To End All Endings - Vol. 2 - SCP Foundation

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Previously

…

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

- Matthew 24:29 ESV

…

”Why do you even care what I think anyway? I don’t give a crap if you covered yourself in peanut butter and had a fifteen-hooker gang-bang!”

- Adam Stanheight

…

”What can I say to convince you or do to make you agree with me?

”I don’t need you to be with me

”Just try to remember what you’d see in me!

”I’m just a little bit crazy ’bout you!

”Just a little bit out of my mind!

”Just a little insane without you,

”Please come back and be just a little bit mine!

”… oh, just a little bit mine…”

-Excerpt of [Cover This Song!] Just A Little Bit Mine by Will Wood and the Tapeworms

…

Can't fit round pegs in square holes.

- Excerpt CODENAME Ihp/Locke: Keter Duty File

…

*

*

*

CHAPTERS

Prologue

Now

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

On a Cold Autumn Night

Now

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

On a Cold Autumn Night

Now

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

On a Cold Autumn Night

Now

On a Cold Autumn Night

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

SITE-62C SECURITY CAM FOOTAGE

Epilogue

*

*

*

*

Now

*

The sky was broken, tinted into a deep red. The sun was pitch black. There were acid clouds on the horizon.

*

The clouds poured their hydrochloric contents from high above, scorching everything living or not into a bloody pulp. The air reeked of caustic chemicals, small droplets of the acid slowly seeping their way through the cavern’s ceiling.

Ramone looked onto the shattered crimson horizon, their lungs filling with the most-likely-than-not toxic air, as they could do nothing else, but stare and wait it out.

Suddenly, there was a metallic thud, making her heart skip a beat, as Pietro’s metal-enclenched arm fell onto the rocky ground, having lost all power in his limbs. She couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or not.

She hurried over to him, checked his vital signs. The suit blinked and beeped for a good few seconds, before it came back with the results.

Pietro was still alive, albeit barely. She looked onto his beaten-up face, smashed into a bloody pulp of blood, snot and tears only a few hours prior. He wasn’t moving.

Ramone turned around to see deeper into the cave. There, enveloped by darkness and dead silence, sat Adam, or a person looking like him, beaten and tattered up, but not physically.

He had made a makeshift fire out of the things the A.I. had not shredded into its individual particles. The fire snapped and roared only dimly, only providing warmth if close, his backpack aiding as the main fuel source.

He was hunched over, his back turned toward them, his hands meddling with something, as he was handling various tools, screws and bolts, in complete silence.

Ramone took a look at Pietro, and, after establishing that he needed some time to rest, walked toward Adam.

Her footsteps echoed along the walls of the cave, as it slowly began to cool down. She tugged herself into the tattered remnants of her shirt and labcoat, as the cold sent shivers down her spine.

He didn’t even look up when she sat down a few feet away from him, still entrenched in whatever it was he was working on.

She tried her best not to stare at him, at his arms, at his hands, at his face, at the uncanny resemblance to the person she once knew. Then, with all the courage she could muster up within herself, she asked: ”Who are you?”

But he didn’t answer. There wasn’t even so much as a look from him — he simply continued working on the device in his hands. Now more forceful: ”Answer me!” Still, no reaction. He just stared at the little device.

Ramone was getting mad. Mad of no reaction, no answers, no fucking clue of what the fuck was going on. She rapidly stood up, her hands balled into fists, looking down at him. He still paid her no attention.

”You won’t even answer my questions? You leapt out of fucking portal, talk about ’saving the world’, beat Pietro into a bloody pulp, look exactly like someone who I once knew, and now you don’t even wanna fucking talk to me?”

There was a slight reaction. ”I don’t have to talk to you.” Then he simply resumed with his work. She approached Adam with weight in her steps, an expression of annoyance and anger, but also that of confusion and fear on her face. Adam simply stood up, meeting her gaze. Ramone stopped in her tracks. They were about the same height, with Adam being a little taller. She just looked at him with an undeterred, stern look.

”I don’t care who you are or who you think I am, or who I was to you before all this,” he spoke. He looked her dead into the eyes. She didn’t speak, but he could tell his words had some sort of reaction on her.

”Now stop bothering me.”

With that, he sat down next to the fire again, the smoke dissipating in the cavern’s ceiling, fiddling with the mechanical device again.

She simply stood there, unable to take in the words he’d just said.

*

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

He ran. As fast as he could. With the hallways still tinted in that deep red, the klaxons still sounding. His feet tiring, his heart beating, his lungs burning.

Paul desperately tried to keep up with the commander and the other MTFs, but found his body slowly giving in.

The 616 entities were appearing out of the walls and ceiling in the dozens, all grining their wide smiles, growling their laughs, mocking the heavens with every word they spoke. It all ended in an unrecognizable cacophony.

He suddenly felt the commander’s tight grasp around his wrist, his fingers digging so deep into it it hurt. The commander didn’t say anything, didn’t even take a look at him. He simply ran toward a giant gate, as the other operatives were standing guard, some fiddling around with the controls.

Junior researcher Paul had difficulties keeping up, thinking that he’d just collapse of exhaustion, but eventually they made it. The operatives tampered with the controls, as the reinforced door would not budge an inch. They cut and reconnected wires, their eyes straining in the dim crimson lights, sweat rolling down their faces and fingers, as they tried to override the controls as quickly as possible, and as delicately they possibly could.

The entities were strolling down the corridor ever-so-closer, their forms like moving shadows with too many teeth and too long fingers. The gunners with their holy water fired at those who inched too close, dissolving them in hellish shrieks, but the commander knew that they’d eventuay run out.

While they were shooting or manipulating the controls, the others looked past the demonic creatures at the sculptures, their gazes piercing, their bodies unmoving.

Junior researcher Paul alternated between looking at the statues and worriedly at the controls. He couldn’t tell, but he swore the commander was gripping his firearm tighter than normal.

”Fuck!” one of the gunners exclaimed. He didn’t know what had happened, but he felt his chest tensing up. ”I’ve run out!” she finally said. The commander wanted to say something, but didn’t.

As the demons growled, rows of teeth lined-up in their mouths, claws outstretched, there was a spark, and the gate finally opened. Immediately, the MTF operatives hurried Paul inside, then one-by-one went through themselves.

The creatures seemed to notice, as they hastened their pursuit, as the last, the commander, stepped through, the gate shut tight, layers upon layers seperating his squad and the researcher from the creatures. His eyes lingered a little longer at the end of the hallway, the gazes of the statues meeting his.

*

The technicians were running around, looking at the monitors in the dim light, trying to maintain control during the ongoing crisis.

”Madellyn, what’s the status of generators 24 to 30?!” Jasper shouted, while rerouting all of the unnecessary power from the unnecessary (or rather lower priority) sectors to the control and containment wings.

”Less than ideal!” she’d reply, frantically looking upon the blinking status bars. They were not looking good. ”Should I reroute the remaining power to the Tesla gates in the Keter-wing?”

”Negative! They’d take up too much energy. We should direct our focus on—” And then he was silenced.

Madellyn didn’t even have time to think what was going on. All she knew was the sudden silence, interrupted by the noise of grinding stone, and then…

CRUNCH.

*

The operatives were clad in layers of protective gear and vests, but Paul could still tell their chests were going up and down rapidly. Even the commander’s.

There was a relentless pounding against the metal gate, as the entities screeched and howled, trying to tear their way through, bite, claw. There were masses of them now, as all of the pounding amassed into one loud dissonant sound.

There was another door that required fiddling. Some of the operatives were already on it. After what seemed like a whole minute, the commander finally snapped back alive again, looking around his surroundings, then returning to that straight stance of his again.

”We’ll head toward evac point 345-D! It’s the closest one, shouldn’t be all too much trouble.” He glanced around the room, ”Nothing we haven’t survived already.”

Everyone was silent. The few just stood there with an expression of uncertainty, clasping their firearms tightly, while others just nodded.

”We’ll get out of this alive,” the commander finally spoke. ”And if we don’t…” There was a long pause. ”Then we’ll make damn sure we take as much of these fuckers with us as we possibly can.”

The pounding only became louder. More relentless. Junior researcher Paul backed away from the gate, looking on in horror as the operatives were still messing with the controls.

”Command! Do you copy?” the commander spoke into his comm. No response. He saw some of the surrounding operatives look at each other.

Again, now with more of a raised voice: ”Command? Director Light! Do you copy!” Still, no response. ”Shit!” he said, to no one in particular.

And then the lights went out. Everything was plunged into pitch black, their pupils widening to make out even the faintest outlines of silhouettes. The klaxons had turned off, too; Paul found the ringing in his ears to have stopped.

The creatures were still pounding relentlessly at the gate, their screeches becoming ever-so-louder… and then they all fell silent. All at once.

Before anyone had the chance to form a coherent thought, the unbearable noise of metal grinding against metal echoed in their ears, as it sounded like something heavy was being pushed aside, moving inch by inch.

Then it clicked. The commander raised their gun, the metal-on-metal sound growing in intensity by the seconds, as he activated the flashlight mounted onto his gun, and pointed it at the gate.

