Sunfire - SCP Foundation

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. ███████