Though I Know Not What You Are, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star - SCP Foundation

WARNING: אK SCENARIO IN PROGRESS

To all remaining Foundation employees,

In accordance with O5 Council mandate 3731-Ov627, Procedure 99-LILAC has been activated as the final line of defense against the ongoing TPK-Class ("Thaumaturgic Proliferation") Scenario. The procedure involves the detonation of multiple Thaumobaric Stratosphere Clustercharge Munitions over Earth's remaining landmasses outside of the Orange Zone. As such all personnel are to report to the lowest sublevel of their respective facility immediately for the highest likelihood of survival.

Completion of this procedure will result in the cessation of the current TPK-Class Scenario and the creation of an אK-Class ("Foundation Apotheosis") Scenario, where all living humans are under the control of the SCP Foundation. Due to this, personnel meeting the requirements outlined in Document-31459 are asked to report to their immediate superiors for participation in post-procedural political structures.

All Foundation sites still capable of broadcasting will repeat this message until Procedure 99-LILAC's completion.

Normalcy will prevail.

T-Plus Thirty Minutes

It was a cool February evening when the last rat cleared the burrow. Doctor Xander Moore, as he'd once been known, stepped out of Provisional Containment Area-13 onto a windswept plateau.

He looked down at the pistol he was so tightly clutching, only to find an utter lack of anything left. The Old World had gone silent whilst the New still persisted in the hazy horizons beyond existence.

Rationality had been preserved in the face of madness, it seemed. The sands were blasted a meaningless beige and the faint hum of the bombs still persisted in his ears. The sun was setting, hanging full and low in a sky shaded with a brilliant orange glow. Dr. Moore sat down and watched the sun fade away from the rocks.

The land was dead but unlike the rest of PCA-13, at least the Mojave Desert died normal.

He smiled, for normalcy had won against her enemies. Now all that was left was for her champions to rebuild the world.

Nothing was left outside but tomorrow's glory; Dr. Moore slowly forced his way to an upright position. and limped his way back to PCA-13. He was going to find somewhere he could rest. Not many men could say they survived the apocalypse.

Tomorrow, when he awoke, the sun would rise on a humanity finally free of insanity.

T-Plus Fifteen Hours

When the sun rose for the first time on the logical world, Dr. Moore had already been awake for several hours. His sleep had been erratic— fleeting glimpses of rest scattered among tumultuous hours laying on the floor of his cubicle. But he'd put himself to work, gathering what he could find of the rations. Most of PCA-13 had collapsed into the mesa around him, a mixed blessing. Nothing would have survived that. Human or otherwise.

He worked in the dark, the site's generator long since fallen into the abyss. The sinks were left running, damned to fill as many water bottles as possible before the water supply gave out.

That happened far too soon.

He estimated he had maybe a week's worth of water, a few days' supply of food. It would last longer if it was rationed. He could get by on a meal a day, humanity depended on him— the new world depended on him.

Dr. Moore's days slipped into a constant routine of slipping down abysmally dark hallways; the headlights of his coworkers' SEGURO suits lighting the way; as if ghostly streetlights lining an abandoned dirt road. Maybe he could find a backup generator somewhere in the dark and heat of the tunnels. If he could, he might even be able to contact others. He couldn't be the last normal. He refused to be. Humanity would thrive on this new world, that he was sure of.

He couldn't be stumbling deaf, mute and blind into a useless cycle.

T-Plus Four Days

Fresh from another day of fruitless searching, Dr. Xander Moore limped out of the elevator shaft and out onto the rocky outcropping. The sun swelled low in the western sky. It had become routine for him to watch the sunset, witnessing the orange glows of the early evening fade away to shades of dusky lavender.

He gazed onward as the setting sun slowly slipped away beneath the horizon, leaving a hazy, azure butterfly to hang far above. Its great wings flitted softly across the final twilight, floating lazily upwards along a gentle stream to unseen stars. Its eyes — kind, infinite, and wise in their gaze — met Dr. Moore's on a rock positioned high above the Mojave sands.

Rage consumed him. This thing had destroyed humanity, corrupted them until there was no choice, nothing left for the defenders of normalcy to do than drop the bombs. Now it was off to bastardize another society somewhere in the stars. He said nothing and yet he screamed the words out to all that could have been had it never rested down on this boundless well of potential that was Earth.

For a moment, it lingered up there. Dr. Moore felt its impossible gaze slipping into his very soul until all he could feel was the creature's response. Its last words to a world ascended. They were words of pride — of wonder at humanity's potential, at their ascension. Then phrases tinged with a quiet anguish, sorrow at the devastation their gift had wrought. All rushing down onto him like the drizzling rains from a world gone beautiful.

Then the empyrean left too. He was alone again on the world's drifting carcass.

T-Plus Five Days

The ten-oh-clock sun beat down onto the Mojave scrublands as Dr. Moore picked leaves off the brush around him. His ever-dwindling stock of rations finally existed only in the dusty confines of his memory. Shrubbery, it seemed, was going to be his only form of sustenance until he could get into the rest of PCA-13. It was painfully ironic, the new age of rationality starting with a man picking leaves off bushes to eat.

He'd given up the quest for the backup generator. He had enough water for a few more days. All that mattered was moving forward, restoring a Foundation their descendants could build off of. A return to society.

He reached out to grab a leaf just slightly beyond his reach, then his body collapsed into the dust.

His body seized and Dr. Moore found himself incapable of moving his arms. Wracked with weakness, he tried to crawl forward, back to the safety of PCA-13. He couldn't die! He was going to save humanity! They would reclaim the Earth, then they would vanquish the cosmos! With a final burst of strength, he forced himself upwards. he stood, taking a few, stumbling steps until his vision grew blurry. Fuzzy shadows ate away at the sides of his sight-line until all he could see was a beautiful lilac floating in the breeze before him.

It danced in the wind, its petals swirling back and forth with poise and grace. He reached out and found his body was his again, strong and powerful. The lilac came to a rest in the palm of his hand before a gentle breeze picked up and carried it away again. For a brief moment Xander Moore felt a sense of peace with the world. Behind him, he could hear something hit against the dusty scrub-lands beneath his feet.

Under the noontime Mojave sun, Xander let the past go and followed the lilac in the wind to a cleaner world.