Then their pupils shrunk again, as everything was plunged into the faint strobe lights above, giving off a continous buzzing, as many rubbed their eyes. When the commander had adjusted to his surroundings again, he saw exactly what he suspected to see. And the others were, too.

In front of them, with its cold, uncaring gaze, the sculpture stood, its concrete and rebar arms pressed against the doors of the gate, its fingers firmly grasping the edges of them, as it had pushed them away in the pitch blackness.

Now, however, it had stopped, the back-up generators having kicked in. Its head was somewhat tilted. Reflexively, the commander aimed at the sculpture’s head, and fired, chipping a piece of it right off — it didn’t budge.

A spark flew, causing the commander to tense up, come back to reality again, snap out of his mindless stare at the statue. He looked on the floor, the demonic entities from earlier all lying motionlessly onto it, their necks twisted into an unnatural angle.

His team members tapped him on the shoulder, as they gestured to him to finally fucking move his ass, with even the junior researcher having already went through the door.

The technicians of the squad fiddled with the controls again, this time on the other side, creating a spark, and the door closed as soon as it opened.

He looked behind him through the small ballistic glass view-port of the door, gazing back at the sculpture, as the lights began to flicker, and in the blink of an eye, the sculpture pressed up right against the door. The glass laid smashed in itsy-bitsy fragments on the linoleum floor.

The commander began to run even faster.

*

On a Cold Autumn Night

Ramone burst through the entrance, her feet stepping onto the cold concrete pavement.

Her tears streaked down her cheeks, giving off a slight tingling sensation, before she wiped them off with the back of her hand. Some of her make-up became undone.

When she finally reached her car, parked inconspicously amongst others on the side of the street, she reached for the door handle, only for it to be closed.

She let out an audible groan, before searching around in her purse for the keys. Keys, fucking keys… it echoed in her mind, momentarily sweeping away the memories of moments prior.

She held the keys firmly in her hand, opened the car door, and stepped inside, sat down on the driver’s seat and threw her purse unceremoniously on the back seat.

Ramone sat there for a quite a while, looking up at the car’s roof with closed eyes, letting the tears roll down her face. Memories and thoughts flooded her mind, particularly of the past nine years.

She tried to drown out these thoughts, tried to forget everything that had just happened, and she just wanted to go home.

She retrieved a bottle of whatever it was that was in there from underneath her seat, unscrewed the cap, and without any further hesitation took several gulps of the mixture.

The taste of the alcohol burnt all of her thoughts away, as she began to cough up everything that just went down, at least in her mind.

She sat there for a while, just crying and coughing.

Minutes passed.

*

In the fabric of time

And in the vastness of space

A billion amounts to nothing

In infinity’s face!

At most a couple generations will remember the ways,

In which your life… NEVER MATTERED.

SO, WHO CARES IF IT’S A WASTE?!

*

Now

The tracker beeped in his hands. He immediately jumped up, the life back in his eyes, as he haphazardly pressed and manipulated the controls. Just as his fingers were typing in the first few letters, static mounted onto the screen, with nothing that he did having an effect.

The device gave off one last whirr, before it completely shut down again. Adam was holding a metallic husk in his hands, a jumble of loose wires and whatnot, coated in his sweat, as he silently stared at the black screen. He dropped the device against the rocky ground, the fire before him having nearly extinguished in the meantime. He simply looked onto the dying flame, as its sparks danced and shone dimly.

Ramone was by Pietro’s side. Although she couldn’t see his chest, encased in that heap of metal, Pietro was breathing more noticeably now, sucking the air in through his nose at irregular intervals.

She looked back over at Adam, who had his head in his hands. Suddenly, she felt the cold sensation of the suit putting its hand on her. She looked at Pietro, who looked back at her, his mouth somewhat agape to breathe better. He smiled a rough smile.

”Are… y—you all… right?” he mumbled.

”Yes,” she answered. She smiled back. Pietro smiled even brighter now.

”I…” he stuttered. Ramone saw Adam move his head in the corner of her vision, before turning back again. ”I—I… thought that… I…” The words were stuck in his throat.

”I trie— tried to do… the right… thing,” Pietro finally brought out.

No one noticed, but Adam clenched his hands into fists. His veins were pulsating, his heart was beating rapidly. ”Do the right thing?” He stood up. ”You thought you were doing the right thing by giving away the only hope humanity had left?”

Pietro said nothing. His smile dissipated, his eyes averted. Ramone didn’t stand up, but was still on her toes.

”You had the chance of doing the right thing!” Adam nearly shouted. There were tears in his eyes. ”You had the chance of doing the right thing, and you didn’t take it, because you’re a fucking coward!”

”We would’ve died!” Pietro suddenly shouted. Ramone and Adam both remained silent. ”We would’ve been dead! The three of us. I…”

Tears were welling up in his eyes now. ”I tried, okay? I tried… to save… all of us.”

Adam took a few steps toward Pietro, his gaze never averting from him, both of his hands still clenched into fists. Ramone wanted to stand up, but Adam suddenly halted, remaining at a distance. ”The only one you tried to save was yourself,” he spoke. Pietro didn’t say anything in return.

For a few more seconds, he stared at Pietro. He wanted to say something else, Ramone could tell, but he didn’t in the end. He simply turned around and trudged back toward his fire.

She rose, then she spoke: ”The Adam I knew would’ve done the same thing.”

That was enough to stop him dead in his tracks. She felt fear unbearably pressing down her chest, but she remained in her stance, looking right at him.

For a moment, no one said anything. Just them huddled together in a small cave, acid pouring down onto the landscape outside, with their breathing being the only other audible noise.

But Adam broke the silence with his heavy footsteps, as he walked up to Ramone, until their faces were almost touching, until they could feel each other’s breath.

”I am not who you say I am, and I don’t fucking care. I don’t know you—”

”Yes, you’re right,” Ramone chimed in, Adam confused, ”You don’t know me. And I don’t know you.”

Adam didn’t say a word. He just stared at her. Eventually, Adam stepped away, ending the silence once again. He sat next to his dwindling fire, screwing around with the device again. Ramone watched him for a few more seconds, before sitting down next to Pietro.

*

”What’s… he holding?” Pietro asked, merely a whisper.

She was staring blankly at the ground ahead of her. The only thing she did was breathe and blink, as the rain poured outside.

He tapped her lightly against the knee. She snapped out of her thoughts.

”That’s a standard… Foundation-issued tracking device,” he remarked. Ramone didn’t have any clue what he meant.

”We had some… at Exclusionary… Site-06.”

Without another word, Pietro raised himself up, as the suit’s components squeaked and quaked. He let out an audible groan.

”Pietro, what are you doing?”

Again, without giving an answer, he made his way toward the figure at the fireplace, his steps heavy, his entire body, especially his face, aching under searing pains, his body as heavy as concrete. Ramone looked on at Pietro, unsure of what to do.

Eventually, he made it to the figure, and sat down beside him. It made an audible metallic thud, as he simply let himself fall onto the ground. Pietro, again, didn’t say anything. He just reached out his right hand, seemingly desiring something from Adam.

”The tracker,” he demanded.

Adam’s expression changed instantly. ”I’m gonna break every bone in your hand if you even so much loo—”

”Please…” Pietro said. ”I can re—”

But his words were suddenly cut short, as Adam punched him across the face, causing him to lie on the ground once again. He spat out his right incisor. He rolled Pietro onto his back, who raised his hands in defense, as Adam raised his fist to punch him again.

Ramone immediately stood up and rushed to their side. ”He can repair it!” Ramone nearly shouted. Adam stopped and looked at her with wide eyes.

”What?”

”He is— was a junior technician for the Foundation! Those trackers were used regularly.”

Adam looked back at Pietro, who was coiling in pain. Pietro could simply nod, his hands still up.

He looked at Pietro for a while longer, before finally deciding to let him go. After an agonizing silence, looking back and forth at Pietro and the tracker, he picked it up from the dirt and tossed it at Pietro. ”You better be able to fix this whole thing.” He stepped away from both, as Pietro slowly righted himself, leaned-up against a wall.

Eventually, though, he did what he planned to do, and began messing with the device, with whatever tools were available.

Adam didn’t even take a look at the process; he just stared out at the horizon.

After about ten minutes or so, the device’s screen flickered back to life as it had minutes ago. ”Done!” Pietro exclaimed, as cold sweat dripped down along his face. Adam snatched the device out of his hands, and immediately began to type. He walked up and down, his eyes darting frantically over the device.

Come on, come on… ”YES!” Adam exclaimed, tears of joy in his eyes.

Ramone had a look of confusion in her eyes, which quickly dissipated when Pietro tapped her lightly on the shoulder, and said: ”He’s… tracking down… 079.” Her eyes widened. She turned back to look at Adam.

”What’s it say?” Ramone asked.

But he couldn’t speak. His eyes were fixated upon the results on the little screen, blinking dimly in the cavern’s darkness. Not waiting for an answer, Ramone stepped up to see the answer for herself. Her eyes also became fixated on the screen.

