The Death Of Marilla Vega - SCP Foundation

The Death of Marilla Vega

Three years ago….

Marilla Vega stood over her patient, gently moving her thin, pale fingers in a slow, fluttering motion. Estrella, her daughter, stood silent in the corner of the cold laboratory, watching with intent - the man’s eyelids were half-mast, entranced at the gesture. Marilla's nails were black, painted with small starry flecks.

Estrella's mind flitted between scientist and witch watching her work - the lab coat with the black dress underneath. The sleek hair pulled to her scalp, with her wild silver eyes.

It was the first time in months Estrella had been permitted to join Marilla with her work - Estrella wasn't sure why her invitations were so sporadic. Certainly, patients often raised an eyebrow at the presence of the young, painfully thin blonde standing rigid in the corner. But that was solved quickly with the excuse of internships or the like.

Marilla spoke, voice firm yet smooth as liquid silver. “Comets are made from ice, frozen rock. Cold as a storm.” She moved her hand in a circle. “You’re in the Kuiper Belt - light-years away. That’s where you are now. That’s your home.”

Estrella had seen Marilla do this before, but it still was… otherworldly. The way her words seemed to fold time and space into itself, to magnet you to the words. It was the only time they’d ever felt impactful. That distance, the sheer vastness of space hit Estrella’s chest, leaving behind a gaping crater of wonder.

“Comets move in, traveling across the orbits. Pluto, Neptune, Uranus. Counting down across time,” her eyes carried a haunting gleam.

She was not of this world anymore, not when she was like this. “The stars will die. But first will you.”

The man sucked in a breath, shuddering as he tried to breathe. A distant, lone smile carved itself into Marilla’s lips. “The heat burns you, doesn’t it? You’re scared of the sun, aren’t you? You hide yourself in the clouds of asteroid belts, but you are not strong enough to stay. You are no longer a rock. You are no longer a complete being. You are only worth the dust in your core.”

The man seized twice, head snapping back. Marilla swirled her fingers quickly, leaning closer, as a horrible burning smell shot from his skin. His flesh pulled away in threads, vaporizing into ionized strands of light. Marilla grasped onto one of the three long strands that extended from him, pulling it around her finger. “I am your sun.”

Tears streamed down his cheeks, but they barely had time to form before even his eyes were burned away into ash. Deep in his chest, a glowing pulse began to form. The strong beating nucleus of the comet. “You have no more mass. You have no more density. You are the space between. You are a weapon,” she whispered. “This is your punishment.”

She touched into his chest, the thick gelatinous coma of flesh and organs, and his breathing fell still, as he was sucked into her orbit. The comet tails of his body struggled to slip away from her, but Marilla persisted, grabbing onto them to hold him down.

Plunging her hand into his chest, she grabbed his heart and squeezed. It twitched as she pulled it out, cooling rapidly into a sharp golden orb. Marilla’s molten silver eyes locked onto it, hunger and fascination twin serpents coiling in her own core.

The man hovered for a moment longer, then folded into himself, disappearing in a black cloud of stars and devoured light.

“Now, that went well,” Marilla commented, after her breathing had cooled. “Not even a solar flare, if you noticed.”

Estrella nodded stiffly, her heart thudding against her ribs with a fervor. “R-right.”

She wasn't sure how her mother found her patients, or if any of them knew what she did. Her experiments were more about making things work, not how it got there.

Marilla smiled then, purposefully, a rare thing with an equally serpentine quality. Her dark, silver-streaked hair was beginning to fray from its tight bun. Estrella had decided, some time long ago, that this was her approximation of motherly approval.

“Next time, I’d like you to try.” And then, with a flap of her lab coat and the click tap of dark green heels, she was gone.

Estrella followed her from the lab.

