped a slice of cheese onto SCP-007 directly, covering half of a continent. The slice was retrieved seconds later, and only temporary changes were observed in SCP-007's rotation rate and geographical makeup.
Notes: This combined with the "tennis ball incident" of last year suggests that any alterations made to SCP-007 are reverted in only a matter of days. Further experimentation is required to see the full extent of this ability. - Dr. ███████


Martch 15, 709
Had it been under any other circumstances, this sudden pilgrimage to the City of Shrines would have been a celebrated event.
But dark times have come to the Holy Foundation. The heathen animals snarl at our fringes, eager to destroy the Church of Lord Bright. The Expunged's cursed lands grow with each passing day. The Chaos Insurgency infiltrates our deepest reaches and destroys them with the fury of thrice-damned heretics, killing our Doctors and our Brothers.
Yet I am not here for any of them.
A week ago, I, Brother Jaelen of the Monastery of Our Holy Saints, was stationed in the village of Kilser as a scion of the Holy Foundation. There, I had lived a peaceful life, administering the rites to the peasants as a fellow of the Church should. I heard confessions, conducted masses, anointed the dying, and blessed the dead. Under normal circumstances, it is not my place as a humble brother to destroy the heathen and purge the heretic- but these are not normal circumstances. Three weeks ago, I had heard of an ancient Witch who lived near the swamp close to the village of Veken and made her livelihood as a magical healer. That was until a corpselike man visited her under the light of the midday sun and whispered a word into her ear, causing her to remember all that she had forgotten- including some of her magical spells. With them, she laid waste to a nearby monastery- my monastery- killed my brothers in faith, and burnt my home to the ground.
I was full of grief - no, anger - at the atrocity that the witch had wrought upon my brothers and fellows, but I also realized the urgency to send word as soon as possible to the Doctor Cardinals and the Council of Thirteen. With my Brother Raleigh, the only survivor of the attack, I sent a letter to the Overwatch Cathedral bearing the dire tidings that I had come to uncover. I, meanwhile, made for the Holy City of Arnven with all due haste to do what I could in order to stop the doom that the witch will bring with her.
Yet the heathen Papist animals draw closer to the City of Shrines with every day that passes. Bright only knows if I'll be able to stop whatever it is the crone witch intends to do with the city. We know not the power that she wields, or of the things that Saint Clef is reputed to have done to her to cause the Breach of the Seventeenth Monastery all those years ago.
Night falls on my first day in the Holy City, and the mood among our brothers and sisters in the laity is grim. Even now, at the onset of dusk, we hear the baying howls of wolves and the roars of bears. They draw closer with every day, and I hope I can save the city before the witch can destroy it. I can only hope to find her in the coming days, for I am certain that she hides here even now.
May Bright help me in this holy quest.

Martch 17, 709
The Shrine of Saint Rights is burning.
As I look upon the Hill of Agatha, I can see the forms of burning men, women, and children. I have seen none of the Brothers or Doctors that were supposed to man the Shrine, and I fear the worst. The freemen are calling the travesty an accident- “a lantern dropped carelessly”, or a “barrel of oil set alight”, but I know the true cause.
The Witch is here in the City of Shrines.
I have not spent the past days in idleness, for I have spared nothing in order to get at the bottom of the coming catastrophe. I have sought the assistance of my Brothers in the shrines, from the Gearics in the Rivershrine to the Rightsfellows who now burn with Right's Shrine- but they do not seem to believe me. In the entire City of Shrines, not one houses the written Procedures that describes the Witch. Why or how, I do not know. It seems that my Monastery may have been the only place in the Foundation that still remembers her and the threat she brings. Could it have been the Chaos Insurgency, infiltrating our holy places to prepare for the emergence of the Witch? Could it have been the animals, using their sympathizers in the clergy and laity to destroy all records of her? I do not know, and I cannot afford to care. The razing of Right's Shrine is a sign the Witch is here- a sign of the destruction to come.
I will redouble my efforts on the morrow. The lives and sanctity in the City of Shrines depend on me, now that my brothers disbelieve the news that I bring while the Witch burns and destroys the Holy Shrines of Arnven.

Martch 18, 709.
I found her. She was there, when the Rivershrine was set ablaze. With its proximity to the Heilas, the Shrine itself was saved from the razing that Right's Shrine had suffered. When we entered, what I and many of the laity saw when we entered was a sickening scene- dozens of Gearic Brothers and Doctors dead, with not a single one surviving among them. Now the Brothers of the other Shrines are certain to believe me, but I no longer need their help. When the Rivershrine was set ablaze, I saw a young woman, no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age, run out from the Shrine. She escaped my attention in the moment, until I saw her stare at me with wide eyes that shimmered with a grey-green light, hair the color of the sun flowing past her shoulders.
It was just like the Procedures had said, but she was not the crone that I had come to hear of, nor the young girl that she was described to be in my prayers. She is Sigurrós, impossibly young yet ancient, her eyes flecked with recognition.
She spoke to me in my mind at that moment, asking me if I knew how to teach her. I gave no reply, but I am certain she heard my thoughts during that short saintforsaken moment- for now I know what she wanted.
I tried to run after her, to catch her before she could flee, but she evaded me. Tomorrow, she will strike again, I am sure of it. I will catch her when the time comes, for the howls of the animals sound impossibly close now, and the Holy City has no walls. I must kill her. I must destroy her, and purge her of her fell witchery. It is the City's only chance before the animals come and destroy us all.

Martch 19, 709.
I am running out of time, I know it. Birds have been sighted across the Heilas, and the howling continues far into the day. I see Omega Guards marching, carrying halberds and spears, deploying to the far parts of the city in the direction of the Heilas. There will be a battle soon, one that the Holy City might lose.
But the time that was given to me has not been in vain. The Witch stays at a hovel at the impoverished quarter, from what a few peasants have told me. She has burnt down no more shrines tonight, though the animals may soon come to finish her work.
I fear that I am too late, that the death of the witch will not be enough to save the city. I fear that Arnven will burn- just like the shrines that the Witch has laid waste to.
But there is no room for fear as a servant of the Lord Bright, as a servant of the saints, as a scion of the Holy Foundation.
The Witch will die today, and I will make sure of it.