”What’s it say?” Pietro asked, feeling left out.

There was silence, deafening to the mind, which prevailed over all three of them. Ramone could hear the rain, the tracker, Pietro’s words, but couldn’t place her mind on any of them. Only after a few seconds…

”Site-62C,” she murmured.

Pietro let those words ruminate within his head, his eyes widening as did Ramone’s and Adam’s.

Adam looked up at the cave’s ceiling. Ramone saw what he was seeing; the makeshift fireplace had all but died done by now, the remaining flames glistering in their last breaths — the smoke, unlike as would be expected, had not accumulated in the cavern, but seemed to just disappear upon contact with the cave’s ceiling.

Adam turned to look at Ramone. Pietro was on his two feet by now. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. There was a pause.

”Just follow me,” were his only words.

He reached his hand out to touch the cave’s ceiling. It created a ripple upon contact, like waves in a small pond, the surfaces contorting. It was hard to look at.

With that, Adam jumped through. Ramone and Pietro were close behind.

*

There was an aching pain thumping against their skulls. Their bodies felt cold and rotten, with even the slightest of movement radiating throughout their entire body.

It was bright — not because of any light, but because their eyes felt they were opening up for the first time in centuries.

When their surroundings became clear — a dilapitated Foundation facility in the woods — they were able to stand up again, albeit with great difficulty.

They dusted off some dirt off of their clothes, before they headed toward the main gate — Adam was already there.

The gate stood ajar, Foundation vehicles resting peacefully around in the area, nature having already reclaimed most of the structures. They were careful to shift their weight to not let a dried leaf or a fallen stick break under their weight, as they went through the grass-covered yard.

Pietro faltered, almost collapsing onto the ground. Ramone wanted to help, but Pietro was able to hold onto the side of a truck to balance himself, flowers blooming all throughout. Ramone gave him a concerned look.

”It’s okay… I can walk.”

He saw Adam glancing over at him, before averting his gaze. Despite this, he continued on, feeling the weight of the suit pressing him down.

They headed straight into Site-62.

*

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

Screams were echoing down the corridors, as the audio had cut alongside the video feed, everything having been plunged into blackness only moments prior.

Then the lights came back up, dim and sparse, barely able to reach into the far corners of the control room. Director Light shouted back into her microphone, the handle clutched tightly in her hand. ”Nu-7, do you copy?”

She pressed several buttons, looked intently on the monitor barely holding onto the threads of life. She moved toward it, placing the microphone onto the table beside her, and switched the channel. Sweat dripped onto the screen, as her eyes darted across every option, trying to adjust in the dim light. She backed away, the microphone back in her hand, as the seconds passed in an agonizingly slow fashion. Someone finally picked up at the other end.

”Dr. Moto, can you hear me?” she began.

”The sculptures… they’re everywhere!” he shouted in rapid-fire.

”Dr. Moto, please remain calm. Do you have any security forces in your sector?”

”Fuck if I know! Never had that much. I never thought the sculpture would ever become such a big de—”

There was a loud metallic screeching, followed by metal crunching, glass shattering, and the sound of stone grinding on stone, before…

CRUNCH.

Sophia placed the microphone back on the table, stemming her head in her hands. She was rested on an old swivel chair, barely squeaking under her weight. She looked at the monitor in front of her, exhausted, but all she could see in it was sta—

There was a low growling sound, wet footsteps clattering in a corner, hushed tones of a hundred voices muttering under a breath, like whispers. She turned to look, her heart skipping a beat, but saw nothing.

Another growl. Wet footsteps. Whispers.

Sophia immediately stood up, looking all across the gigantic room, again, seeing nothing. She retrieved her 9mm, unlatched the safety, and looked some more.

A shadow swooped behind a rack of monitors.

The bullets flew straight across the room, hitting the monitors’ screens, the shards spilling onto the floor into even smaller fragments. She spun behind her, gun at the ready, but saw nothing again.

My mind’s playing tricks on me. Memetic hazards, plain and simple. I’ve gone looney tunes.

Another growl, this time right behind her. She spun around again, again meeting the gaze of nothing, but the darkness, and blank screens and monitors.

Before she had the chance to react, the entity leapt at her from behind, gun cluttering to the floor, its long, clawed hands pushing her up against the floor tiles. Its long fingers wrapped themselves around her throat, as she felt the pressure being exerted around her neck slowly cutting off her supply of air.

The demon took a good look at her, tracing its fingers along her cheek, its claws etching markings into her flesh, as the blood trickled along its fingers, palm, then wrist and onto the floor tiles.

She looked up at the creature, gasping for breath, as she desperately tried to fall free from its grip. Her hands were punching against the arm of the demon, who didn’t budge for even an inch. It kept staring at her, its glowing white eyes piercing straight into her soul, mouth carved into a wide, teeth-ridden smile.

It placed its hand onto her forehead, dead to the touch, before it loosened its grip on her neck. Sophia slowly felt the air back in her lungs again, coughing with the pain radiating from her throat, before another kind of pain radiated throughout her body. Blood sickered down, her clothes were stained, as the entity began to wiggle its claws around in her abdomen, its nails scraping against her flesh, skin torn apart like paper.

She screamed. Screamed from the top of her lungs, her body jolting upwards at the stab. When the screams reached their peak, the entity opened its mouth and gave out an ear-piercing howl, before moving its body into her mouth. Its body began to contort and reshape, as it wiggled its way further down into her body. The life left her eyes, her body felt heavier, before finally falling limp.

She thought her final thoughts, breathed her final breath, before slipping into an eternal, silent bliss.

The entity slowly stood up, her new bun, her new clothes, her new body. She had difficulty walking at first, but soon got the hang of it.

”D—director!” it crackled over one of the channels. She immediately snapped her head toward the source of the noise. It crackled again: ”Director Light, we’re heading toward evac point 345-D! We’ll meet you there!” It was quiet again.

She made her way out the door and left.

*

On a Cold Autumn Night

She took another gulp, this time more pronounced, a little longer, the drink feeling like acid on her thoughts. She felt all of her thoughts melting away, the stench of the alcohol easing her pain, as the contents of the bottle dwindled.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the window of the passenger-side seat, light and deliberate. She frantically searched for the cap, screwed it tight, then quickly stowed the bottle away underneath the backseats.

Without awaiting a further answer or acknowledgement, the passenger-side door opened, and Adam sat down beside her. Ramone stared silently ahead of her. She tried her best to not make it obvious that she had cried.

The next few seconds passed in utter silence. It was deafening, hearing nothing, but your own breathing and heartbeat, someone else’s breathing and heartbeat. It was abruptly interrupted by Adam giving out a light chuckle. She turned to face him. ”Does every department at 67 actually know?”

She sunk her head, but Adam could tell that a smile was adorning the corners of her face. Then she looked back at him. ”Yes. Everyone knows.”

He could tell she had cried.

”Well… I guess I gotta live with that for the rest of my life.”

Ramone chuckled. It was nice seeing her like this again. ”At least you didn’t spill your coffee over the Keter-chamber controls or we’d all be done for.”

Adam jokingly waved her away. ”Dodged a bullet there, indeed.”

They sat there in silence for a while. It wasn’t deafening, and they could hear each other’s breathing and heartbeat.

*

Well, one day you’ll be not even a faint memory, no,

At most a ghost or falling leaf from your family tree!

Your legacy’s not yours to see, nor is your eulogy!

AND YOU’LL NEVER KNOW WHAT IT ALL MEANS!

But you’ll be at peace before you sleep,

If you just keep this in mind:

That everyTHING and everyONE goes

With the passage of time!

So whether it’s CANCER…

MURDER…

Or SUICIDE…

…

ONE DAY YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!

*

Now

The walls were laced with vines, some hanging loosely from the ceiling tiles, dangling in the soft breeze coming from a large hole in the wall, on which sides several flowers were blooming.

Doors and gates stood ajar, as trees had sprouted from them, their bark imposingly blocking any path forward, the branches having erupted through the ceiling, the leaves merrily whistling in the air. The air was clean and calm, and there were even rays of sunshine, actual sunshine peeping through the cracks, but when one were to look, the sun would still shine in all its pitch black glory.

The three marched on, none of them saying a single word, as their minds wandered to the endless hallways. Some had odd trails etched into the grassy patches and dirt, as if someone had dragged something right through it.

They continued on.

Adam took a careful peek around every corner. He poked his head out, looking both directions, up and down, before proceeding onward — Ramone and Pietro would follow him, the latter careful not to stumble over his two feet.

There was a sense of finality thumping in his chest. In everyone’s.

Suddenly, the tracker in Adam’s hand began to beep arrythmically in all colors under the rainbow, as it indicated that they were close.

He turned his head to the right, the door to an observation room standing wide ajar. He leaned close against the wall, his eyes inspecting the room in a reflection. Until he determined it was safe, no one moved a muscle.

When it was, Adam walked inside, his feet slowly descending upon the floor with each step, as the others followed.

The desks and chairs were wrapped in thick vines, the grass had sprouted at some parts in the corners, flowers were blooming out of the machinery, computers and sensors. Everything was dead, yet so lively all the same.