Breaking News: NEW ENGLAND SOCIALITE DEAD AT 62, DAUGHTER TO INHERIT MULTI-MILLION TECH EMPIRE

Reported by Rosa Haroldson, The Boston Globe

At 8:32 AM, October 12th, 2021, Lightspeed Incorporated CEO Dr Marilla Vega was found dead in her home. The cause of death has been determined to have been the result of a stroke. Police were first called to the scene after a call was made by Estrella Vega, Marilla’s 23-year-old daughter. Dr Vega’s family company, Lightspeed Incorporated, has been left to Estrella as specified in her will. As of now, Vega’s net worth has been estimated at 16.4 million dollars. No official statement has been issued by the family as of now…

Estrella

My Mum just died.

We’re going to ignore that. We’re going to skip the part where I find her dead body on the floor, and there’s a rush of emotions and confusion and panicked voices over the phone.

We’re going to skip to 2 days later.

That’s when the article went out.

I adjusted the cream faux-fur coat around my shoulders. White mini-boots, a white skirt and blouse. It wasn’t a mourning outfit, but then again, in “the Vega tech empire”, as the Globe called it, dark colours were only for the adults…

… which is me, now that my Mum’s gone.

I’m adding that to the long, long list of things that I don’t want to think about.

“Ms. Vega?” Thomas, my mother’s boytoy handmaiden personal assistant asked. He was in a dark suit.

“Time to see Satan?” I ask, trying to attempt the single-brow-raise that I had not been practising in the mirror.

He paused, face blank. “We’re going to drive out to see your financial advisor. Mr. Novak is going to help you sort out the assets your mother left to you.”

“That’s what I meant, Tom,” I stood, slinging my purse over my shoulder - Triple Threads Inc, designer like everything else. “Let’s just move fast.”

He nodded briskly, and we headed out the large glass doors of the penthouse apartment, into the equally glassy elevators, and down to the main lobby. A small gathering of press - not as large as a celebrity might have, but annoying nonetheless - had gathered at the entrance. Taking a breath and squaring my shoulders, we moved through.

“So, your mother thankfully left very clear specifications on how she wanted everything to be handled, and her documents were all incredibly well-organised, so on a management front, you shouldn’t have to worry about much- Ms Vega, are you paying attention?”

No. No, I was not. “Uh…” I blinked, trying to figure out how to respond. I had no problems with lying to people - it’s one of my charming personality quirks. Keeping a cool and mysterious persona by never having a factually consistent one - though, that could have already been achieved by my lack of stable hobbies as well.

But I normally lied for fun. This wasn’t fun. “No. No, I was not.”

Thomas took a long breath through his nose, closing his eyes. “Estrella, please. This is important.”

“It’s not exactly my fault I can’t focus,” I shrugged. “Look, if you just sent me this in an email I could actually sit and process it.”

Thomas and Finances exchanged a look. I didn’t care about Finance’s name, honestly, though I’m sure it’d been mentioned.

“Ms Vega, please-”

“My Mum just died, like, two days ago goddamnit. Show a little empathy, would it kill you?” I couldn’t tell whether I meant it, or whether I was playing the card for sympathy to get them off my back.

Probably the latter.

I hadn’t cried since they took away the body.

“Right,” Finance’s face fell. “I’m so sorry. Of course, if it really is necessary, we can reschedule this for anothe-”

“No,” I snapped. “Just. Let’s get this done.” No use putting it off.

So we talked about money.

Lightspeed Incorporated - the multi-million tech empire founded by my great-great-Grandfather. Known to the public as developing space tech - which to the news, means we basically are a private-owned NASA. I don't know if this is right. My Mom wasn't big on open and honest communication. Her type was more "twice a month traumatising meetings".

I really don’t want anything to do with this.

But also: did I ever have a choice?

Fuck no.

Jacqueline Priscilla Vega is my cousin, my best friend, and a complete wreck of a person. Thankfully, I’ll take messy over boring any day.