Martch 20, 709.
I do not know why she has allowed me to write. She has me here, in my room, watching me. The animals came for us in the dead of night. They have not burst inside the inn, nor burnt it to the ground. It is her fell witchery, I know it. She is protecting the inn, for none of us inside can hear the butchery they must be visiting upon the populace and the holy places outside. My life is in her hands. I cannot kill her. I have tried, but she keeps me at bay with a word and a gesture.
She tells me that she does not want to hurt me, and though I know her words are lies, I believe her. Her eyes are honest. Impossibly honest. I am afraid for my life, but she says she'll let me go if I teach her the ways of her magic, to cast more spells and harness her witchcraft. She tells me that the animals have been brought by Seth, the corpse man, and that the bloodshed being committed outside will continue until the day that I teach her the ways of magic.
Oh, dear Bright. Forgive me for what I find myself wanting to do. She thinks that only I can teach her, for only I know the secret of her magic. It is for the good of the city, I keep telling myself, for the good of the Church- but I can't help but think that what she is forcing me to do is a sin of the highest order, an unforgivable crime in the eyes of Bright and the Saints.
I have told her that we start at daybreak, for the protection that the inn has still allows it to experience night and day. I think time has stopped outside, but not here. Her fell sorcery knows no bounds.
Forgive me, my Saints. I have failed, and I must submit. Forgive my cowardice. Forgive my sins. I do it for all of you.

The Arnven Chronicles
« Dire Tidings | Arnven Burns | The Tutelage of a Brother »


Demasqed | Act I - Scene II »

Act I - Scene I

The Site-96 integrated cafeteria pub. Eight red stools line the bar, which has a tri-level shelf containing many alcoholic beverages, as well as a number of unmarked bottles and plastic containers sporting numerical symbols and warning labels.
The bartender, Dana Parry, has just finished wiping down the bar counter. At the other end of the bar, sitting on a stool, is the temporary bartender, Jazz Korbachev, who is using her phone, inattentive. Jazz is a Foundation engineer, and is on pub duty.
Dana walks to the door (stage right) and switches the hanging "Sorry, we're closed" sign with one that says "We're Open, Come on in!". As he returns to the bar, a woman in a lab coat comes in, who Dana clearly recognizes. The woman is Dr. Evelyn Ledd, a researcher in the temporal wing of the Site. She quickly walks over to the bar and sits down. Her face is locked in a blank stare, and she has enormous bags under her eyes.

DANA
Jesus, Evelyn, I haven't seen you since last week, you look awful.
EVELYN
…
DANA
Evelyn?
EVELYN
…

Dana snaps his fingers in front of Evelyn, who barely reacts.

DANA
Evelyn, are you okay?
EVELYN
Hello Dana.
DANA
(sighing)
How long was it this time?
EVELYN
Four years.
DANA
I'm sorry, what?
EVELYN
One thousand, five hundred, and twenty eight days.
DANA
Oh… oh my god. Oh my god.
EVELYN
(sobbing into her hands)
I can't… I can't do it anymore, Dana. I can't do it anymore, I need to… leave… I need to go somewhere, I need-
DANA
You don't need to quit, you just need something to drink.
EVELYN
What, that yellow crap?
DANA
It works. It will help.
EVELYN
It's not even named right.
DANA
I'm making you one.

Dana quickly grabs a bottle of pineapple juice and pours a small amount into a shaker, also adding a bit of white rum and a drop of viscous liquid from a plastic container with a slew of warning labels pasted haphazardly on its surface. He pours the drink out of the shaker - a frothy yellow sludge that fills Evelyn's glass to the brim.

DANA
Evelyn, please, have it.

Evelyn, shaking, looks down at the drink. She sits, unmoving, for an uncomfortably long amount of time, before reaching out for the glass. As soon as she makes contact with it, she brings it to her mouth and drinks the entire thing in one gulp. Placing the glass back on the counter, Evelyn slowly rises, and walks over to a recliner at the back of the bar (stage left), where she sits, and not five seconds later, is fast asleep.

JAZZ
Jesus christ, four years. They'd better be paying her for that time.
DANA
(cleaning the inside of Evelyn's glass with a rag)
It's unimaginable, what that does to a person. I just hope the PC's enough to undo some of that damage.

As Dana makes another batch of the yellow drink, four men in orange jumpsuits walk in. They each take a seat at the farthest table from the door and begin to talk among themselves. After a short while, one of them walks up to the bar.

D-411
Ello Dana.
DANA
G'evening, four eleven.
D-411
Ohh, come on, you can call me by my real name. Just this once?
DANA
You know I can't.

Dana turns and grabs two unmarked bottles of blue liquid and pours them into the shaker. After a few shakes, he pours out an inexplicably bright red liquid into 4 glasses, and gives them to D-411 on a tray.

D-411
Well, maybe next time then, eh?
DANA
Yeah, yeah.

D-411 carries the tray back to his table and each man grabs a glass and begins nursing their drink.

JAZZ
That one's got a thing for you.
DANA
So?
JAZZ
You got a thing for him?
DANA
Inappropriate and irrelevant.
JAZZ
I see you.
DANA
Gross
JAZZ
Come on, just admit it, you've got a-
DANA
I don't have a fucking… I'm married!
JAZZ
I know, I know, I'm just having a bit of fun.
DANA
Well cut it out, would you? I don't need some Level 4 down my ass because they think I'm trying to get frisky with the actual prisoners we keep here, which to make myself very clear, I am not.
JAZZ
Alright, alright, point taken. Sorry.
DANA
Completely uncalled for…
JAZZ
I'm sorry, okay? Genuinely.