They made their way to the observation window. The entire room was several feet in the air, sticking out of the rest of the facility like a sore thumb, overlooking the far side of a wall of an old, partially broken, long anbandoned factory building; the windows were shattered, the bricks had begun to wither decades ago, and parts of the walls and roof had collapsed in on themselves. Interesting enough, there was no vegetation anywhere near the factory.

Further down along the wall stood the entrance to the rest of the facility: a worn wooden barn door, a lock transfixed to one of its sides.

Adam tried to remember the related documentation he had read, vividly:

SCP-004 consists of an old wooden barn door […] and a set of twelve rusted steel keys […].

Testing on SCP-004 reveals that ten of the keys open […] on a dimension where the laws of physics and topology are significantly different than those of our […] dimension. […] subjects meeting these hostile conditions are torn apart, their body parts deposited in various locations, only three of which have been verified to be on Earth.

Opening the door with any key except SCP-004-7 or SCP-004-12 caused the test subjects to be torn apart in multiple directions […]

[…] has ordered the site inside SCP-004-1 to be expanded to include emergency storage […] The facility is now referred to as Site-62.

Site-62 is operational. Labs and containment units are complete and can contain the most dangerous specimens. […]

Spatial anomalies include the impossibly large dimensions of the area opened by SCP-004-7. Similarly, […] there exists an alternate plane of existence within the same space that Site-62 occupies.

SCP-579 is currently in Site-62C […].

Action 10-Israfil-B: Gateway of Site-62 (SCP-004) is to be destroyed. This must be done regardless of personnel or facilities remaining within the site. Remnants of the Gateway — or the gateway itself if destruction proves impossible — are to be contained in the same manner as SCP-579. High Command will then issue further instruction.

Doesn’t seem like they did a real good job on it. Or maybe they didn’t have any time left.

SCP-004 stood slightly ajar.

Ramone tapped Adam on the shoulder, reminding him of their presence. He noticeably flinched, and turned around. ”We need to get the keys,” she stated.

”What, you’ve worked here?”

”Thankfully not. I’ve read the 004 file. What the staff here experienced is more than any one person should bear…”

”Wait, what keys?” Pietro chimed in, completely flabbergasted.

Adam glanced at Pietro, enough to shut him up, before walking away. ”They should be around here. Find them.”

The three of them moved into different parts of the observation room, looking on and underneath desks and tables, behind server racks, and shelves.

Pietro took a look in a corner, where there were several lockers lined up in a row against the wall.

He tripped over a root poking itself out of the tiles, landing onto the earth below. It gave off a sound of something heavy hitting dirt, as Ramone looked at Pietro. ”It’s okay. I’m okay!” He waved her away, her looking on with an expression of concern.

Although he couldn’t see Adam from his perspective, he’d imagined his look to be rather different from Ramone’s.

He stood up, leaned himself against one of the lockers, and dusted some dirt from his suit, before continuing on. His arm suddenly collided with another metal object, and he looked to see it was a small lock attached to one of the lockers. Finding no other way, he grasped the lock with his metal-encased hand, pressed down on it, and snapped the lock open.

With a notable squeak, he found a small tin box inside it, coated in a reddish-brown substance, bearing corroded words, having faded too much to be legible.

He opened the box, revealing twelve rusty keys resting on top of each other, each labelled with their own designation.

He took the keys in a fit of mild joy, and turned back to the others. ”Guys! I’ve found the keys…”

But there was no one there. There wasn’t anything there at all.

Pietro turned all around himself to assure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, but everything had disappeared. The rays of light, the pitch black sun, the shattered sky, the keys, Ramone and Adam — gone.

There was only him and the suit, as his heart beat faster and faster, his breathing quickened.

”Guys? Ramone…?”

There was whispering of a young boy behind him. His heart was thumping in his ears.

*

Ramone moved away with a concerned expression on her face, toward the bookshelves in the center of the room.

Some of them were knocked over, some covered in moss and mold, as the color had been drained of the various books resting within. She dusted away some of the dust and took one, flipping through its pages. The words conglomerated into a black mess in her mind, as her thoughts strayed away from the present.

Looking at these shelves of old books reminded her of a past, feeling ever-so-distant, the odor of old books lingering in the air.

Then she snapped back into reality, shutting the book again, dust flying high into the air, before returning it back onto its shelf.

”Pietro, have you found anything yet…”

When she turned around, she wasn’t in the observation room anymore. She wasn’t at Site-62 at all. She was in a small bedroom. A room she could’ve recognized anywhere. The odor of old books was lingering in the air.

*

There was an overwhelming feeling pressing down on him. It seemed to suffocate him, like he was drowning, pressing down on him from all sides.

Even though he couldn’t see it, that feeling seemed to emanate from the barn door. It seemed to look down on him, engrave itself against the edges of his mind.

He looked under the tables for the rusty keys, hoping the search would distract him from that feeling.

There was the distinct sound of metal impacting the earth. Then the voice of the man in the suit emanated from another corner of the room. His fists clenched tight, he ground his teeth, his pupils shrank at the mere sound of that man’s voice.

Then there was the woman. She reminded him of something, but he couldn’t fully place on what. Soon, the thought wandered from his mind as soon as it had appeared.

He eased himself up a bit, letting the air rush in to fill his lungs, then come out through his nostrils. The feeling didn’t fully dissipate, but was more bearable.

He stuck his head underneath a desk, patches of grass growing from dirt underneath, tiny flowers resting along the legs of the desk. Finding nothing, he emerged from under the table — he hit his head on the underside of it. His thoughts came to a halt, as they were temporarily drowned out by a thumping pain.

Standing back up on his two feet, rubbing the back of his head, he slowly gained a sense of his surroundings. Annoyed and deeply frustrated, he turned to face the others, if they had seen even a hint of the keys.

Warm, light breeze. Black sun. Shattered sky. Desert sand. Earth.

He found himself in an open desert expanse. Dunes were meter high, sand covering even the tallest of buildings under their mounts. He recognized this place. He had been here before.

There was something shifting under the sand.

*

WILSON

Pietro looked into the distance. There was nothing, but pure darkness for miles onward. Only him and the suit, little specks of something in this vast expanse.

Even though there was no light to speak of, Pietro could see himself and the suit clearly, like a glitch in reality. He took a step forward, but didn’t know whether he was actually moving or if he simply thought he was.

There was a light in the distance. Small, yet so bright. Like a miniature version of the sun, moving around in the void.

Pietro, with no other way to go, decided to march toward it, still unsure if he was making any progress at all.

As he got closer to it, the louder the whispers grew. Quite unnoticeable at first, but they slowly became more coherent, more focused.

Pietro collapsed onto what felt like the ground to him, as the voices droned on, whispering ever louder, rapidly, over each other. His ears where filled with these indescribable words and noises, welling up inside his mind. He tightly pressed his hands against his ears, closing his eyes, as they began to hurt. ”MAKE IT STOP!” he yelled into the void.

Through closed eyelids, he saw a sudden brightness envelop itself around him. The voices quickly faded, as he felt the sudden sensation of a soft autumn breeze go past him.

Their house was small, barely able to house them three. Despite this, Pietro had found a way to turn their living conditions into an advantage.

He always imagined himself to be an explorer of far away lands, searching the world for any clues to aid him in the case he was trying to solve. It was a flimsy thought, but in the eyes of a young child everything was possible.

He looked on as Pietro made his way to the kitchen, crawled between the chairs and underneath the table, obscured by a cloth, before darting his eyes all around, and making his way out through the backdoor.

Then, magnifying glass in hand, under the star-littered sky, he made his way to the plant pots. There Pietro inspected each plant with great curiosity, looking onto them intently with his magnifying glass; there was a green leaf, and in the next pot over was a wilting flower. He picked a yellow leaf from it, careful not to destroy the evidence.

”Seems like we’ve found something, Mr. Waterson!” Pietro said in his best Sherlock Holmes accent his young mind could come up with. Then, in a similarly horrendous accent, spoke: ”Well, Mr. Holmes, what…”

”… does it mean?” he ended the sentence. The words were so far, yet so clear in his mind. He stood a few feet away from the boy.

”Well, Mr. Walson, it means that we’ve found another piece of the puzzle and are getting closer to the doer of evil!

”If you say so, Mr. Holmes. If you say so.”

He placed the yellow leaf in a plastic bag, labelled to the side in black marker with ’EVINDCE’.

Pietro couldn’t help, but smile softly.

”Well,” the boy spoke again, speaking in the worst British accent ever concocted by a seven year old child, ”if there was one piece of evidence, surely there must be more here—”

The boy backed away in terror, as his eyes were fixed upon something in the bushes.

Pietro turned to look and saw a mass of black moving around inside it.

Pietro pointed his magnifying glass in a defensive position, never averting his gaze from whatever it was that rested in the bushes. He felt his blood run cold, his body suddenly stiff, as he quieted his breathing.

And out from the bushes stepped a small black cat, barely taller than a foot. It had dirt on it and looked severely starved for a couple of days.

