Beneath the Tides - SCP Foundation

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What does it mean to kill a god?

To slay a man, truly, is a simple act; even an utter nobody can do as little as put a bullet between their colleague's eyes. It's dirty, but it gets the job done quickly enough. But to slay a god, to commit deicide — that's no easy task. Especially considering that just killing it is often not good enough — the legs of some animals still twitch even after the being itself is dead.

Most gods don't walk on two legs. Most gods wouldn't let you point a gun at them, either. So what do you do when you want to utterly destroy a thought and belief network so complex it can quite literally manifest as a physical being in front of you? What do you do when trying to rip apart the fabric of consensus human faith apart turns everything and everyone against you? And, most importantly of all, what do you do when you actually succeed?

— Department of Tactical Theology, provisionary briefing. Author unknown.

There is an ocean-shaped hole at the bottom of his dreams.

The everpresent darkness weighs down on him as his consciousness comes back from its slumber. He doesn't try to move. He's been here too many times to even consider such nonsense. The cold waters that engulf him make doubly sure to kill that thought before it even gets the chance to be born.

As a terrible fear overtakes him, he realizes that the vastness before him is unending, its sheer volume making itself known to every part of his dying self. The only thing hanging above or below is the infinite ocean, stretching so far and wide that not even the cosmos could rival its size. Perhaps once, he would try to escape it, uselessly swimming up or down in a frantic attempt at finding even the faintest glimpse of light, unable to trust his senses. But now, he knows better, and gives in to that unstopping pressure. He surrenders to the inevitable way of all things down, and lets himself get ripped apart until there is nothing left where he had once stood. And yet, even then, his lungs do not stop burning.

In his final waking moments, he opens his mouth and lets all of it in, feeling nothing but the hateful water make its way inside, the gates of his body now gaping wide. It fills every part of his being until there is nothing but water left, the dread of its very existence merging with his essence at a fundamental level. The only thing in its place is everything mankind has ever known as the sea, breaking down his body, his mind, and his soul, until they become flawless enough to join the water around it in perfect, still, and dark harmony.

He tries to scream, but he has no mouth to speak of. And the ocean would never have it any other way.

As the one-point-four octodecillion tons of water bury him at the bottom of the world, he wakes up.

If asked what Bintang bin Reehab hated the most, he would genuinely struggle to produce any answer that didn't somehow end up as 'the ocean'.

It was ironic, he thought, that reality was like this. After all, being a deithalassologist that feared the deep was so outrageously sarcastic that even he couldn't help but notice it. He never liked to talk about it, though. From the immediate question of what his profession was and why they named a sea god specialist that way, it wasn't the most comfortable conversation to have. Especially since it almost always ended with something he frankly had no answer to: why Tactical Theology would even send someone like him on such missions.

Sometimes, he liked to think it was because there was nobody better than him.

Of course, in some sense, he was right. Naturally, as someone who's been in his profession for almost twenty years, Bintang was quite the big fish up in the TactTheo offices. And for most deep-sea projects he was assigned to, that was indeed the answer. Today, though, it very much wasn't. Today, the fact he was one of the Foundation's best researchers in his field didn't matter, for even if he wasn't, they would still send him down there to Site-72 anyway. They just couldn't afford not to.

At least not ever since the SCP-7800 crisis had begun a few weeks ago, and gods have been leaving Earth like the party was finally over. More than eighty-eight percent of them were gone, now, with almost no trace left behind. He wasn't quite sure whether he thought that the whole fiasco made him more likely to end up unemployed, or that it in fact made his job easier. Either way, he didn't really care; not right now, at least. He had a job to do. And he was going to do it well.

With an almost silent swoosh the submarine's airlock opened wide, the vessel now finally fully docked to Deep Sea Site-72. It was a curious little thing, Bintang remarked as he rubbed his still sleepy eyes and took the first step aboard his new home. There weren't many places like this in the Foundation, or even in the world at large, for that matter. A pillar of nothing but research facilities, stretching from the shallowest of waters above to the darkest of depths below. Of course, knowing Bintang's luck, he could not be assigned anywhere else but the very lowest level of the whole Site. If he still had any strength left inside of him, he would sigh. Instead, he just made his way toward his new living quarters.