Short pause.

DANA
I… It's fine, we don't have to make a big deal about it, it's fine.
JAZZ
…
DANA
(sighing)
How's work been?
JAZZ
I'm going to assume you're not referring to this, right now?
DANA
No, not pub duty. Your actual job.
JAZZ
Not too bad. Romano and I are working with some of the oversea wings on some stuff. Not much more I can say, you know how it is.
DANA
Oversea wings, huh. Some experimental tech or something?
JAZZ
Just some long distance containment details and another thing which is… kind of a pain.
DANA
I know that feeling.
JAZZ
Heh, yeah, though this one isn't exactly something I can get away with procrastinating on… it's kind of a big deal. There's this massive energy pocket in-
DANA
Uhhh, better stop there, huh? Don't want the wrong info getting into blah blah blah et cetera.

Jazz snickers.

JAZZ
Right.

Dana finishes cleaning glasses and begins sorting bottles on the shelf. Jazz continues using her phone. One of the D-Class personnel leaves the bar, while the other three remain at the table, talking quietly. Suddenly, a gunshot rings out from backstage.

JAZZ
Oh fuck, Dana, put us on lockdown.
DANA
Shit, shit, shit, shit…

Dana fumbles underneath the bar, looking for something. After a second, he stands back up, holding a key. He runs over to the pub entrance and opens a small hatch labelled "lockdown".

D-411
Whoa, wait, are you sure this is a breach? It was just one gunshot.

Dana stops and thinks for a second before stepping away from the hatch.

DANA
I… guess you're right. Let me go check.

Dana throws the key to Jazz, who narrowly catches it.

DANA
If anybody starts screaming, lockdown.

Jazz nods her head. Dana leaves the pub and walks offstage.

DANA
(from offstage)
Holy shit!

Jazz runs over to the lockdown panel, but Dana rushes back in and stops her.

DANA
Stop, stop! Don't lockdown, it's not a breach.
JAZZ
What is it?
DANA
Romano… Romano shot himself.

Everyone is speechless. Dana slowly lowers himself to the ground, his face filled with shock.

JAZZ
I… what?
DANA
(Holding back tears)
I ran by his office and he… had a hole… he was on the floor… and the gun…
D-411
Hey, uhh, should we go?
JAZZ
Nobody move, nobody do anything.

A number of researchers and personnel run past the door of the pub. A commotion can be heard from offstage.

DANA
I… fuck…

Dana brings himself back on his feet and grabs the shaker he had used for the yellow liquid. He takes the nearest glass and pours out a tiny layer.

JAZZ
Oh… you sure, there, Dana? You've never really been able to stomach PC.
DANA
I'll manage.

Dana drinks the thin layer of liquid. He winces for a moment, before breathing a sigh of relief.

DANA
Ugh, I'd forgotten how gross this stuff makes you feel.
JAZZ
Is it better, though?
DANA
Yeah, of course.

A short man in a business suit runs into the room. The man is Michael Handler, a Foundation accountant.

MICHAEL
Hey folks, no need to be alarmed. Nothing's breached, you can all go about your business.
DANA
Whoa, whoa, Michael.

Dana walks up to Michael.

DANA
(whispering)
What the fuck happened to Romano?
MICHAEL
(whispering)
We're not sure yet. From what was on his laptop screen, it sounds like a project he was working on fell through, but nobody's quite sure what it is yet.
DANA
(whispering)
Jesus, that's awful.
MICHAEL
(whispering)
Indeed. Listen, I'm going to go spread the word, but don't worry, it's nothing to be alarmed about.
DANA
(whispering)
Wait, if you don't mind, what project?
MICHAEL
(whispering)
Ah… I don't know, something to do with North Korea. I'll let you know if I hear anything else.
DANA
Thank you Michael. Godspeed.

Michael Handler walks out of the pub. Dana returns to the bar and begins to clean his own glass. As the remaining D-Class personnel leave the pub, Jazz walks over to Dana.

JAZZ
So, what was that all about, then?
DANA
Seems like Romano had a project fall through.
JAZZ
I see… do you… do you know which project?
DANA
Handler said it was something to do with North Korea, why?
JAZZ
…
DANA
(stops cleaning glass, looking concerned)
Why, Jazz?
JAZZ
…
DANA
Jazz?
JAZZ
Holy shit.

Jazz runs out of the pub and offstage. Dana swears under his breath and chases close behind.

End Scene

Demasqed | Act I - Scene II »