It humbly stepped out of the bushes, meowing from the top of its lungs, as it laid its eyes on Pietro. He simply stared at the cat, as it slowly made its way toward him, while staying at a considerable distance from it.

Slowly, he felt his body ease up a bit. He held out his hand, the cat backing away, its eyes fixated upon his hand. ”Don’t be scared of me,” he said in a calm voice. ”I won’t hurt you.”

After a few more seconds of staring at his hand, the cat approached it, sniffed it, before rubbing its head against his hand with full force. Pietro giggled, putting his magnifying glass down.

”Well, how’d you want to be called?” he asked the cat. It continued to rub its face against him.

”I’ve got it! How about… Holmes! No…“ He was deeply entrenched in thought. The cat was rubbing against his leg now.

”I’ve got it!” he finally said. ”I’m gonna call you…”

”… Damian,” he finished the sentence.

”Or would you prefer a different name?” the child asked, the cat only sitting down and tilting its head at the young Pietro.

Smiling, he concluded: ”Damian it is, then!”

They remained like this for a little while longer, him sitting in the dirt and Damian rubbing his head against leg or hand. Pietro…

… smiled.

Then there was a loud bang, as a door suddenly crashed open, and a man, tall, slender, hair uncombed, stepped out and made his way toward Pietro.

As the man approached, the cat scurried away, as Pietro could do nothing else, but be completely paralyzed.

The man grabbed him by the arm and yanked him up, causing pain to radiate at where he had grabbed him. ”Your lunch money,” the man begun, ”where is it?”

Pietro looked around, quite confused, but soon looked back at the man when he tightened his grip. The man rubbed his face. ”Did you spend it?” Pietro was searching for an answer.

”DID YOU?!”

”Yes! Yes!” Tears welled up in his eyes.

”On what?”

”On fo—”

”DON’T LIE TO ME!” The man’s grip tightened around Pietro’s arms, as the tears started flowing from his eyes. The man looked past Pietro, eyeing the magnifying glass next to him.

He let Pietro go and got a hold of the magnifying glass. ”You spent it on this thing, didn’t you?”

Pietro’s eyes reflected fear, his voice reduced to a mere whisper. ”I—”

”YOU LITTLE—!”

In an instant, the man raised his arm high into the air and threw the magnifying glass next onto the rocky ground, shattering the glass into thousands of tiny fragments, leaving only the golden-painted handle intact.

He looked sternly at Pietro, who had his eyes shut tightly. ”That money was for your food! For you to buy something to eat!” he shouted. ”If you don’t want it, give it to me or your fucking brother!”

Pietro remained silent.

He was like paralyzed.

The man looked at his son, an expression of disappointment riddling his face, before he wordlessly turned back to the door.

”One less fucking mouth to feed…” he muttered under his breath, as the door was slammed shut again.

Pietro looked at the young boy, huddled in a corner, sobbing to himself. He tried to approach him, do something, but was suddenly halted by a sudden burning sensation emanating from his back, not going away.

He steadied himself on the weathered wall, pressing his hand against the phantom wound; it was then he noticed he wasn’t wearing his suit anymore, and looked upon himself, confused.

Then there was another sharp pain, burning on his skin, before he heard the sounds of both yelling and crying all at the same time swelling up inside his mind. And then everything became dark again.

The keys laid firmly in his hands.

*

RAMANI

The traffic was low to non-existent, and there were only the streetlights to shine through the window. It was well past her bedtime (normally, she would’ve been fast asleep six hours ago), but today she decided to do different.

She heard a car pull up on the gravel path outside their house. The headlights shone through the tree branches and window, creating elongated shadows all the way to the door, before disappearing again in a flash.

Then the sound of someone opening and closing a car door, the sounds of footsteps upon the gravel, then wooden floorboards, then keys and finally the rattling of the front door.

She remained utterly still, remaining pressed up against the wall for a good while. She pressed her ear against the door to better make out the noises from behind the door. She heard the footsteps continue, keys being placed on a table, before the footsteps abruptly ceased. Pressing her ear tighter against the door, she could make out voices on the other side:

”You’re back?” she heard her sister say.

After a few seconds: ”Why are you still up?”

”I’m not ten anymore, mum,” Agnes replied. ”But I guess you missed the last eight years.”

Then a groan. ”Agnes, please…”

”What?” it came out of Agnes rapidly.

”Please, I can’t deal with this shit anymore!” The tone of her mother had a spark in it, capable of igniting a whole fire.

”What, your family? Coming home to see them? Wake up in the morning to say a ’hello’ or, or…” Then she stopped. There was no one speaking for the next couple of seconds.

”What are you doing every night, mum?” Agnes said, but not in her regular voice. Her voice sounded… humble, unlike anything she knew of her sister to be. It made her feel uneasy.

”I… I work at the company in the IT department. They’ve got big servers and—”

”No, stop, that’s bullshit!” she interrupted, accusingly pointing her finger at her mother.

”It’s the truth.” She didn’t look at her.

”BULLSHIT! You constantly come up with these fucking excuses! There’s always something with ’the company’, but, what, you can’t be there for your family?! You—”

”Agnes…”

”—you couldn’t be there for dad?!”

There was silence for a moment.

”Don’t bring your father into this.”

”Oh, I’m going to bring him into this! First, you sneak out of the house, late at night, because of ’emergencies at the company’, then you’re not there when dad dies on a freaking Sunday, which I may be able to understand, but then you don’t even show up for his fucking funeral!”

Her voice suddenly quieted down. ”And now you still can’t tell me the truth… I…”

The silence continued, lingered in the air. Even she, from the safety of her room, could be nothing more, but utterly silent. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

”Do you know with what kind of shit I gotta put up with every single day?” her mother suddenly erupted, ”How much my work in ’the company’ is really worth?”

”No, I don’t, because you won’t fucking tell me anything!”

She heard her, but continued on, ”Do you want to know with what type of bullshit I have to deal with on a regular basis, Agnes?! You couldn’t even begin to grasp the work I’m doing! How insignificant all of our problems really are?!” She yelled that last part.

Her sister remained silent, the words stuck in her mouth. Then, with great pain in her voice: ”Is this the way you thought about d—dad?”

She couldn’t breathe.

Her sister immediately went to the next question: ”Did you f—find someone else?”

”… No,” she said sternly, straight to the point.

Her sister gave out a suppressed chuckle under her sobs. She was having none of it. ”Oh, really?”

Her tone became toxic, spiced with venom. ”Because just the other day there was this man performing at the new restaurant, with a fucking woman, who just so happened to look exactly like my fucking mother!”

There was silence, only interrupted intermittedly by Agnes’ sobs.

”Who told you this?”

”Why does it fucking matter?!” she yelled.

She didn’t hear a word from either of them for a long while. Based on their silence, she thought that maybe mum had just wandered off or gone back to work again. But then she spoke again:

”I work at an organization, Agnes, which…” The words abruptly halted. ”It’s called the Special Containment Procedures Foundation, or SCP Foundation. They… they contain paranormal phenomena, things that shouldn’t exist, things beyond our world.”

There was a noticeable pause. Agnes’ sobs stopped. She listened more intently.

”Strategic Car Partners— or whatever the fuck it’s called is a front company of this organization. Hell, it’s in the first three intials!”

Agnes didn’t say anything. She didn’t even make so much as a squeak.

”That’s what I’ve been doing, alright? That’s why I’ve been sneaking out at night, that’s why I couldn’t be there for you, or you father, or your sister. I was…” Her mum’s voice became a sob, then humbly: ”I’m sorry, I… I should’ve told you this before. It was wrong of me to… to not tell you.”

Silence.

”I hope you can understand…” Ramone approached her daughter. ”I hope you can—” Agnes took a step back.

She looked on in horror, as her daughter slowly backed up toward the stairs. ”I don’t believe it…”

”Agnes, I’m telling you the truth. I—”

But she already made her way up the stairs.

The approaching footsteps, the light in the hallway lighting up, then the door opening.

She found herself looking up at her own daughter, who was now towering over her. She looked quite confused at the sight of her just sitting near the door, but paid no attention to it. She picked her up, her head over her daughter’s shoulder, as she quickly ran down the stairs.

”Come on, Tetua! We’re going.”

”B—but…”

”AGNES!”

She carried Tetua out the front door, out into the open air of the night sky. She opened her car’s door, throwing Tetua onto the passenger’s seats, before going into the vehicle herself.

The car revved to life. Her mother sprinted out the front door, shouting indescernible words at them. The car exited the gravel driveway, then rolled out onto the streets, into the night.

She could see it all so, so clearly. Yet her memory of it felt like it was obscured by a dense fog, having lowered itself into the crevices of her brain.

”Aggie,” it sounded from the passenger’s seats. ”Where are we going?”

Her mind was wandering places. Half of it was fixated on what just went down, her home several miles behind them by now, the other half was fixated on the road through the forest ahead of her.

There was some part of her screaming, clawing at her, to turn back, back home, back to their mother. Her hands were shaky on the steering wheel.

None of it was focused on what the other person in the backseats was thinking. It took another jab in the absolute silence to finally get Agnes’ attention.

