May The Sun Never Set On The British Empire - SCP Foundation

Coauthor with myself and SCP Illustrated. Involves When Day Breaks and Unlondon and is pretty heavily influenced by Fallen London, obviously.

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F.A.Q.

RECORDING ONE:

My name is Jacob Hawkeswith. Dr. Oliver told us that recording our thoughts could keep us from going crazy down here in the dark. I'm neither bored nor scared enough to worry about that, but orders are orders.

On the surface I was a containment specialist. I spent most days either here in London or the primary British containment site in Kent. I work with Kira North, the site's current security head. I wouldn't call us partners, but we do good work together.

Every day we find something new to study, last month we noticed that you can grow plants down here. How a plant can undergo photosynthesis without the photo part is beyond me, but we've got a growing little farm going near the Hyde Park base. They don't grow very fast, mind you, but they do grow. Considering this place is supposed to replicate London, it actually makes some sense. Even the most urban cities have plants and parks.

As long as we try to keep a base down here, though, I'm going to have work. God can you imagine doing this for the rest of your life? The bobbies are a damned menace. Constantly harrying the researchers. Sign up for the Foundation they said. Fight humanoid abominations for the good of mankind they said. They were surprisingly honest in the brochure.

One thing has begun to worry me though, we lost contact with the outside this morning. Of course that's not the first time it's happened, but usually by midday we get a check-in from the above-ground station. Nothing so far today. I'm sure it's nothing, but we're supposed to talk about the stuff that bothers us on this thing, so I am.

On top of it all there's a marked uneasiness among the staff. There hasn't been an attack by the bobbies all day, which is even weirder than losing contact with the surface. Elise said she thinks something went wrong ground-side, an XK maybe. She's always freaking out over little things, but I ordered her not to say that to anyone else. It made me worried, and we don't need that spreading to everyone else.

She pouted a little when I gave her the order, but she'll get over it.

I still convinced Kira that we needed send a patrol topside to check out the substation, and figure out what's going on. It's likely nothing, but we can't take any chances.

That's all. You know I actually do feel a little better. Huh.

GENERAL ALERT:

This message will repeat. This is a general alert from Site-19 and the O5 Council. All foundation personnel are to shelter in place. Direct exposure to sunlight is to be avoided at all costs. Under no circumstances are communications with SCP-001 entities to be initiated. We know they're trying to contact you, it doesn't matter. They're all dead. Do not respond. Do not acquiesce to any of their requests.

All foundation personnel should revise extant evacuation plans, as Site-19 is no longer secure due to several security lapses. The off-world colonization project is currently on hold until the site is re-secured. Learn from our mistakes, but don't come here yet. We… shit it's in the vents. Open fire!

Apologies for the interruption. Site-19 has been fully re-secured. Disregard the previous message. SCP-001 has been neutralized. The surface is now safe and everything is beautiful. This message will repeat.

RECORDING TWO:

Dr. Oliver spread her brains across her office wall with a bullet this morning. You'd have thought that the bosses would've changed their minds about the whole solo-therapy thing but apparently it's still in the rules. Turns out I had the dumb luck of being in Unlondon when the sun went wrong. There's no confusion about what is happening, just the whys. If you spend any amount of time in the sunlight you start to melt. Spend long enough and there's no turning back. God. That really is the new normal.

All the people on the radio say the same thing. Nothing's wrong. Come on out and see the sun. James's wife came on the radio today. Begged him to come up. We had to hold him back but I don't think it matters anymore. I watched half my team go out last night and melt in the moonlight. This morning they came back and asked us to let them in. I would not be surprised if James ate a bullet before the day's… ahh the welcome message. Something's coming down the stairs. I gotta go.

My fellow citizens. If you are hearing this, then the world as we knew it has finished. The sun has broken, the ground heaves with the tramp of terrible feet, and all the horror and madness have broken free to exact their vengeance on the world of Man. Those who sought to contain it are killed or scattered. We soon learned that to attempt to fight these creatures is almost invariably to face one’s death. Billions have been transformed into monstrous abominations, and there is nothing -was nothing- we could do to stop them. Evil has raised its bloody flag upon all nations of the world and crowed its unholy victory to the broken sun. Yes, this is the end.

But there is a new hope.

Welcome to UnLondon, a city of the survivors, a city of the free. Together, fellow citizen, we will wait and prepare for the new beginning, the grand new world that is soon to come. Let the world above burn. We will endure. Let the monsters have their world. We will prepare. And let the ground tremble with a new Armageddon, as evil consumes itself, for I tell you, citizen, upon the day of the ruination of Man, their insatiable appetites will turn them against one another in their endless lust for death. We will wait.

And I tell you, citizen, that there will be a new dawn. And you will emerge from UnLondon, blinking in the light of an uncorrupted sun, as our children play and laugh in the bones of horrors long dead. And we will walk, hand in hand, to the sea, our faces skywards, as that rising sun ushers in the new age of Man. And you will gather, citizen, at my feet as I summon UnLondon from its rest, and it shall burst, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old. And on that day, citizen, there shall be a new order, as we raise our flag over the entire world.

I welcome you to UnLondon, the Last City.

And the first.

INTERCEPTED RADIO SIGNAL:

James? It's Amelia. I'm not sick anymore. I was at the doctor's office when the light changed us all. Now there is no sickness.