After putting all of his things in all the appropriate wardrobes, he took a quick shower and laid down on his new bed. It was comfortable (thank god for that, at least) but it didn't really make the feeling of the world burying him above millions upon millions of tons of water any better. Not wanting to go to that place mentally again, he closed his eyes. Those thoughts weren't worth being thought about. So with a slow exhale, he let them go, and picked up his work tablet, wanting to read the mission briefing one final time before getting to work.

INTERNAL LEVEL-5 CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTATION. DO NOT DISSEMINATE.

Project #: DTT-P-72-BBR-7800-L5-5

Project Location: Deep Sea Site-72, associated regions

Assigned Personnel: Bintang bin Reehab, Department of Tactical Theology

Project Briefing: Investigate the anomalously large cadaver of the Fromia monilis (necklace starfish) that had manifested near Deep Sea Site-72 five days ago in regards to its potential connections to the ongoing SCP-7800 crisis and any possible ties to fifthism and / or associated religious movements. Maintain a daily intake of Class W Mnestics due to potential antimemetic properties should any such connections be proven. Undergo bi-weekly mental health screenings due to the project lead's thalassophobia and potential fifthist influence.

Signed,

— Yossarian Leiner, Department of Tactical Theology, Director

He sighed.

it was going to be a long few weeks.

The ocean might be still. But the body — it couldn't be any further from being calm. Its perfect form surges with an emotion so alien it could never ever be described as anything but alive.

And yet, its corpus remains dead all the same.

Somewhere, deep down beneath the whole world, the being lays. Its burial grounds are dark; so dark, in fact, that not even the light it has once shone upon the whole cosmos could ever enlighten it. With an almost noticeable hum, it sits at the very bottom of what could be considered reality, covered with rocks, water, and — most importantly — indifference. It isn't moving, but it doesn't need to. Quietly bidding its time requires nothing but patience, after all. And if there's one thing to be said about it, it's that it has more patience than anyone could ever ask for.

As existence aligns with its inhuman wavelength for just a single moment, its thousand eyes open up to the sound of smoke sipping through the cracks in reality. Not wasting even a second, they immediately begin their search, but they don't have to look far. In mere seconds, they deadlock onto their only target. And that target — he knows about it all too well. Moreso than he would have ever liked.

Unable to move, he simply sits there, laying motionless upon his own deathbed. For what feels like an eternity, he too joins the dead being in its gaze, and once — just once — their thoughts meet. And in that dreadfully infinite moment, he feels everything that… thing feels.

Suddenly, an alarm clock rings, and the whole of reality falls apart. With a violent gasp, he opens his eyes. For a single moment, he can feel the weight of the whole world upon his shoulders, before it gets replaced with the strangling sensation of a mouth so dry it shouldn't even be possible. He blinks, and can feel the sum of his experience leak through that gate between his world and the unreal he opened when he went to sleep. Unable to do anything but observe the process, he looks at his phone.

No matter how hard he tries, he cannot go back to sleep that night.

After much consideration, Bintang realized one thing: he was wrong. Dead, dead wrong. There actually was a thing he hated even more than the ocean.

It was work.

Not all work, obviously; he wouldn't be in this business if he resented all of his research duties. But he was unable to not point out the fact that, broadly speaking, his profession was quite awful. From being forced to come to terms with one of his greatest fears through dealing with utterly incomprehensible nonsense to just sheer goddamned paperwork, there were some days when it just really wasn't worth the four hundred grand they gave him yearly in exchange for a lack of complaints.

Today was indeed one of those days.

Awkwardly strolling back into his research lab, Bintang took a bite of the already-stale bagel. Resisting the urge to sigh at a headache he was pretty sure was going to kill him, he opened the doors and put down the few papers he'd been clumsily holding in his non-eating hand. It was far from the most comfortable position he'd been in, but hey, if it gave him test results, he was able to accept that minor setback.

With a quick movement of said hand, he put on his glasses, and immediately began going down the list of abridged answers he'd gotten.