”We’re… going to Kiko’s,” she lied. Frankly, she hadn’t thought any of this through yet, and the complete aimlessness just dawned on her. Right now, they were just driving, far, far away from their mother.

”Why?”

”Mum wanted us to stay away from her a little while,” she lied again.

”Why?”

”Just sit in your seat and be silent, okay?!” She didn’t want to sound so forceful. It just slipped out of her.

”I don’t want to be silent! I WANT TO SEE MOMMY!” she shouted back.

”You want to see mum?! She had her whole fucking life to see you, but did she? Did she?!” Without, nor expecting, an answer, she rambled on. ”No, she didn’t, so why should you care about her if she doesn’t care about yo—”

Bright light erupted all throughout the vehicle. A loud honking noise, metal hitting metal, glass shattering, and shattering some more upon hitting the asphalt pavement.

Tetua could momentarily taste her own blood, while Agnes barely had any time left to stifle a scream.

She had always thought about what they thought in their last moments, what they said or didn’t say to each other. She didn’t know if what she was experiencing was real or not, but she knew it felt real.

It felt agonizingly real.

*

KRUG

The wind whipped over the barren landscape, dunes of sand shifted over each other, crashing against brick and concrete, slowly chipping away at them. Adam navigated his way through the remains of the desolate city. The once-mighty standing buildings and structures, in the past so lush of life, were now completely empty, mere husks of what once was.

Although the sun was standing high, he felt a cold sensation enveloping him. His gaze rested on these shells of civilization, before he hurriedly moved on.

He came upon a little store, empty like all the others had been. It was a small store standing at the end of a crossroads, faded colors of blue and green lining the walls of it, the door standing wide ajar, obviously having been looted if the looks were anything to go by.

He wanted to march on, find an exit in this deserted landscape he now found himself in, before his eyes laid upon an oddity on one of the store’s windows.

In the condensation on the window, words were scribbled down. His eyes adjusted to the faint words haphazardly inscribed upon the surface, reading:

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?

A hand shot up from under the sand, grasping his ankle with its long, bony fingers. Pieces of skin and muscle hung loosely from the hand and arm, as Adam coiled in terror, shifting his whole weight into releasing himself from its grasp.

Another hand shot up, this one gripping his other ankle, digging its rotten nails into his skin. The sand below was now drenched in a deep red.

Soon, Adam found himself surrounded by various arms and limbs shooting out of the dunes in quick succession, heaving themselves over the grainy sand, clawing and crawling their way toward him. He tried to pull away from the assortment of limbs and decaying body parts, but they became more and more, before the entire ground for miles was covered in them.

They had knocked him to the ground, each pulling and tearing at his body, him giving out a scream of pure agony and terror. Then a decayed corpse jumped onto him, its hollow sockets staring deeply into him.

The corpse had no legs, its lower body parts having withered away in the elements, its flesh having turned into a disgusting green, its teeth hanging loose in its mouth. Despite this, there were traces of once brown and grey hair on its head — his hair.

It clasped its hand tightly around his chin, forcing him to stare directly at him, mere inches apart.

It spoke: ”WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE US?” It spoke in his voice. Raspy and contorted, but still his voice.

Another hand grabbed him, this time pulling at his hair, turning his head into a sharp upward position. ”WHAT IS IT THAT YOU FEAR?” The corpse was missing a large part of its skull, yet he could still make out his face in it.

”YOU NEVER TRIED,” another howled into his ear.

”YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH,” another one growled.

”YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS.”

”STOP THIS.”

”WHAT WILL MAKE THIS ANY DIFFERENT FROM LAST TIME?”

The voices came in succinct rapidty, each howling and crying and yelling in agony. Despite all the voices, he made out his own in every single word that was spoken.

”YOU WILL FAIL!” all of the corpses, mounting into the hundreds of thousands now, spoke in unison, defeaning.

He tried to cover his ears, but his arms were pulled and scratched at, the weight of each limb dragging him deeper into the sand.

”YOU WILL FAIL! YOU WILL FAIL!”

”NO!” he tried to yell against the millions of voices, but his own was merely a whisper against the cacophony of himself.

They dragged him deeper into the sand, the light slowly fading, the structures crumbling into dust. Adam let out one last stifled scream, as he descended into the depths — there was a distinct buzzing.

The stench of sweat, shit and blood lingered in the air.

*

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

He ran. Ran as fast as his legs allowed, as long as there was still breath in his lungs, as long as his heart still kept beating. His muscles were burning, his legs aching, his heart pounding against his ribcage. But Paul continued on, glancing over his back down the dark, empty corridors and hallways. The MTF soldiers were running at a steady pace.

One of them shouted: ”It’s right up the stairs!”

Upon hearing those words, a warmth overtook him, the feeling of hope, a chance at survival, of somehow making it out alive in this nightmarish shitshow.

They made their way up the metal staircase, each step rattling the railing, making a metallic sound emanate through the stairwell, as none of them ever stopped running. The door to the roof was locked, but with a quick shot to the lock, the commander allowed entry to it.

In the dead of night, the stars distantly shining in the night sky, a cold breeze cooling him down, he felt a certain serenity wash over him, as he couldn’t believe he had actually made it. Tears streamed down his face, he yelled in excitement, while the operatives prepared the carrier for take-off.

”Hold your horses, smartass. The carrier hasn’t started yet,” the commander grabbed him by the shoulder, a serious expression on his face.

Paul, however, was having none of it. In fact, his excited demeanor only seemed to heighten. ”We made it! We fucking made it!”

Before he could say any more, footsteps rattled on from the stairwell, marching toward their direction. Paul fell silent, as the commander looked intently at the door, gun drawn, the other members catching on. They aimed their guns at the door, Paul backing away, as the blades of the carrier blarred on in the background.

”Don’t shoot!” it suddenly rang out. The operatives gave each other looks and glances, before a person stepped out of the darkness.

”Director Light!” the commander exclaimed.

”In the flesh,” Sophia responded, a little worn and rough around the edges, but otherwise completely fine. ”How many of you are left?”

The commander looked around. ”Five, Director. Excluding the smartass over there.” He pointed at him.

”Were you able to make contact with anyone else?”

”Negative, Director. The power suddenly cut off. We tried to contact you, but we received no response.”

”Same here,” she replied, looking at the operatives. ”What are you waiting for? Get onto the carrier!”

Hurriedly, they got onto it, it slowly taking off from the floor. A wave of relief washed over the junior researcher.

The commander looked at Sophia. ”It’s good to have you back, Director.”

She scoffed. ”Spare the theatrics for the end, commander. We’re not out of the wa—”

A creature burst out through her mouth, tearing her jaw, bones, muscle and skin right open, viscera splattering onto all nearby. It was a fountain of blood, and the demon quickly leapt onto an operative, clawing their skin off and gnawing at their flesh. The inside of the carrier was quickly overtaken by the howls of the creature, gunfire, and panicked screams, as the operatives had too little time to react.

It got off the first operative, then went onto the next, tearing the door wide open. One of them toppled and fell, fell, fell to their death. Their body looked like a squished mosquito on the ground.

One of the squirt-gunners aimed and shot at the creature, dissolving its abdomen right through. It quickly slashed at the operative, slicing open a deep gash in their throat, causing them to drop, coil and bleed out in agony, as they stared at the demon with wide eyes.

The pilot tried their best to control the metal behemoth, but a stray bullet hit them in the shoulder, causing the carrier to make a sharp left turn right back to the landing platform.

The commander, he himself having a wide gash across his cheek, grabbed the junior researcher by the arm, and jumped out of the carrier, pulling the researcher down with him.

They impacted the pavement. Paul saw the creature tearing off chunks off the pilot, before he shut his eyes tight, retreating into a fetal position, as the blades of the carrier scraped against the edges of the roof, denting, and sending sparks and debris flying everywhere, before falling out of sight.

The sound of metal impacting earth, dirt being upheaved, glass shattering, the moans and cries of the pilot as they neared the ground, and the unimaginable screeching of the creature rang out through the night sky.

But the screaming never stopped. He thought that maybe the pilot, or any of the others, had somehow made it out alive from the entire ordeal, but then he realized the screams weren’t coming from afar — they came from right next to him.

He turned to see a large open wound on the leg of the commander, who was coiling and screaming in agony. He was dumbstruck, unable to move, as the commander held out something in his hand.

”TAKE IT!”

Half awake, half in a trance, Paul took whatever it was in his hands — it was an access card. Before he could even grasp what was happening, a low growl came from over the edge of the roof, a poignant clicking and tapping sound emanating from it. Soon, the creature crawled over the edge, slowly making its way toward them.

”Go! GO!” the commander shouted, before coiling in pain again.

Paul wanted to do something, anything, but deep down he knew everything that he could’ve done would’ve been a hopeless endeavour.

Giving the commander one last glance, he held the keycard firmly in his hand, before sprinting off into the darkness of the stairwell.

*

He watched as the nameless researcher sprinted into the darkness of Site-19, while the pain pounded against his leg and body.