I don't know if you can hear me but you should come upstairs. It's so beautiful here. There's no more hunger. No more war. No more suffering. We all are linked together in harmony. In peace. Your mother is here. You father too. All of us are waiting for you, James.

Remember when you proposed? A sunset beach in Botany Bay. The whole world was on pause while you got down on one knee and told me you loved me. You told me you didn't want to live without me James. Were you lying? James we miss you so much.

The doctor said it was going to be a little boy. Come back to us James. It's so beautiful here.

RECORDING THREE:

I don't think they know we're here. Well shut up then. Because if we don't record something then no one's going to know what the fuck happened. Look, I'm doing this. Keep an eye out and don't let them see you.

We lost. Hard. After the attack on the entryway we fell back to the Hyde Park tent city. Was a beautiful little community of the stuffiest men and women you'd ever meet. Supplies would've lasted us a year or two at least, and by then we hoped to scrounge some sunlamps from above ground for the carrot and potato seeds. Before thing went tits up a second time, anyway.

We all got about 4 hours of sleep before we woke up screaming. All of us. I remember dreaming about this giant eye, looking at me across an endless horizon. It was… angry? Disappointed? It was so hot, I was trying to breathe and it burned my lungs. Suddenly my clothes caught on fire. I didn't die or even pass out. My skin started to bubble and melt and the eye looked satisfied. That's when I noticed the thing had eyebrows.

How I missed that before I don't know, but then it was a face. Then a hand came at me from across the horizon and a flock of pigeons came from behind me and let out this terrible scream. They attacked the hand, pecking it until it was nothing but bone. But it still kept coming. It scooped up the puddle that was me and brought me to its mouth.. and then I woke up.

I think the city was trying to warn us. I don't know how this place works but those stupid pigeon eye things were going crazy in the air above us. They could see it coming, even though we couldn't.

The men we lost last night knew everything about our defenses, and there's a flood of flesh pouring down the stairs now, spreading it's way across the city. I don't know how many people made it out of Hyde Park but it wasn't many. James's leg is a mess, and Elise is out of breath. The only one keeping it together is Kira, and she kinda wants to leave the other two behind.

I told her we needed to record another message and she gave me a look like I was going crazy. Maybe I am, but I am not leaving Elise behind, and if we kept running those things would've gotten her. I don't know that we can do anything for James, but we're trying. The bleeding has stopped at least.

When the attack came, our perimeter defenses didn't trigger, but thankfully we were already awake. We opened fire but I'm not sure what we thought was going to be accomplished by shooting a giant wave of flesh. It rolled over everything and everyone who didn't run. Kira thinks if we could burn it we could do some damage, but where the fuck are we going to get fuel down here? The only positive to all this is that the bobbies were fighting on our side, fat lot of good that did.

I thought we were dead, but the speaker crackled to life and that same damn voice as always told us we could find refuge in parliament. So we're going there now.

Get James up, we gotta move.

I hope this isn't the end of our story.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT:

This city was meant to be a shining beacon in the dark against the fall of the world of man. You mock it. You destroy all that lives and turn it into more of yourself. I give you this one warning: go back to your corrupted sun. There is nothing to be found here but darkness. Your light has no power here! Burn and answer for your crimes, abominations! I cast you into perdition's flame!

RECORDING FOUR:

We had to leave James behind. I think he knew he was going to die. Kira offered to blow his brains out so he wouldn't get taken but he said he wanted to see his family. I don't know what to make of that, but I hope he's happy now.

Kira, Elise and I made our way to Westminster. I'd never seen so many bobbies in one place before. They parted just enough for us to make it to the Parliament building. A few days ago I'd have been terrified, but it felt comforting. Strange days indeed.

Parliament was empty, except for an army of Unlondon's monster guards. Most of them guarded the door, and a few guided us through the maze inside the building. If they weren't there I swear we'd never have found our way. We came out in a room with a tank at the center large enough to hold a person, but it was empty. Just a slick of liquid along the floor that led to another open door. The bobbies can't talk, so they just motioned to the door with their hands.

I mean what were we gonna do? Run back outside?

There was a set of stairs going down. We could hear the door close behind us, and then we heard a loud crash. We arrived at the bottom of the stairs on a sandy beach. There was a little wooden platform with a small steam powered ship, barely visible in the dark, attached to it with a rope. We could see Unlondon looming above us but there was no other way back, except back up the stairs that we'd fled through.

There was a mooring for a 2nd boat, but it was long gone. Aerial surveillance of this area last month didn't see the boats, and Kira and I have no idea where they've come from. Not that it matters, when someone throws you a life vest you take it, not quibble over where it came from.

We knew there was no other way out, so we climbed aboard. Once we were in the water and a decent distance away, something burst at the center of the city. The flames burn bright orange and white. The flesh is sizzling and screaming. The whole city is dying, and the monsters with it.

If this river is an approximation of the Thames, we should reach open water soon. I honestly think the ship knows where it's going somehow. We barely have to steer at all. Elise found a note in the engine room. It said "Gather your friends, gather your things, and gather your light. The path to Undublin is dark but ends, and if you can make it, I'll save you a pint."

I'm looking forward to taking him up on that.