Akiva Count: 0.00 A

That wasn't good. It eliminated his primary — if not his only — theory about what was going on. He always had them do one even on fish he was sure weren't in any way deific; after his paper on the apotheosis of SCP-3000 from a small fish stuck in Fish Prison to the Naga that had gotten him to where he was now, it just felt appropriate to pay his dues.

Brain activity: not detected.

That wasn't good, either. Most gods — even the most esoteric and alien ones — had something going on in the heads of their physical manifestations. Be it electricity, ontokinesis, or magic, it just was there, even when said deity has died. Things of that magnitude just didn't go out with a bang small enough to not leave at least some residue behind them. Which meant what he was dealing with was either not a god, or it was a god so incomprehensible to him he actively just did not recognize it. And that concerned him.

Mimicry: pending research.

Seeing the final entry on the list, he sighed. He had told them not to do it. He had told them not to do it multiple times. It was beyond useless, even if he appreciated the effort. He knew that ever since they discovered SCP-6216 — the vaguely shapeshifting fish praying upon the waters surrounding Site-72 — they ran that test on all of their subjects, just to be sure. In this case, though, he knew they didn't need to be sure because he himself already was. There was no way a 6216 instance would mimic such a complex shape for so long nor could it actually imitate the traits of the specimen they'd been studying, so it was not only just useless, it was actively wasting his goddamned monetary fund.

Bintang made a mental note to warn the genius who disobeyed his command the next time they met, and moved on. For a moment, though, for just a split second before he left the lab, he looked back at his mental clipboard and remembered one thing he was pretty sure had been important to him this morning. The dream. It was the dream.

If anyone but him had made that observation, they would just attribute it to thalassophobia or jetlag or whatever. But after twenty years in his job, Bintang was nothing but a man of caution. He erased the notification in his head and replaced it with one that felt much more appropriate; with one that felt much more safe. He noted to mention it to the person that did his psychology screenings. He was sure it was nothing, but he always said there wasn't such thing as too much vigilance.

This time, the thing that lurks for him when he wakes up doesn't waste any time. Not letting him even realize where he is, it immediately opens its thousand eyes, and gazes deep into his soul.

"SEE MEE," it seems to be screaming, its billion orifices and forms twisting into unimaginable shapes in the vague form of a starfish. It isn't just angry, no. It's offended by him. Offended by his actions. It saw his conclusions, it heard his theories, and it tasted his thoughts. And it is furious, seething with rage at what he came up with. If the dead being had a language to speak of, it would shout at the top of its lungs that it has never — not once — been as offended as it was now. And so, with all of its incomprehensible might, it says: "SEE ME."

The words — no, the emotion — reverberates through his sunken soul, dominating every thought, every concept he could ever conceive of. For a terrible second, it leaves no space for anything but itself, forcing every single fiber, every single atom in his body to observe its perfect and immaculate form. It basks as his eyes and reason break upon its back, unable to truly understand the creature that unravels before him in its entirety. But that does not matter. The only thing that does, now, is that he got the message.

He sees, above all else, that the being is a god. It just is. He ignores all of his rationale, all of his research, and all of his knowledge that should, by all means, point to a different conclusion. He ignores it and listens to the whispers now engraved to the bottom of his flooded mind, and finally gets the real, unfiltered nature of the thing that blessed him with its beauty. For a moment that, as a human, he should not be able to feel as anything but a second, he opens his eyes wide with wonder, not capable of thinking about anything but the god in the shape of a star laying dead before him. At the end of his tongue, there sits a word too complex for a human to handle. But he's no longer beyond it. With a final pledge of allegiance to that perfect state of being, he—

He wakes up.

Learning from his previous mistakes, he immediately reaches for his phone. He needs to act now, before the connection between reality and dream is severed and he forgets what he needs to do. Somewhere deep down, he wants that. He would trade anything to be able to forget about what he just saw, but there simply is no place to afford that. Not before he ensures his own safety, at least.

With a trembling breath, he clicks the designated number.

"Yes. Yes, miss."

"No. I cannot—"

"I'm sorry?"

