The Man Who Sold The World - SCP Foundation

The man who would one day be known as Savior awoke in a field of corpses. The ground was hidden beneath the carpet of blood and flesh. Men, women and children lay slaughtered, stacked upon each other like discarded trash. He looked down at himself. His naked body was stained red with blood. It didn’t seem to be his.

He stood in the gap between two buildings, larger than any he had ever seen, seemingly tall enough to scrape heaven itself. The night air was thick with the smell of rot and pollution. As he looked around, flashes of memory came to him. A ship on a raging sea. A serpent whose coils stretched across an entire countryside. A mad Queen putting thousands to death with a word. And his name- Alarath, Seventh Scholar-Lord of the Daeva empire. But nothing of where he was, or how he had come to be here.

Alarath knelt down to examine the closest body. The flesh was maimed almost beyond recognition, but the wounds were unlike any he had seen before. Dozens of small holes covered the skin, too round and even to be stab wounds. He turned the body over and saw dozens of similar injuries. What weapon could have caused this? He moved to the next body. It too was mutilated by the strange injuries.

An object among the corpses caught his attention. He pulled a bloodstained brown bag between two bodies. A white card was attached to the end. It read, in a language he didn’t recognize but could somehow understand, “We hope these will guide you in your journey towards truth.” He turned the card over. Drawn on the back was the image of a slit-pupiled eye.

The bag had two drawstrings that he used to pull it open. Out spilled a bundle of black clothing and two sheathed daggers. He ran his fingers through the cloth. It was finer than any he had seen in his time with the Daeva, light and soft. Embroidered on the breast of the shirt was the same slit-pupiled eye as the card. He pulled the outfit on. Its folds caught the starlight, shimmering as the cloth moved. He turned to the daggers, taking one in his hand. It felt perfectly balanced in his grip. He gave a few tentative thrusts, and it felt like moving an extension of his arm. He unsheathed it and gently pressed his thumb to the blade. When he drew the finger away, he saw a line of thin blood.

The sound of shattering of glass made him look up. Two youths stood at the entrance of the alleyway, staring at him with wide eyes. They held glass bottles, and were dressed in garishly colored clothing styled unlike any armor Alarath had seen before. Before they could react, he rushed forward. He grabbed one by the collar, slamming him against the building. He placed his dagger at the throat of the other.

“Where am I?” He growled. The words that came from his throat were not the Daeva tongue, but he understood their meaning. Another mystery to unravel.

The youth he held began to babble. “Please please please, I just wanted to grab a drink, please just please, let me go I’m sorry please-“

Alarath looked between them and snorted in disgust. He dropped his hands. The freed youths scrambled away. Clearly this place did not know how to train their men properly. No matter. He would find answers some other way. He thought of the note on the bag. A journey towards truth? A pleasing thought. He would find their truth. Then he would slay those that brought him here.

The man who had once been known as Destroyer took his first steps into a new world.

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