To Doctor Asser of our Most Holy Overwatch Cathedral,
I bring dire tidings.
If you could forgive my letter's sudden intrusion into your penitential meditation, I have come to write to you on this occasion not because of my personal qualms, but to inform you of a matter that might concern not only you and those of your eastern church, but the Cardinal Doctors in the Overwatch Cathedral as well. Though it is not my place to interrupt a Doctor of our Holy Foundation while he is glorifying in his due penitence, I truly and honestly believe that the information this letter contains may play a role in the survival of our Foundation in the years to come.
When I was sent to the town of Kilser, I only came with the mission to conduct holy rites for the local populace. This duty I performed without trouble for five months as I headed masses, heard confessions, performed rites on the dead, and anointed the sick and dying. Though news of animal attacks on nearby villages disturbed the peace, no heathen incursions came to attack the devout populace of the small hamlet. I was fed and housed reasonably in the local inn, given a mule to ride to faraway places in the countryside, and assigned a guide to direct me to where I needed to go.
It is of this guide that I speak of now, as he told me of a story that had happened not long ago, which he had heard from a relative of his. There had once been, he told me, a very old witch that lived close to the Veken Swamp who remembered almost nothing of her old life, not even of the language that she once spoke. She was a renowned healer, my guide told me, one that could even heal men on the brink of death with a word in the Old Tongue, the only word that the witch remembered to speak – “Hiil”. This word, said my guide, was magic beyond belief, granted by Lord Bright Himself to save His people.
Being a faithful scion of the Holy Foundation, I was taken aback by the story of this apparent “witch”. I requested that he take me to her, so that I may verify her so-called "healing properties". My guide replied that she had left long ago. When I asked to where, he only shrugged and told me that a "horrifying corpse of a man" who claimed to be her great-grandson (Though they had looked nothing alike) had come by the village and spoken with the old woman. He, my guide said, showed her words written on incredibly aged parchment in an incomprehensible language, all the while telling her stories in a tongue that was neither the Old Tongue nor the New. This coming to apparently no avail, the man knelt in front of the crone and whispered something in her ear, barely audible to the peasants who had come to be healed, saying two words: “Kum ihug”.
At this, the witch's eyes seemed to be filled with an overwhelming joy. She jumped to her feet with no apparent regard for her own age and looked upon the man with shimmering grey-green eyes, speaking for the first time in the New Tongue for all to hear. “This is my dearest Seth.” She said, her voice filled with longing. “He taught me all that I know.”
At this, the man named Seth turned to the crone and spoke in the same incomprehensible language, caressing her cheek with a worn smile on his ruined face. Then, the crone put her hands in his as the wind suddenly began to blow, and the skies above began to darken. She then uttered another word, and a green fog obscured her and her companion from view. When it finally dispersed, my guide told me, the old witch and the corpse-like man were nowhere to be found.
It was with this that I began to suspect who this witch truly was. I asked my guide if he knew how long ago this had occurred, and he replied that it had only been six days when his cousin had recounted it to him, and only three more days had passed when he had recounted it to me. When I asked him if he knew what the local villagers had called the witch, he shook his head, saying that only Bright knew who she was. I tried asking him if he knew more about the witch and the man, but the guide could only shake his head and tell me that he didn't know anything more.
This story continued to trouble me for days when we returned to Kilser, occupying my thoughts as I proceeded with my duties to the local populace. I recalled the old Procedures that I used to memorize, chanting each Procedure while I lay awake at night and sorted through what I recalled from the Expunged that our Holy Foundation had once contained in the time of Lord Bright and His Saints. This continued until the day that I was set to be recalled back to my monastery by my fellow Brother Raleigh, who would bear the news of my next assignment.
But when Brother Raleigh did arrive, late in the night, he instead bore dark news- The Monastery of Our Godsent Saints, the monastery where I had grown up in, was reduced to nothing but a pile of cinders. When I asked my fellow Brother how it had happened, he told me of a crone who came in the dead of night just as he was about to leave, asking for Doctor Creilan. Minutes later, when Brother Raleigh was a ways away from the monastery, he heard a word shouted in the Old Tongue, then saw a great explosion of pure green light- and the monastery was no more. Only moments later, he saw a crone rise from the ashes, impossibly high into the air and wreathed with the green light of her fell magics. Another moment passed and she was gone, now flying through the air at an impossible speed towards the Holy City of Arnven for unknown, yet certainly nefarious purposes.
At the revelation of this news, I intend to immediately take a cart bound for the City of Shrines, while Brother Raleigh takes this news to you. The journey will certainly be perilous- the heathen forces of the animals hew closer and closer to the Holy City every day, and the looming threat of a siege may not be far-fetched- but the threat we face is almost certainly worse. Should this letter find you in time, we hope that you can understand the danger that our Holy Foundation might soon find itself in. Though the Procedures that the Overwatch Cathedral has may not mention her, Sigurrós, the fell witch, if she is truly who I think she is, will stop at nothing to destroy the Foundation that we all want to protect. If she still is restrained by the spells that the Saints have taught her, then we still can hope of defeating her. Of the man Seth, we can only hope is still by the side of Sigurrós.
The existential threat that the crone witch poses threatens us all more than any other Expunged since the Great Breach. I pray daily that Lord Bright acts on our side, on the side of His Holy Foundation. May He work through us all, against all the heathens that threaten our Church from within and without. I shall work hard to uncover the threat that we face now, and should the witch ever come close to destroying all that Lord Bright and His Saints have built, I will do all that I can and more to stop her from doing what she wants most.
My dearest regards,
Brother Jaelen

The Arnven Chronicles
« Dire Tidings | Arnven Burns »


“Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:—
‘Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?'”
—Bram Stoker, Dracula