"I…"

"Okay, god, no need to shout. I… please give me a moment."

"Yes. I'm sure, I'm absolutely sure, miss."

"What?"

"I…"

"No."

"No, no, no, no!"

"NO!"

And then, before he is able to formulate a thought powerful enough to resist its next order, he wakes up again.

Bintang was done.

In his twenty years of study, he had seen many things. If he was honest with himself, just about half of them he wished he could forget. But he never did. He never took the easy way. Perhaps due to some perverse will of integrity or due to sheer stupidity, but he just could not. It was a rule of his, he thought, for as long as he could remember having his job. Yes, naturally, the wish of amnestization had sometimes plagued him, but he never truly wanted to quit. He just hadn't been raised that way.

Until today.

Staring at the endless deep beyond the canteen window, he could not help but wonder, about many things and many people. But no matter how hard he tried, they always somehow came back to that dead body, buried beneath the whole world, located somewhere before him. He didn't like to think about it — like he said, he was done — but he just couldn't help it. If he still had the energy, he would both sigh and shrug. He guessed he could afford to have at least a few remarks about his research subject before the relocation request would get accepted. It usually didn't take more than a day. He hoped this time wouldn't be any different.

What is is, though?

As the whisper of his own curiosity crept into his mind like a snake, Bintang was unable to do anything but wonder. So, somehow rationalizing the action to himself as just killing time, he gave in. He closed his eyes, cleared all of his thoughts, and surrendered to the inevitable urge to understand.

What if it is something ancient? Some organism embued with prehistoric magic that we simply do not have the scientific knowledge to understand yet?

— was the first thought that came to his mind. he wasn't sure why, really; he was as far from a paleontologist or a biologist as they got, but… it just somehow felt natural. Like the feeling that the being was something born on Earth and not from whatever nonsensical mindscape gods were formed of was not just correct, but pretty much synonymous with the question about its existence. The research clearly indicated it wasn't Akiva, but he still wasn't fully sold. Even after playing with the idea for a few minutes too long and almost convincing himself. It just… It just didn't feel regular. He'd been in this business for a long time, and he just knew a god where he saw one. So…

What if it is some other sort of god, then? Surely, our data cannot be fully complete as this represents its ultimate failure — it both fits a theory due to SCP-7800 and doesn't due to the Akiva reports. So, what the hell is this form?

That one was definitely more interesting. Still not opening his eyes, Bintang put his hands together, and wrinkled his forehead. Moving one thought after another inside his mind palace, he quickly put together a rough history of human and anomalous dieific worship, realizing that—

No. That didn't really make sense, either. Out of all the anomalous races and peoples he was cleared to see — and with a Level 5 card, there weren't many things he wasn't cleared to see — not even one fit the model. Sure, some elements of Daevite prayers or Nälkä Sarkic chants maybe fit it partially — with their own weirdly dead gods that somehow refused to stay that way — but… fundamentally, human gods weren't like this. Weren't like that thing, that strange, strange five-legged—

He paused. Then facepalmed so hard it clapped.

Of course. It's fiff—

He repeated the gesture, this time harder.

No, you idiot. It's not fifthist. You know better than this. The signs are there, but they're superficial at the very best. They look like someone was trying to—

—but what if they weren't?

His wrinkles deepened.

Fifthism plays on the intangible, that which sits beyond your comprehension. For most cases, it being deeper nonsense with a shallow pattern makes sense. But… what if it was shallow nonsense with a deep pattern? What if, at first glance, it made sense, but when thought about more, it—

He finished the thought before he could manifest it with words.

Breaking the train of comprehension before it could arrive at its station, he opened his eyes, suddenly blasted by the darkness of the waters before him. But he didn't notice them, not anymore. All he was focused on now was getting back to his lab.

He had a thesis to write.

Did you know that the human body is the perfect conductor?

As he opens his eyes, he cannot feel his body. For all intents and purposes, he's just a consciousness, caged to one point in unreality, unable to move, unable to think, unable to be.

He takes it with surprising tranquility.

Really, it is built to be that way; from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes, every part of you is just made for the job!