His gaze met the glaring eyes of the creature, grinning with its teeth out, spit and blood dripping from its mouth, its claws reflecting the moonlight.

He tried to reach for his rifle, but it had been flung several feet away from him, so any attempt to retrieve it would’ve only prolonged the inevitable — not like regular bullets did any shit to them anyways.

The creature came to a halt right in front of him. He peered into its cold gaze, before the demon grabbed him by the throat, as he felt his throat tightening, the air being blocked of from his lungs, his body growing weaker by the second.

He struggled to stay alive, his hands pounding against the creature’s arm. It motioned its other arm right toward his chest, lightly tapping against his vest, letting the seconds go by.

It then reached out, right through his vest, his skin, his muscle, his ribcage, placing its long fingers firmly around his heart.

There was a searing pain all throughout his body, as it squeezed his heart, pressed it tighter, before ripping it out, the commander’s skin and flesh contorting, the ribcage bursting outwards in a fountain of viscera and gore, as the life left his eyes, a gaping hole where his heart once was.

Troy Lament whispered for a while longer, his mouth replaced with an unholy tongue, as the creature dissipated back into the shadows to pursue its next prey.

*

On a Cold Autumn Night

”Why do you drink coffee that late in the evening anyway?”

”I think it’s a good coffee.”

”You study anomalous phenomena, and you still don’t know what a caffeine addiction is?”

”Hey, you don’t have to like it.”

”The stuff they brew at 67 tastes very tasteless.”

”I still like it.”

*

No need to fear, ’cause when it’s

Here you won’t be alive!

(Try not to think about it!)

One day you’re going to die!

(AND THERE’S PROBABLY NOTHING AFTER!)

One day you’re going to DIE!

*

Now

WILSON

The sensations ceased, and he found himself standing at the same spot, the young boy idly pressed up against a wall. Tears were streaming down from his eyes. A row of knocked-over potted plants laid before his feet.

He could see bruises on the boy. Bruises which he tried to cover up with long sleeves.

It was evening. The sun was slowly setting, tinting the clouds and sky in a serene yellow-orange glow.

Something emerged from the bushes, causing Pietro to look up at them, and saw the small cat from weeks before stepping out of the branches, with dirt and leaves in its fur.

It looked around, stretched itself, before giving off a small meow for its tiny frame, and made its way toward Pietro. It rubbed its head against his leg, just like before.

”At least you’re here to keep me company.” There was a slight smile on his face.

Damian began to purr. His flow of tears temporarily halted. He spent some time like this, streaking the fur of Damian, it rubbing against his hand. It was a quiet moment.

Then came the sound of a door creaking open. Footsteps upon stone and dirt. Pietro felt his heart beating rapidly, his breathing quickening, but he remained seated, staring off onto the ground.

The man was there again, looking down upon the young boy. ”Son, I…”

But the man stopped in his words. He looked down upon the row of pottery, now lying scattered and broken unto the ground. He clenched his hands into fists, as his gaze first looked onto the boy, then at the small cat in his lap.

Without any hesitation, a growing rage boiling up inside of him, he grabbed the small cat by its neck and lifted it up into the air. Pietro tried to hold onto the cat, but he was too slow.

”Father!” he screamed, panic building up inside of him.

”Those were mother’s pots!” where his father’s only response.

He threw the cat onto the dirt ground, it giving off an agonizing whimper upon impact. Its black eyes were twisted into a display of pure fear and pain, its tiny limbs broken, the high, yet small squeak of it reverberating loudly into the cold night.

Pietro immediately shot up, enveloping his frail body around Damian. His body tensed, shook to its core, as tears streamed down his face. There was no suit, only his body between his father and Damian. He felt like a small boy again.

The man stared at his son with a hateful glare. There were tears in the man’s eyes.

”I’m not gonna let you hurt him,” he nearly whispered, his body still tightly around Damian.

He was kicked aside, like he was nothing, but air, as he rolled several feet, away from his father, away from Damian. When he lifted his head, the two were nothing more, but silhouettes.

He painfully crawled toward the blurry silhouettes on the horizon, as if encased in the suit again, unable to stand, each and every step aching him down to his bones, his body quaking under the weight, the metal ensnaring him like a welcoming grave. He reached his hand out, pulling himself along the dirt, as he repeated the motion continously. Yet he never reached them.

The piercing wails of Damian and the grunts of his father echoed in the distance. He wailed, and cried, and screamed. Eventually, the suit was too much, too heavy to even move a muscle in.

And eventually, everything turned black.

*

RAMANI

It was a cloudy day. Not rainy, just thick grey clouds looming high in the sky. There was sunlight shining through, but not where she was standing.

She was standing before three granite headstones. Wilting flowers rested on them. Footsteps rang through the open area. The sound of dried leaves crunching under the weight of another just barely snapped her out of her thoughts.

The person walking up to her was short, younger than her. A simple agent, not that high-ranking, just a courier for another one at the top. They stood and stared in silence, occasionally glancing over at Ramone, before quickly averting their gaze again. She took a long sigh.

Inclined to break the silence, they said: ”I’m sorry for you—”

”I thought about it,” she spoke nonchalantly, abruptly interrupting the agent. A few more seconds of silence passed, the agent expactantly looking onto the researcher.

”To end things. To just…” she stopped, took a few deep breaths, then said nothing.

The agent, wanting nothing to do with the topic, on a tight schedule, quickly steered back the conversation to what they were originally sent here for.

They retrieved a manila envelope, common Foundation use, with various documents, black words on a white surface, contained therein. ”The Director wants you to lead the research for the potential memetic effects of 8138.” They handed her the envelope. No one said anything for a good while. ”Adam’s on that project, too,” they broke the silence. ”The Comittee knows of your two’s close relationship, and thought—”

She shut them right up. ”Don’t.” Her breathing grew heavier. The agent stared intently at the researcher.

She pushed their hand holding the envelope away. ”Go find another one of your lackeys to do the work!” She stepped away from the agent. ”I’m done.”

Ramone opened the door to her car, stepped in, started the engine, and drove away. The agent, dumbstruck, stood there in silence, before they themselves got into their car and left.

…

…

…

At least, that’s how she wished it had happened. Instead, she took the envelope, flew through the documents, and accepted a ride back to Site-67 from the agent. Personnel would take care of her car, the agent said.

Ramone stood amongst the trees, light autumn breezes bristling the few remaining dark-oaked trees, as the headstones stood there in silence.

She stepped out from amongst the trees, her body more hovering or gliding than actually touching the ground. She didn’t feel real, or real enough, everything she did feeling foggy.

”I’m so sorry.” She knelt down in front of the headstones. ”I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you, that I spent too much time on…” She stopped.

*

KRUG

Encased in darkness, he could feel nothing. Only his own body against his own body, against his own body. Thousands of them. In utter darkness.

There was a light suddenly appearing in front of him, blinding for a short while. When his eyes adjusted, Adam saw the outlines of a face, spoiled and rotten down to the core, yet still alive, peering deep into his eyes. The walls moved for a bit, and the corpse leaned in closer to him. His breathing quickened.

”What is it you fear?” it spoke, in his voice, with his face. It stared at him, unblinking.

He found himself unable to mutter a word, the thoughts stuck in his mind. Eventually, he brought up words, quiet as a whisper:

”What are you?”

Silence.

”It’s dead,” it spoke with a certain melancholy in its voice.

”What is?” he brought out after a while.

”Hope.” The answer came at him like a bullet.

”I’m not giving up.”

The edges of the face turned into a smile, which reached from ear to ear. It showed its decayed teeth, green and yellow, before the smile abated, and continued.

”We know.” It was deep in thought. ”You will fail.”

He tried to say something, but couldn’t. His head was running rampant with a thousand thoughts, his body drowned in fear, enveloped by total darkness, the dim candle light in front of him serving as the only source of light nearby. The face looked at him again. The walls shifted slightly.

”But you will try,” it bore a soft smile, akin to that a grandparent might give to their grandchildren. It felt awfully calming.

”You are not enough.”

Adam took up the courage to speak more. Humble, but louder than before, he asked: ”Who are you?”

The face looked up. The walls began to shift. Their fleshy limbs and bodies twisted, crawled over each other to look down upon him, until every face was facing him. Despite the sight, he felt an odd relaxation wash over him.

Then, in unison, every corpse spoke: ”You know who we are.”

The face reached out its finger, bony, the skin having sloughed off millenia ago. Adam felt the initial fear creep up again, but the voice from before echoed in his mind: ”Remember.” It tapped its finger lightly between his eyes.

His head was filled with a million thoughts. In rapid succession. Memories of a former life, a past he forgot. People he once knew, once loved.

Some of these memories he had seen as fragments — little remnants appearing to him in dreams, howling and trying to scratch their way back to the surface. It hurt. It hurt dearly.

But now he was able to see these fragments for what they truly were. He no longer felt a distant pain from them, but happiness, a longing for these better times, these better days.

He came back. He shed a tear.

The sensation stopped. Adam could say nothing, but remain speechless. His mind no longer hurt. He turned to look at the face, a soft smile on its lips.

