Retirement Plans - SCP Foundation

In the Space behind time and the Time between space…

Atop His Throne outside of everything, He sits and watches the world with eyes like burning stars. There is no sound but the whispered melodies of creation, trillions of worlds singing in harmony like a choir of angels.

And in this place of silent sound, He can see all that there is and all that there isn't, and He can feel the Flow between them, the currents that carry the unreal into the real, their endless turbulence birthing myths and monsters. Here, He is free from the illusory time of the mortal world. His time is the True Time, and His space the True Space, in which future curls up into past and potentiality unfolds into actuality.

Any other day He could spend hours listening to the symphonies of existence, but not today. Today, He is looking for something. For someone.

He was getting old. He had been getting old for quite a while now and had recently decided that it was high time to actually be old. His body may be immune to aging, but His mind had grown weary from the weight of untold eons. But before He could settle into eternal retirement, He needed to find someone who could take His place in the cosmos. He needed to find a replacement.

And so, from His Throne outside of everything, He searches for the ripples in reality made by minds that rule matter…

Florida, 2001. A schoolboy misremembers the name of a Founding Father, and history quietly rewrites itself…

France, 1972. At a mental hospital, one patient starts to hear voices… and other people start hearing them too…

England, 1969. A man absent-mindedly climbs into a taxi. He never realizes that he never hailed it. Or that he never told the driver where to go. Or that there's no driver…

New York, 2014. A young girl wishes for a puppy for her birthday. Her parents are surprised by a dog neither of them recognizes…

Poland, 1996. An apartment building mysteriously vanishes when–

His concentration is broken when, abruptly and without warning, the currents all shifted direction. In every place, at every moment, everything in existence is suddenly caught in a colossal tide pool of truth, and in the eye of the storm, a massive concentration of power like a super nova waiting to explode. Something big is about to happen. His plans will have to wait.

Slowly, gracefully, He rises from His Throne, and dips His toes into the Ocean of the Real.

Iceland, 2000

The currents lead Him to the ruins of a hospital in the aftermath of an explosion. In the streets, a crowd of people were standing behind a yellow security cordon, most of them either frantically speaking into cell phones or staring at the still-burning buildings. Behind the tape, rescuers were diligently searching the ruins for survivors who might still be trapped inside. He had seen disaster before, but the sight of such fear and anguish was one that never got any easier to bear.

Most people would probably attribute the destruction to a bomb, but He knew that it wasn't something so mundane. Someone or something had bent reality, drawing an enormous amount of power from all across creation before releasing it all at once. Now, the maelstrom had passed, but He could still sense a massive energy within the ruins, pulsating like a neutron star.

He slipped past the security cordon, drawing no attention to Himself as He did so, and began making His way towards the epicenter of the explosion. He arrived at what had once been the maternity ward. The smoldering remains of hospital beds and equipment lay scattered around a massive crater alongside rubble and charred corpses. His attention was suddenly caught by the soft sound of a child crying.

Moving towards the source of the noise, He discovered an infant, covered in ash and blood, but amazingly unharmed. He gently lifted up the child, cradling her in His arms, and a calmness washes over her. She looked so harmless, delicate and fragile in His arms, but an eldritch glow emanating from her body betrayed unimaginable power.

"Interesting." His voice was deep, like the rolling of distant thunder. It was a voice that could command the sun to rise and set. "It seems this day has blessed me with serendipity." The girls wrapped her tiny hand around His finger, and slowly opens her eyes. And that's when He knew that He had found His replacement.

For in her eyes, He saw stars burning.

Next: First Lessons