The voice continues, its tone half of a priest and half of a university professor just unable to not be excited about today's subject. If he squints enough, he can almost see the place it comes from; but just one glance at that place is enough to send such a shiver down his spine that he never wants to see it again. But even then, he is unable to close his eyes. Standing, stranded somewhere in between reason and madness, he is forced to watch as the new truth is forced directly onto him.

Now, don't you worry. No need for any equations or other such nonsense to prove it! I'm a big believer in showing.

He swallows as his nose starts to pick up the faintest smell of something burning.

With a hint of excitement, the voice snaps its fingers.

Now, the doctors of the new world will try to deny that. Their science and logic and nasty education will look into the eyes of your soul and lie, silently whispering a prayer of propaganda until you yourself will join in repeating it. But! Don't you fear. Their little tentacles cannot reach here.

Something akin to a projector flickers behind his eyelids, and now, he sees it, too. All of it.

The voice, however, continues all the same, pointing towards the now-visible diagram of the human body with some abstract object he thinks was meant to be a pointer. He tries to swallow again, but finds his throat dry. So he turns to blink, but finds his eyes equally unable to react. They are itching, now, and as the feeling of something burning in the distance increases tenfold they too start to feel ablaze.

Just look!

He listens.

The thing that has once been a human depicted upon that run-down poster can no longer be recognized as one. In its place sits a gaunt pillar of flesh with a five-fold symmetry to its crooked existence. It is covered in a thick coat of stolen skin, its appendages so eager to stay in their place. But the worst part about it are its eyes, mounted deep into a chiseled orb just barely tied to the end of its spine. Dangling there, it curiously observes him, a single horizontal slit at the bottom of the organ expressing its emotion.

And worst of all, it looks exactly like him.

Before he can scream, before he can do anything, the fire from outside bursts asunder and breaks in, all of its terrible smoke blinding what he recognizes as reality. The dark veil of burning stars slowly tumbles down to the gurgling of that which is behind it. Beyond the horizon, a thousand eyes blink as he returns the gesture, and the cosmos erupts; unprompted, unwanted, unloved. For a horrible moment, the universe aligns with the sound of the music of the spheres, unbound beneath the all-consuming five-fold tyrant. The behemoth blinks one more time, this time just with its maw, and the world that wasn't a world dies five times with it, each time in a way that would make anyone but its followers weep with insanity.

"SEE ME," the irreal emperor shouts, and the fundaments of the universe return the scream. As quarks and atoms get replaced with smoke, the starlight so far above punctures his planet and explodes every ocean, every sea, and every river it can see. The water within drowns the whole cosmos as it buries the macrocosm of existence in a wet grave too deep and vast for anything to understand it. The waves of the new world break upon the shores of comprehension, and everything that had once been considered real disappears. The only thing that still remains is him, trapped at a single point in time, and the unliving body of the starfish monarch, still buried, still dead, still watching. With its final breath, it forces all remaining particles into motion: "SEE ME!"

Unable to resist, he blinks and looks directly into the eternal hegemon. For just a second, their gazes meet,

and the abyss

gazes

back.

He'd think the loud crack would be more than enough to make him realize what had just happened. But when that didn't help, he slowly opened his still-sleepy eyes, trying to vaguely ascertain the confusing situation.

His glasses were broken.

Bintang blinked twice, and the exhaustion seemingly disappeared, only to leave a certain sense of disappointment mixed with frustration in its place. He scratched his head — which very much felt like it was dying — and massaged his temple, moving said head up from the papers he'd just slept on. For just a second, he was concerned his work was broken, destroyed by the inadvertent nap forced upon him by his own organism. But it took just a look to realize the proof he'd been writing before Morpheus forcefullytook him was just fine. He exhaled with relief.

Carefully, as if he was carrying a baby, Bintang picked up the mountain of documents he'd just compiled a few hours ago. With a satisfied smirk on his face, he quickly left the lab, heading for his elevator up to the surface; his cab to salvation.