There were no vampires at the Foundation, at least, not that Junior Researcher Wade Dalitz knew of. There were thousands of SCPs, after all, and more were being discovered every day. Wade would probably never have the time to trawl through them all. The monsters here tended to skew weirder than vampires anyhow. They subsisted solely on diets of possum brains or, or were literal, physical ouroboroses. Ourobori? Drinking human blood and being averse to sunlight seemed tame by comparison.
Wade had to admit he'd been a little disappointed when he found out. It was one of the first things he asked Dr. Mark upon learning the truth about the Foundation.
“So. Do you guys have…vampires and stuff?”
“No,” Dr. Mark replied flatly.
That didn't stop Wade from searching through the database to try and find some. It didn't help that, as a junior, absolute bottom of the ladder researcher, his access to the Foundation's full scope of information was severely limited.
So maybe there were vampires out there, somewhere. He loved vampires. His father showed him Dracula, the 1931 film with Bela Lugosi, when he was a kid, no more than seven. It scared the living daylights out of him. For some reason, he was terrified that Dracula would come out of his closet, even though Dracula generally came into his victim's rooms through the window. It got so bad that his dad took to putting garlic under his pillow and hanging crucifixes over his headboard, even though they weren't particularly religious.
He wasn't afraid of vampires anymore, but there were a lot of other things to be afraid of at the Foundation. “How are you not afraid, all the time?” he asked Dr. Mark when he accepted his offer. It was a tentative ask. He wasn't sure what to make of Dr. Mark yet and didn't want to bog the man down with stupid questions.
Dr. Mark laughed. “I am! I am afraid all the time. Anyone who isn't is an idiot. Stay afraid. It'll keep you alive.”
The biggest difference between vampires and the monsters at the Foundation, though, was that he felt far more powerless against the monsters here, even though he was part of the team actively working to contain dangerous anomalies. He could follow procedure while at work, but as soon as he got home, the best he could do was try and forget about it. Hope there wasn't some kind of world-ending containment breach while he was asleep.
His site wasn't even that dangerous. It housed mostly personnel who were investigating location-based anomalies, and so most of what was contained there were Safe and Euclid class artifacts taken from those locations. Still, after his first day of orientation, he bought an extra clove of garlic at the Food Lion and put it on his nightstand. He knew it didn't do anything, but it made him feel safer somehow.
By the time he was twelve, he had moved on from his fear of vampires to his obsession with them. He'd read Dracula twice by then, and he would read it twice more before he would even meet Dr. Mark. That Halloween, he went out trick-or-treating with his best friend at the time, Carlos. Wade was dressed as Dracula, while Carlos dressed as Van Helsing.
“I wish I could've gone as Mina,” Carlos joked as he swung his pillowcase full of candy over his shoulder. “That would've been so much funnier.”
“Yeah, but no way was your mom gonna let you borrow one of her dresses,” Wade replied.
“I could've taken it without her knowing.”
“Please. Nothing gets past your mom.”
Carlos sighed. “You're right. It might've been worth it, though.”
They marathoned monster movies when they got home. Alien, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Wade vastly preferred monster movies to slasher flicks. There was something schlocky about some guy waddling around in a mask stabbing people. Michael Myers just didn't hold a candle to the xenomorph.
Maybe that was what had prepared him for the Foundation, and drawn him to it. It seemed a bit silly, using horror movies to prepare him for witnessing such unbelievable instances of real-life horror, but so far, it was working. 682 may be scary in theory, but he at least wasn't stuck alone on a spaceship with it prowling around.
On his breaks, he thumbed through his well-loved paperback of Dracula, comparing Jonathan Harker's journal to his own. Journaling was a habit he started at sixteen, because his grief counselor had suggested that maybe writing letters to his dad might help him. It seemed pathetic at first, crying about his problems to his dead dad who couldn't hear him and wouldn't respond, but he grew into the idea. Even if his dad wasn't listening. His mom said he was, that he would always look out for the two of them. Despite not having gone to mass since she was young, his mother still believed in an afterlife, but Wade wasn't so sure.
When he was sixteen, only a few months before his dad died, Carlos' parents sent him away. He didn't find out where for another month. It was strange and awful not having Carlos around. They'd been neighbors since they were little, went to the same elementary, middle, and high school, went to the arcade together every Friday afternoon. Carlos' parents wouldn't open the door for Wade when he knocked, now. The bravest thing Wade ever did was break into Carlos' room, which he'd done before, but never while Carlos wasn't in it. He wasn't sure what Carlos' parents would do if they caught him, but they didn't. It was the luckiest Wade ever was, too, and possibly the luckiest he's been since, perhaps tied with Dr. Mark saving him from his own inadequacies.
There was nothing to be found in Carlos' room. Just an. An absence. All his stuff without the boy to accompany it. It was like a black hole, or a tear in the fabric of the universe.
Wade has seen actual holes in the universe, now, but none of them were quite as intense as the one in Carlos' empty room.
He received a letter from Carlos, later. The letter was brief. It read: “Sorry about your dad. Living with my grandparents now, probably won't see you again. You've probably found out where I've been by now, and let me tell you, I wasn't so sure about heaven, but now I'm pretty sure hell exists.”
Wade did know where Carlos had been. When his mother heard, she said, “Wade, I want you to know that I love you. And I would never send you anywhere like that, no matter what happened. Your father wouldn't have either.”
“I know Ma,” he replied, not considering that she knew something he didn't.
In spite of everything, he got into a good school. A state school, sure, hardly an Ivy League, but nobody expected anything like that, least of all Wade. Still, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was nothing less than a small miracle. His college advisor told him, “Your essay and SAT scores are incredible, but your grades have fallen since junior year. Still, if you pull them up for this semester you should be able to make it into the UNC system, Greensboro or Asheville, if you're lucky.”
His mom pressed kisses all over his cheeks and forehead as she dropped him off outside his freshman year dorm. “Does this mean I have to get invested in college basketball now?” she asked, laughing.
“No, Ma,” Wade told her. “I'm probably not even going to get invested in college basketball. Can you help me bring my stuff upstairs?”
His roommate was Theo Quale, Theo Quale from Charlotte. “My full name is Theodore,” he said, “and nobody is allowed to call me Ted, not even my mom.”
“I completely understand,” Wade said. “My name is Wade.” It was his grandfather's name, on his dad's side. Technically, he was Wade Dalitz Jr., but Wade Dalitz senior had died long before he was born, so the junior part didn't really matter. It was a lame name. Four letters, one syllable. No nickname potential. Theo was a good name. A classical name. One that a hero might have, or someone of historical importance. Wade was, well. It was just a name. Sometimes it was a verb, but that didn't make it anything special.
He and Theo had a lot in common. It almost took him aback. They were both from mixed-race families, Theo black and Jewish, Wade Polish and Mexican, they both had an interest in science, and they both loved horror movies. They were even in the same biology lab.
Theo's favorite movie was The Thing, which Wade had seen once with Carlos and never bothered to watch again. Theo liked it because the idea of someone taking his likeness scared him, and because both of the black guys made it to the end. “I kinda wanna be an antarctic researcher, even though I'm technically pre-med. It's so alien out there, it might as well be another planet,” Theo said.
“Maybe you should be an astronaut,” Wade suggested. “Then maybe you'll see some real aliens.”
“Nah,” Theo said, shaking his head. “Moon's boring, and Mars is decades off.”
There was a part of Wade that always wanted to be an astronaut, that still wanted to be an astronaut, even now. There were Foundation missions to space, but those were mostly under the supervision of MTFs, with the researchers stuck back on Earth. So being something akin to ground control was the best he could hope for, now, and even then, it was unlikely. Even if he was talented enough to be trusted with anything like monitoring an MTF, his background was in chemistry, not physics.
His favorite class his first semester of Freshman year wasn't chemistry, though, it was biology, with Theo. His professor had a liveliness to him that seemed rare in UNC's science department and in November he took the class on a field trip to a creek outside of the city.
It'd gotten cold early that year, and the grass crunched under his feet as he walked. They were catching their own isopods for use in class later, little things that lived in the mud at the bottom of the creek. He put on waders and skimmed the water with a net. The water was ice cold, but fresh and clean, and his hands got numb whenever he put them in.
