Fifty thousand, eight hundred and ninety six. - SCP Foundation

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Red Sun Reunion Series

Broken Dagger Under a Bleeding Sun

My name is Atlas Keyestone. I have been alive for one hundred thousand and forty two years.

And there isn't a bone in my body that doesn't wish I could die.

I suppose I can, actually. The problem is that every time I do, I wake back up on my first day working for the foundation. Fifty thousand eight hundred and ninety six years ago, I met someone just like me. Kyle Hill. And I loved him. Everything about him. And he loved me too. One thousand, eight hundred and four years ago, I lost him.

I woke up, and went to meet him in Site-19's greenhouse. We always met there. Every new life. But as I stepped towards the door, the sun streaming in through the glass behind him changed. It broke. In front of my eyes, the only person who I truly loved anymore melted into wax.

He had died in front of me before. The next day, I killed myself. But when I went to the greenhouse that morning, he wasn't there. He was never there again. The sun took him from me.

In the expanse of the Mojave desert, there's a hole. Anything that goes through it goes to another world. I figure that if I throw myself into it enough times, that one day I'll get back to the world with the broken sun.

For nine hundred and sixty seven years I have done nothing but try. The first few times, I died in the process. But my body adapted. Now, after almost a millennia, I have it down to routine. In front of me, my supplies are spread out. I double check that everything is there.

My cigarettes, lighter, rifle, and ammunition sit besides my duffle bag. Also there are several items of a more sentimental value. My duffel bag is torn, with patchwork sewing to fix more major holes. The duffel bag is the only thing that follows me through lives. I don't know why. I don't know why any of this happens.

Maybe it's a cruel joke. Maybe it's some divine punishment. Maybe I'm just really damn unlucky. I pack the stuff into my bags, and don the almost seven layers of clothes I bring with me each and every time. I grab my rifle. A Winchester model 1866 lever-action. I bought it eighty thousand, nine hundred years ago.

As my car approaches the perimeter fence, I pull up alongside the gate guard. As I roll down the window on my 2010 Toyota Tacoma, I see the fear in his eyes. My trigger finger is quick. Perfected after years and years of the same routine. The round is fast. .44 caliber. It explodes through his skull, sending a pink mist spraying behind him. I have about two minutes before the three other guards in the barracks arm up and respond. The one in the watchtower is already firing shots at my truck.

I hop out, moving behind a concrete barrier. After thirty shots, he crouches down to reload. I take the opportunity to aim my rifle. When he pops up, I fire. The round travels through his chest, puncturing a lung. I pull a Keycard out of my wallet, one of a dozen that I have on my person. None of them mine. I swipe it through the reader on the gate. It pings, and the gate slides open.

I trudge through, seeing the hole before me. Open and wide like some dreadful maw in the earth. Ready to swallow me whole once again. Without thinking twice, I step inside, and fall.

fall

fall

fall

fall

fall

fall

fall

fall

And then I land. And the sun is red.