The corridors of Site-72 were empty, as was expected of such a time. Even deep down here, where light was nothing but a privilege and oxygen a luxury, the natural cycles of man still ruled with an iron fist. But Bintang didn't care, truly. He didn't need anyone but himself to finally get out of here with a conclusion of his work, and never have to think about this stupid goddamned hellhole ever again.

Rubbing his half-blind eyes, Bintang turned his gaze towards the folder he'd been carrying in his hands. The lack of glasses didn't really promise a fruitful final check, but he didn't truly need the submitted product to be perfect — it just needed to be good enough to justify his sudden leave of Site-72 to TactTeo. And of that quality he was definitely sure.

Seeing the elevator up, his smile deepened. It deepened even further when his phone buzzed with a familiar SCiPNET notification sound. Already sure of the message's text, he pulled it up, propping his device against the sheets of paper laying on his hands.

tni.labolg-oettcat|baheer-nib-gnatnib#tni.labolg-oettcat|baheer-nib-gnatnib,

Your requested transport vehicle has reached Deep Sea Site-72. Please approach Shallow Waters Gate B at your earliest convenience.

This message is auto-generated. If you have any further concerns, please direct them to tni.labolg-oettcat|tnemganamlanretni#tni.labolg-oettcat|tnemganamlanretni.

He quickened his pace.

The elevator doors, the final, final frontier separating him from his freedom, stood just two meters before him. With a relaxed expression plastered all over his face, he extended his hand towards the 'call' button, and—

—and as he felt his shoe hook up against some unseen, uneven quirk of the floor, he knew it was already too late.

With a silent thud, Bintang fell forward, all of his documents falling to the ground. And as he reached the cold tiled floor before him, everything went black.

Perhaps once upon a time, he would be afraid. But now, after having faced this ocean-shaped hole at the bottom of his soul so many times, he's just angry. Angry at the fact it dragged him down here. Angry at the fact it disrupted his exit. And angry at the fact it dared to interfere when he was done with it.

And in time, that anger turns into determination.

This time, he isn't stranded in some strange void in the middle of nowhere. Tonight, he stands in the Site-72 airlock, muddled with all of the dream logic, but still fundamentally on his ground. Ground he knows. And ground he's going to use to his advantage. He takes a deep breath, and — on his own terms — leaves the safety of the Site, embracing the deific nonsense waiting for him beyond Deep Sea Site-72.

He emerges into the unknown waters, some ambiguous weapon he can't quite recognize in his equally dream-like hands. If they were real, their depth would be terrifying, but the fact they are bound by the logic of sleep is strangely calming to him. Having already faced the thing that awaits him at the bottom of the world, he isn't afraid of such simple things. The only thing he's genuinely terrified of, now, is the five-fold creature lurking at the burial at the edge of the universe.

And today, he's going to face that fear, once and for all.

The legs of some animals still twitch even after the being itself is dead.

Therefore, he thinks, the best — no, the only course of action — is to destroy those legs before they can reach you.

Slowly, he enters the cave he's been seeing for so many nights now. It is almost like he remembers, but just almost. Today, it is sharper, more coherent, as it is no longer bound by the sleep—

Oh.

Oh, no.

Within a moment, the illusion fell apart.

As he looked upon the dead body in the middle of his new prison, he couldn't do anything. There was no strength left in his body, now, just a daunting realization of loss. He couldn't even afford to be afraid. He just sat there, floating in the cold waters of the lowest point of his subjective reality, and stared directly into what had lured him here.

And the starfish moved.

Disappearing beneath the floor like some sort of plant, it skittered down into the gravel laying the ocean floor. It was no longer just a dead body; instead, it felt like a part of the whole cave, its skin turning red a second before demanifesting from Bintang's sight. As the cave consumed it whole, the grotto itself started to move, too; this time, though, the action was quicker.

Before he could even let out a single scream, the beast's jaws snapped shut. When they opened again, there was no Bintang inside them. No, he was long gone. What was there, though, was the artificial starfish. Still dead, still remaining, still indifferent. It simply stood there, at the border between cohesion and irreason, basking in the glory of its prey, lured right into it by its own new skills, awaiting another fool to meet the same fate.

Like an anglerfish.