What Does Not Rot - SCP Foundation

As the horses’ hooves were rhythmically pounding on the cobbles of the street, a bulky man in a bulkier coat sat far behind them at the end of the cab. To the other passengers’ discomfort, his figure occupied the seat for its whole width and his head almost reached up to the walls and the roof. He had a hat as wide as his shoulders which cast his face in total darkness if not for a long and narrow white beard descending all the way to his belly. His fellow travellers, two men, a woman and her child, couldn’t help to not only feel overwhelmed by his size, but also by his faint murmuring, not for a second since he stepped in the cab had he relaxed his vocal chords, instead he left his lips drifting as they were afloat of a river of never-ending words.

The murmur was unintelligible and mystifying to the ears of all. So that the woman saw her child being distraught and asked the man if he could stop, from under the coat he raised a slim and jewelled hand to give her a signal of his comprehension and lowered the tone of his voice but still, kept it alive.

The woman then reached her free hand to the stranger’s face in an attempt to uncover his face from under the hat, but a voice stopped her from behind, it was the cab driver speaking and they said: “Dont you try, he paid extra to not be disturbed, have you done so?”

The woman felt irritated and while cradling her kid she protested: “How come you let foreigners bother us citizens with all of their weirdness just ‘cause they paid you more? Is this just? I feel like these fine men much like me feel disturbed by this gibberish. I’d like to leave this cab right now!”

After a few seconds of silence, if that it could be called, the man in the coat finally raised his voice to express understandable words: “No need for that ma’am, my destination isn’t much far and I’m sure that my feet are more than able to bring me where I wish.”

The whole cab including the driver was left astonished by his deep and soothing voice, though they couldn’t tell why exactly With much struggle the stranger reached the exit and gave his thanks to the driver, refusing to receive part of the gold he had paid in return for the unfinished serviced and reassuring them that his clothing was warm enough to keep him safe from the cold of the winter. Only once the horses took back their steady pace to the point of covering the stranger's unending words, one of the men pinned down what had amazed him about the weird man’s voice. Though he spoke aloud, the chant still hadn’t stopped for a second.

The man now walked the streets, leaving deep prints on the carpet of snow that had overcome them. His eyes were fixed upon the road ahead, but soon his attention was taken by the smallest of spots in the corner of his vision. He turned his head to see them better and discovered them to be two little children faintly trembling under the rain of snowflakes.

The two, a boy and a girl, soon awoke in the embrace of a warm fur, surrected by a strong arm each. They looked up to their savior and saw the hard and wrinkled face of a meagre old man “Do not get too deep in the mantle. You won’t rise up again.” He said while his lips were still chanting.

The two kids then, not complaining of the newfound comfort, started to look around and saw the houses moving past as the man was still walking forward “Where are you taking us?” asked the girl, “My destination is now near, we will reach it and stay there for a while, then I’ll take you somewhere warm.”

He answered. Then the boy, taking notice of the endless chant coming from the man’s mouth asked: “Are you a singer? What is this song? I’ve never heard it.”

The man, with eyes still unmoving from the road, said: “This is not a song, it’s a prayer.”

To which the girl said: “We too pray often, but never have heard these words, what are they?”.

The man answered: “They are from Farsi, a language now long gone like many more.” “And to which Saint are you praying?” they asked, almost in unison.

“I pray to the soul of Faruk Abedi, who died in the Great Breach.”

The children were silent, none dared to speak after hearing that infamous calamity they so much heard about. They sat quietly and comfortably in the embrace of that soft fur. They let loose their minds once occupied by the harshness of the cold night. The steps of the man and the crunch of the snow were the sole sounds in the scene obviously accompanied by the ever-lasting chant.

Noticing that the man was taking them far from the fortified town and into a land of more and more scattered houses, the girl grew curious once again and asked the man: “Why did you pick us up?”

The man first stayed in a state that couldn’t be defined as quiet, but then brought himself to answer: “For you didn’t deserve to die there freezing, nor in any other gruesome way. None of you deserved what was unleashed upon them.”

Then the boy went: “So you pray this Faruk? To protect us?”

The man shook his head and responded: “He’s but one of many that perished in the Breach. Yesterday I prayed to Jonalyn Ocampo and tomorrow I plan to pray to Ernest Kühn. So will be for each day.”

The boy didn’t feel his question to had been answered, but before he could speak out the girl interrupted: “What are all these names? Are they perished? Did they deserve to?” the stranger didn’t answer yet, instead he kept on walking as he filled the air with his murmuring.

Finally, they reached what the children could swear was another town and the man ventured within it until he reached a snow-covered graveyard. There, positioning himself so to have all of the ghastly tombstones under his eye, he knelt down and started chanting as loud as he ever did.

Sensing his companions to have now grown to be afraid of their saviour, he finally answered the question: “The truth is, they are indeed all perished and long forgotten by this world. Some of them didn’t deserve to die, some did, but none deserved to go the way they did.” A long pause intercurred “So no one deserves to die a victim of this world, as I find myself to have their blood on my many hands.”

The children at that point had gotten more perplexed than ever, but every question they could have asked had been truncated by a sudden yell coming from behind them.

“Fend off beast!“ the man raised himself on his feet and turned to face the source of such sound. It was two figures shrouded in black cloth and iron, the last of which engraved with the sigil of the three spears piercing a round shield; both drew a lance each and one of them, indiscernible who it came from, proclaimed: “Surrender to the will of the Holy Foundation and let go those children, you creature.”

The man, his expression impossible to pin down as it was overshadowed by the large hat, did so and brought the children to the ground in a gentle manner. One of the guards made a sign for him to get closer to which he simply answered “No.”

Once the blades of the guards’ weapons were raised in response to his defiance, he did nothing but spread open his mantle to unfold a myriad of limbs of various sizes, colors, shapes and nature, two of these, the only ones that seemed to belong to shoulders, were frail, pale and joined in an unending prayer, a symbol not unlike the guard’s etched on the chest underneath them.

As the weapons were lowered, a hand emerged from the mangle, it displayed a mouth on its palm and with a voice familiar to the scared children it spoke: “To atone for the world I gave you, I decided upon singing a prayer, all day, and each day for one of the numerous fallen, in the hope that they are somewhere where I can be heard and that at least one of them, may grant me forgiveness. I only ask for you to take upon yourselves the care of these two children and to leave my mourning.”

The guards were now shaken by an uncontrollable sense of both dread and wonder in front of such a vision, they walked near the man without showing any fear under their helmets and taking the two children under their mantle. Then, each with their own kid, walked to the sides of the graveyard to let the man, once again fully covered by his coat, walk through the rusted gate that led to the cemetery.

As the man set foot on the now hardened snow of the streets, the girl asked: “And once you’ll have mourned for all that died? Will you stop?”

The man didn’t turn to face her, instead he kept on walking and answered: “Then I would have mourned all that died in the Great Breach, then I’ll mourn for every person that has died in this new world.”

The four attendees kept on staring at him until his figure vanished in the snowfall and left only when the chanting too could no longer be discerned.