Theo was standing on the shore with a bucket for the isopods, his smile like a—like something warm. There were trails that crisscrossed through Wade's hometown and he suddenly wanted to walk down them with Theo. Neither of them had cars, though, and so doing so would require Wade asking his mom to come and pick them up, which probably shouldn't have been embarrassing but was.
That creek, those trails, UNC and his hometown weren't so far from Wade's current house (Foundation-provided) or his job. And he had a car now, too (also Foundation-provided). But his movements were monitored and even going to visit his mom just for an afternoon required cutting through a lot of red tape. Visiting Theo at his residency in North Dakota was out of the question. So. No trails. No creeks, either. Sometimes there were isopods, though, oddly enough.
There was something kind of magnetic about Theo. Not in any sort of weird way, he just always said the right thing. Always knew the answer. Wade had met a few people like that before, but he'd always found them annoying. There was no one like that at the Foundation, no one at all, not even Dr. Mark. Everyone was too…too something. Too quirky, too rude, too cold, too hostile, too paranoid, too morally bankrupt. But Theo…Theo was different. His effortless intelligence and charm was never annoying, never insincere.
The only thing that was ever weird to Wade was that nobody else seemed to see it.
Morgan, a mutual friend, said to Wade once, “Why do you like Theo so much?”
“I—what?” he replied. “He's my friend. He's all our friend.”
“Yes, but it's different with you. You follow him around like a lost puppy.”
“I do not!” he protested, but what would've been more accurate was to say, Yes, I do. Why don't you? He didn't understand why everyone didn't want to be Theo's best friend, didn't want to do their level best to impress him the way Wade did.
And Morgan—he dated her for a grand total of two weeks, as it happens. She was his first girlfriend, first and only. He kissed a few girls in high school but it was never a thing beyond a game of spin the bottle, so Morgan was his first.
The first time they kissed, she pulled back a second later and said, “Open your mouth a little you fuckin' dork.”
“Right. Sorry.” But kissing was something he never really got the hang of.
Two weeks later, they were ostensibly making out in Morgan's room when she stopped suddenly and turned away. “Wade, stop.”
“What? What's wrong?”
“You don't want to be kissing me.”
“Yes, I do,” he insisted with as much conviction as he could manage.
“No, you don't. But you're in luck, I don't really want to be kissing you either.”
There was a long silence before Wade finally said, “Sorry.”
“It's okay,” Morgan replied. “No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings.” And there weren't any. He should count himself lucky for that, too.
He and Theo went to see The Predator their junior year. It was a good movie, a good movie, but something happened during the screening that made Wade not want to see it again. It was just him and Theo because Morgan had work and Ellis had a date and Marlene had an essay to finish and none of them really liked monster movies the way Wade and Theo did anyway. And during the climax of the movie, Wade looked over at Theo. His face was lit up by the screen—they were sitting in the third row because Theo preferred the front—and there was an expression of unqualified joy on it. So warm. So bright. Blinding—like the sun, or theater lights.
And then the mix of popcorn, soda, and Sour Patch Kids that was sitting in his stomach leaped up into his esophagus and he ran to the bathroom like his life depended on it. Later, he chalked it up to motion sickness, from sitting so close to the screen, but it wasn't that. It wasn't that at all.
A few minutes later, Theo arrived in the bathroom. “Wade? Is everything okay?”
Wade responded by throwing up again. Loudly. He could feel his throat and cheeks burning.
Theo knocked on the stall door. “Can I come in?”
“You're missing the end of the movie.”
“I'll rent the VHS later.”
Wade silently reached back and unlocked the door.
“You sick?”
“Dunno. Might've been something I ate. Or. The movie,” Wade said into the toilet bowl, unable to look at Theo.
“Here,” Theo said. “Let me get your hair.”
Wade had long hair then. Wade's hair was in a perpetual state of being just a bit longer than he'd like, but that year he'd grown it out to his shoulders, partially just to try it and partially because he couldn't be bothered to walk to the barber shop on Franklin Street.
Theo held back his hair as he vomited one last time, his fingers gentle on Wade's scalp.
That night Wade had a nightmare. Not a night terror, like when he was a kid, no sleep paralysis neither. Just a nightmare. Only Dracula was back in it, the way he had been when he was a kid. He came out of the closet in Wade and Theo's room and started drifting towards Wade's bed. Wade woke up before he got there, though, and made sure to shut his closet door the next night.
But the dreams kept coming. And nothing he did stopped them. They weren't always exactly the same, not always Dracula, not always closets, but his nightmares became a force to be reckoned with. It was around that time that his grades started to slip as well.
“I don't know what happened, Wade,” his advisor told him. “You did so well here these past two years, now all of a sudden you're failing every class.”
Wade couldn't explain it either. It wasn't just the nightmares, though both the grades and the nightmares fed into one another, an unholy cocktail of stress dreams and days where he felt like he was sleepwalking through every class. He hit an assignment in his astrophysics class that stumped him, and he hadn't turned it in, and it was all downhill from there. Why bother? He hadn't been doing particularly well in that class anyhow. His professor was the most no-nonsense professor in the physics department, and nothing he did ever seemed good enough for her, and so eventually, he stopped trying.
And before he knew it, he was repeating senior year. Twice. He'd just barely made it through his junior year, after all. And then Theo was graduating and North Carolina got hit with an uncharacteristically terrible snowstorm that year—everyone snowed in. The heat broke in his apartment and he just couldn't get his landlord to get someone out to fix it and he knew—knew he was going to drop out. A disappointment to his mom and dad, same as always.
The night after Theo left, Wade had another Dracula nightmare. Dracula came out of the closet and crept over to where Wade lay, ignoring the chair barring the closet door and the garlic under Wade's pillow. But this time Wade didn't wake up before he reached him. He just lay there, stock still, as Dracula kissed him so sweetly. A real kiss, too, not what Bram Stoker called a “kiss”, not a bite. Dracula pressed his lips to the corner of Wade's mouth, almost his cheek, and then he was gone, faded into mist.
Wade was about to drop out when he met Dr. Mark. It was at some—some job internship fair thingy the school was hosting, and Dr. Mark Forsyth was there representing a pharmaceutical company in Research Triangle Park—Smith-Cline Pharmaceuticals.
“My grades aren't very good,” Wade admitted after speaking with Dr. Mark for a little while. “I think I'm dropping out after this semester.”
“Why would you do that?” Dr. Mark asked quizzically. “It honestly seems like you might be a good fit for our organization.”
“Really?”
“Really. Sure, other companies might only care about things like grades and work experience, but at SCP we try to look past what we see on paper. After all, there are certain things no amount of work or school can really prepare you for. But you should get your Bachelor's. I think you can make it. And if you do, there's something out here waiting for you.”
It was kind of an odd thing for a pharmaceuticals rep to say, but Wade found himself nodding. If he could get his degree, and if what Dr. Mark said was true…well, graduating with a steady job lined up sounded better than dropping out with no prospects at all.
Of course, nothing could've prepared him for the Foundation, as Dr. Mark had said. But it had to be better than the alternative.
Didn't it?
That evening he went home. He made chicken soup and called his mom. He'd been studying up on how to go about writing SCP entries, but he didn't quite have the clinical tone down yet. He'd been okay at lab reports in university but these weren't exactly lab reports. The format was all wrong. He wasn't documenting any data, no introduction, no conclusions, no hypothesis. It seemed that so much of the Foundation eschewed the scientific method that it was really no wonder that they were willing to hire a kid who'd barely made it through undergrad.
“Hi sweetie,” his mom said as she picked up the phone.
“Hi Ma.”
“How was work?”
“I'm trying to get the swing of things. It's very strange here. I'm not used to it yet.”
“I understand. My first real job was pretty hectic too.”
Wade almost laughed. How different could teaching high school English be from working to contain deadly anomalies straight out of science fiction novels?
“You know, maybe the next time you visit, we could see that new Dracula movie.”
“Maybe,” Wade replied, trying not to sound too skeptical. He didn't really know when he'd be able to visit next, and it was best not to plan for something that may not happen. Besides, he wasn't too excited about the movie anyway. Unfortunately, in spite of the famous director and pretty solid cast, it wasn't getting the best reviews. He'd read one that expressed the reviewer's confusion at casting Mina Harker as Dracula's reincarnated love, and Wade had to agree. Dracula didn't have a love, reincarnated or not.