She was standing in the foyer of our house (Well. Mansion.) when I arrived, dressed head to toe in blue plaid, dark hair in a tight bun behind her head. “You’re too late,” she observed, tone flat and subdued as usual. She held a cup of coffee in her hand. “I got bored from being left alone and poured hot sauce into my coffee from your kitchen. This is your fault. So how did the meeting go?”

I sighed. “You know you could just… not drink it?”

Jackie took a long sip of the coffee, never breaking eye contact, then paused. “I could.”

We walked inside, ducking into the games room and settling down at the ping pong table in the centre. Constellations were painted on the dark green walls, making the room into a Slytherin-themed star chart. Jackie hit the ball to me. I slammed it back. We started.

“So. How did it go?”

Ping.

“Bad,” I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to figure out what the best angle would be to hit it back.

Pong.

“Were you a bitch to everyone in the room, or did you at least try to play nice?”

Ping.

“There was only one guy,” I smacked it back, and Jackie watched it bounce, and hit the wall to her right, missing her paddle entirely. Picking it up, she wordlessly set up the next serve, while I cheered out the score.

“Oh. So you were a bitch to him, I’m guessing.” Smack.

“Yep.”

Jackie sighed, as she parried, moving stiffly and jerkily, a little like a mannequin. She was built oddly, kind of crammed together. One of her legs was shorter than the other, I knew, and one of her heels was extra-thick to balance it out. It was one of the many quirks that I’d memorised about her.

“How’s Tony?” I asked, trying to flip the subject back to her. She raised a single eyebrow - I know what you’re trying to do - but responded anyway.

“He stole a motorcycle last night. He said he’d take me out on a ride sometime,” she said, a little wistful. “He’s got a new phone, so we stayed up talking last night. It was great.”

Tony was now Jackie’s boyfriend of two years, and proudly called himself a “male gold digger”. Gap-toothed and greasy haired, he was an odious rat of a man, and therefore, the perfect prince charming in Jackie’s eyes. I had decided long ago that it was better to just find it interesting, instead of concerning, like much of the Jackie-isms I’d had to accept.

I expected her to continue on a rant detailing their conversation, but instead, she vollied the ball - and the conversation - back to me. “Why not just make this into one of your new projects. The whole money thing.” I missed the ball, in surprise. “What?”

“1-1,” Jackie noted softly, waiting patiently for me to re-serve it. I did, then sighed. “I can’t just make myself invest in something. It doesn’t work like that. And you know I’ll get bored after a month anyways, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“You could use the month to fake your own death. Set up plans,” she observed. I gave her a look. “Now that’s just ridiculous.”

“You’re rich enough to get away with it. Why not.” Despite the string of questions, her voice never raised in tone or pitch, staying a flat murmur.

“No,” I shook my head, firmly.

“How much longer on the puzzles, you think?”

My latest project had been puzzles - so far, I’d finished and framed 32, the first one a simple 500 piece, the latest a 2000 piece monstrosity shaped like the moon, with rounded pieces that were near-impossible to discern from one another. “Probably until I finish the solar system. I did the moon last night, so… I think it’s just Eris and Galatea.”

Jackie made an amused noise. “And you say that I’m ridiculous. Maybe now that you’re in charge of LightSpeed, you can get them to run a study on you.”

“I’m not going to get an astrophysicist to tell me I have ADHD,” I hit the ball back, knocking the very edge. Jackie barely caught it in time.

“My brother has ADHD. He’s relatively normal. You disturb me immensely.” I snorted at her emotionless delivery of the statements.

“So I’m an anomaly to you, because I do puzzles?” I asked, smirking.

“No. You’re an anomaly to me because you do puzzles to a degree which humans shouldn’t do puzzles.”

I looked at her, wincing slightly, and missing the ball again. If only she knew.

“2-1,” she stated.

One week from today, I was going to have my first appointment. I’d only done it twice before, and neither had gone well - the first time, a sudden total solar eclipse over New England, that nearly got us exposed. The second time, a particularly bad solar flare.

And that was with my Mum helping.

This was going to be completely flying solo.