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NAME OF TALE White Noise Machine

She woke up, rubbed her eyes and stayed a moment in bed. She hated it when the creature did that, when it stole little things from the day.
"Come on", it whispered. "We have work to do."
She acquiesed, and the creature jerked her upright. It staggered over to the mirror and stared at her. Large, bushy hair over eyes over bags. She'd slept in her clothes again - she used to protest when the creature worked her harder, but what was the point any more? She never won.
The creature saw the time and swore. It put on deoderant hurriedly, inelegantly, then grabbed her coat and ran downstairs. The corridors were grey. Her room was also grey. She'd liked to pretend that the creature had been the one to take the decorations down, but in truth she'd started removing things herself in the months before it came. Only a single faded Pixies poster had been left.
Gregory was in the reading room when they arrived. He smiled at her, but it moved her on without looking at him. It sat at her desk. She opened the book and began to make notes. So Gregory frowned, and walked over.
"You know, it's OK to take a break once in a - "
"I'm fine."
The creature had snapped it, but it could have been her too. She didn't want them fussing. She felt a brief twang as he walked away, downcast, but she couldn't tell what emotion it would have been.

She was a Foundation Researcher, Level 2, Site 90. 5"5 and stuck in the north of North Dakota, where the town of Nowhere had been bought up and converted into the Unreality Divisions's testing lab. All the land around was just an endless, greying prairie, stretching on to the edge of the sky.
At night, the nearest town's lights would glitter distantly. The only other sign there was a world outside was the truck that would drive in with their new subjects: doors, wishing wells, locked cabinets and other things the anomalous of the world had used to expand their horizons. That was Unreality's role in the Foundation archipelago, to crack these pocket universes like safes and store them in deep, blackened vaults.
The truck always came like clockwork. There were ususally three drivers on rotation, and you could tell which one it was by the way they drove. The precise of each skid pattern told you if it was Marcus, Janice or John, and they'd complete the performance of unloading the truck with their own distinct mannerisms. Like characters in a book.
It had been John who was driving on the day the creature came. He whistled as he unloaded the door, and as the agents brought it into the proper place. She'd entered it as part of the preliminary sweep, and as soon as she stepped through the door it was inside her mind. It was like a switch being flipped, but much less dramatic than the glare of a light. She didn't feel much - she just thought "oh", and then watched as the creature took her over.
Maybe it was part of the thing's anomaly. Or maybe she'd just become jaded by the same views, the same grey skies. Most of Unreality liked the site's drabness; it was a welcome change from the horrors and wonders in the pocket universes. Every psychedelic trip or erotic fantasy could be found locked away behind those doors, so the simple beauty of the grassland was welcome.
But Jolene had come to find the universes dull, even trite. The rare jewel would come along to revive her spirits, but most of what she studied was more of humanity's tawdrier secrets. Prisons for kidnap victims were particularly wearying. Their eyes would blink and falter at the light.
She'd long since forgotten why she joined the Foundation. Fear? A desire to do good? Interest in the field? It didn't matter any more. Her specialism and knowledge existed solely in the bounds of the anomalous; she could offer nothing to an academic world that didn't acknowledge her work's existence.
So she'd continued with her life as twenties turned to thirties, her brain gradually shedding more of herself. If she was really honest, she'd taken down the Pixies poster long before the creature arrived.

What the creature was making was a box. She didn't understand why. She could sense bits and pieces of its design, but the more she concentrate the more she felt like there wasn't anything there. So she swam in the ocean of her mind, picking at the stars above her.
It worked on it in the day, snatching moments between the official business. It worked on it at night, while she begged and urged it to sleep. When it ate, its mind remained wholly focused on the business at hand, while she savoured the tiny morsels of stimulus.
The creature felt sick to her mind's touch - something slimy, haggard. Most of the time it felt like a weight, a leaden and opaque thing. She stared into it and didn't care.
There were so many other threads of living that danced around her. The nascent crush Gregory clearly felt, for one. She pictured him, in her mind, suspended in that same half-worried smile. His lines faded into the background, his colour implanted into the walls. He was irrelevant here.
The creature dragged her back, inexorably, to her room. It sat on the bed and stared upwards, sucking the stars into itself.

She remembered the moment when the creature had slipped. It had been five o'clock on a Wednesday, and it was poring over a book because it had to, as it kept snarling at her curious thoughts. It wasn't normally that voracious, that lumpen in its phrasing. There was the slightest hint of emotion to it, a kind of ragged determination that made it seem a shade less opaque.
It was snowing outside, and suddenly she was free. She flexed her hands, and looked around her. The bed was there. The moon was outside, lighting up the winter evening. A couple of voices were laughing below.
She'd stood up, and plunged her hand out of the window. She felt every pore on her arm crack and freeze, stinging and frosting over. She moved it and felt the hairs sway, the veins on her hand shifting imperceptibly. It was smooth and soft, able to manipulate the air with the slightest -
"What are you doing?"
There was a researcher below her window, staring up at her. His face was frowning, a slight and confused smile stuck to his lips. It thrust her arm back inside. "Nothing", it snapped, and she felt herself crushed around the chest.

Movement. The creature woke her up, without argument or delay. It felt like a ripping as it headed towards the wardrobe.
There was the box, coated in symbols and wires. It pulled out its pliers and began to cut, dispassionately, at the surrounding material. It didn't stop or slow down, but kept pushing, weaving, darting from one side to the other. Her eyes were glazed; it knew the feel of the box too well to look.
It knew something. She hadn't considered that it could know things. She wondered what its truths were, what it held dear, what was in the box. She tried looking at it, but all she saw was iron, lead, soft malleable plastics that were the same all the way through, a single and essential substance. Solid, unyielding, enveloping.
It nicked her fingers over and over again, small and clumsy mistakes she would never make. It didnt show any signs of pain. Blood was smeared over the wires - would it impede its function? She didn't know. She didn't care.
Inside her head she let go, and floated. Below her was water, above her the sky, each devoid of colour but somehow distinct. She moved her arms and felt the water move. She waved them again, and again, feeling the smooth liquid suck on her fingers and caress her arms.
There was a pleasure in nothing, in repetition, in circling the same spot over and over again. Would she ever decay? Would her self's fingers wrinkle, pucker, dissolve? Would matter even matter here, locked behind the eyes?
She kept thinking about the day the creature had come and things she could have done differently. She found she didn't much care. It was an intellectual exercise, nothing more. Patterns between doors. What had the pocket looked like? Who had put it there? How many people would the creature kill?

The Pixies had been her favourite band growing up. She loved all their songs, but it was "Hey" that she'd listened to the most - there was something behind it that it kept trying to grab onto. It wasn't quite enough for her. She wanted those strings to bite, to sharpen their teeth and pierce her skin.
So she'd taken up guitar and joined a band. The neighbourhood kids, the rough crowd her parents wouldn't let her go near, they let her play right away. The sheer ferocity with which she would hack at the instrument enticed them. She was an enigma, she was cool, she was every half-baked notion of a thing they could properly ruin.
There were thunderclouds in those days, and lightning storms, and there'd be nights she was scared of as she snuck out to throw her head around before a hollering crowd. Jimmy Willis was always there, leather-jacketed and smirking, a pure cliche that she couldn't resist. She'd grown her hair over her eye and peeked out at the world, grinning with a strange irony. She felt she was standing on a knife edge, and the pain of the blade was so very, very fine.

The creature had finished. She could almost smell it, but her nose was blocked. Two panels, a makeshift hatch, acted as an entrance.
And then it let go, and she was free. But she stayed and stared at the box instead. What kind of wood was it made of? What kind of wire? Each was smooth, in its own way, curves that fed into each other.
Open it, it said. And why not, after all?
She moved towards it, seeing its round shape as part of the floor, part of the building, moving in time with the rest of the structure of the site, with the researchers, with the blades of grass that swayed, with the corners sanded down until they were orbs protruding from walls and merging with the air, until all boundaries were whipped away and the lack of rules was light as air.
She wouldn't have to get out of bed ever again.
She opened the box and saw nothing. A pocket-dimension of void, like the creature, like its half-forgotten world. It stretched on forever, a gap between realities. It wasn't even black. It just wasn't.
It rose up behind her. She turned, and at last she saw it, the whole of it, the opaque and solid glisten of her constant companion.
I love you, it said.
She screamed, and struggled, and tried to run for the window, but she couldn't make it. She grabbed her arms but it had her legs. She cut her hand as she fell but it wasn't enough.
It drove her, inch by inch, into the box.