”The others are waiting,” it said.

And then he found himself in total blackness.

*

WILSON

There was nothing for miles. He didn’t feel anything, no sensations, neither of warmth, cold, nor sense of direction. A near blinding light shone in the distance, so dim, yet so bright in his eyes.

Seeing nothing else in the landscape, Adam walked, or an equivalent thereof, approached it, each step feeling as if he were trekking through tar, his body weighed down by his own thoughts.

The closer he got to the light, the heavier became his steps, the more blinding it got. He closed his eyes, but it was still too bright.

Then the light disappeared. He slowly opened his eyes, trying to see through the slits, only to be met by utter darkness. The void was now echoing with the faint noises of someone sobbing. He turned to look.

There sat Pietro, in the vast expanse of the void. He was straddling something small and furry in his arms. His eyes had gone red from the crying.

Adam’s steps echoed equally as loudly through the nothingness, reaching into the beyond. Pietro didn’t look up. He remained huddled on the ground.

He just stood, stared down at the man cradling a cat like a mother would her baby. The cat looked untouched, as if it weren’t even dead, as if it were just asleep. But it’s eyes gave back an unnerving, too focused stare, like he wasn’t even there. He turned his gaze back at Pietro.

”Piet—”

”I’m a nobody,” he said more into the void than at Adam. He stood there in silence. Pietro gave off a slight chuckle. It died down again. ”To think that I could’ve even saved the world. Carried that suitcase around the world…”

He took a long sigh, staring into nothingness, interrupted occasionally by his attempts at stifling back a sob. ”I couldn’t even save him.”

Pietro continued to stare into the distance. Adam sat down beside him, close to give off a feeling of warmth, but not too close enough to corner him. Pietro’s hand went through the cat’s fur. They both silently stared into the distance now.

”So what if you are a nobody?” he proposed.

Pietro noticeably tensed up in a way that he didn’t want anyone to know that he did. The hand that caressed the cat halted for a short moment. ”That doesn’t have to mean anything,” Adam continued. ”I’m a nobody, too.”

Pietro finally turned his head to face him. His hand was still firmly on the cat. ”You were a researcher at the Foundation. You helped protecting the world.”

Adam scoffed, giving out a chuckle. Pietro’s eyes were wide open and he completely stopped caressing the cat. ”If spilling your seventh cup of coffee in the day on an unknown, potentially hostile anomaly falls under ’protecting the world’ for you, then, yes, I did.”

There was a brief silence.

”Why so friendly all of the sudden?”

Adam smiled, staring back into the void again. ”You could say I had my wake-up call.”

Pietro fell silent again, not questioning it further.

”You, you choose who you are. Not anyone else.” Adam looked intently at Pietro, looking for any signs of a reaction. Pietro, however, remained as solid as a sculpture.

”And what if I’m not supposed to help? What if my actions would only result in things getting worser than they are already? What if I’m supposed to just leave things be!” He yelled the last sentence. He looked down at Damian.

Adam waited for things to quiet down again, for Pietro to have calmed down again. ”Then that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Without waiting any further in the dark space of the void, Adam stood up and looked around. ”I’ll try to find Ramone. You can wait here if you’d like, wherever ’here’ is.”

He took a few steps foward. ”I’m sorry, Pietro.” And he continued on into the void.

Pietro stared down at his lap, the body of Damian resting peacefully between his legs. There was a moment of serenity, where tears streamed down his face, where the feeling of Damian’s fur was softer and warmer, where he could see flashes before him.

Pietro looked down onto it again, taking in a deep breath, before standing up. He left Damian’s body behind. He gave Damian a final glance, as he placed his metal-encased hand on its eyelids, and moved them downward. Pietro then stepped up to Adam.

Adam looked at him, bearing a warm smile, but otherwise said nothing. Pietro broke the silence: ”Let’s find our way out.”

Damian disappeared. There was a light in the distance.

*

RAMANI

They found themselves on even ground again. Patches of green on the brown dirt, a cloud-littered sky, one that wasn’t red, the sun trying to shine through the clouds.

Pietro tapped Adam lightly at the shoulder and pointed ahead on a small hill. The silhouette of a person could be made out, and although he couldn’t make out any features, Adam could feel that it was her. Together, they made their way toward her.

It was an uneventful walk, one of these walks where no one said a thing. The only things breaking the silence were the light breezes rushing past them, hurling leaves into the air, and the creaking of the metal-bar door, coated in a thin layer of rust.

A distinct crunching noise came off from under their feet, as the headstones surrounding seemed to stare at them. No one said anything, but both Adam and Pietro hurried a little in their steps.

Ramone was kneeled in front of three headstones. They were unremarkable, just like all other headstones in the cemetery. They stopped a few feet away from Ramone. She didn’t look up.

”Ramone…” Adam said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

After a while, moreso because of decency than to further any conversation, she asked: ”What do you want?” She kept her head down, eyes still on the graves, but Adam could tell by the tone of her voice that she had stood there and cried for a while.

Not being able to come up with a good enough answer to her question, Adam said: ”I’m sorry for what happened to them.” There was no reaction from her. He quieted down again.

It was a long silence. The breeze passed by them ever-so-slightly, as the leaves ascended into the air, the slight bristling of the grass giving off a quiet hum.

”I remember now,” Adam spoke. ”Everything.”

There was a slight budge in Ramone’s stance, a quiver of a reaction, but she quickly turned her attention back to the graves.

”Ramone,” Adam began, approaching her, ”please. Kneeling here won’t bring them—”

In a swift motion, Ramone stood up and looked deeply into Adam’s eyes. Her eyes were red, just as Pietro’s had been, hands clenched, saying nothing for good while. Adam could feel each breath she took, that was how close she had been.

”Don’t,” she said. ”My daughters are dead, because of me. They’re gone. And I have no one else to blame, but myself.” The words came out of her like the tears from her eyes.

”I lost someone, too,” Pietro said as his first words. They turned to look at him, an awkward silence permeating around them.

He took a deep, long breath, as to steady himself. ”It wasn’t a person. A cat. He was small, young. The cutest thing you could’ve ever imagined.” The three of them stood there amongst the graves and trees in utter silence, as the two waited for Pietro to continue.

”He died, because of me.” He didn’t look at them. ”Because I didn’t leave well enough alone. I couldn’t.” There was a long pause.

”Every day, I think to myself, ’could it have been different?’ and the answer was always ’yes, it could have’. But now, I’ve realized that the answer doesn’t matter. They’re gone and nothing can change that.

”’We are who we choose to be.’ It helped me.”

Ramone stared to the ground, Adam taking a few steps back to give her enough space. He watched as her fists unclenched, the glimmer of anger slowly fade from her eyes. She took several deep breaths, eyes closed, before she stopped and opened them again.

She looked at Pietro. He was looking back at her.

”Someone once told not to dwell on the past. I tried to listen to him then. I’m trying to listen to them now,” she said.

She smiled. He smiled back. Adam could see the clouds parting away from each other in slow movements, almost ghostly.

A creaking noise emanated from all around them. The breeze stopped, the leaves dried away, while the trees and the grass faded into obscurity, the graves and headstones crumbling into fine dust.

Around them, tall concrete walls formed, then the outline of a large building. Their surroundings began to make more and more sense now, as the rough shadows formed back into the grounds of Site-62, SCP-004 ahead of them. The door was closed now.

*

SITE-62

They stared for a while at the old barn door, took a second to take in the barren concrete walls, the sky, the trees sprouting from every corner. The gate leading back to the main site, which they would’ve needed to get through in order to get to 004, hadn’t moved an inch.

Pietro was the first one to move, as he held the twelve rusty keys in his hands, the suit taking achingly slow steps toward the door, leaving large trails of his feet behind in the dirt. The others finally had the courage to take a few steps toward it, too.

”Be careful with those keys,” Adam exclaimed. Pietro looked at him. ”The wrong key would tear this entire place inside-out. The seventh one leads to 62C.”

Pietro simply nodded. He squinted his eyes to better see the letters and numbers on the sides of the keys, all rusted, barely recognizable.

Ramani was the first one to hear it, although not the last one to do so. Loud, metallic clanking emanated from behind the gate, the metal bending and denting, as forces pounded against the reinforced gate.

She turned around to see…

There were many incidents, where the grasp of death was barely at an arm’s length, scenarios in which she felt the cold presence of oblivion shiver down her spine, instances where she could see flashes of her life before her. It was inevitable at the Foundation to not experience such feelings of dread, of finality.

But in all of her years at the Foundation, Ramani had never been so close to the face of death that she could feel its cold, concrete and rebar fingers lightly pressing against her neck.

She jumped back, but knew enough of 173 to keep her eyes trained on the statue, no, statues, a side of its head chipped off somewhat.

Adam turned around to face her, being met with the sight of dozens of statues standing motionlessly at the torn-open gate, their arms outstretched, their eyes unblinking. He could feel his heart sinking deeper into his chest.

”Keep your eyes on it,” Ramone exclaimed, her eyes focused on them.

”Wha—”

”Don’t look away!”

*

Line of sight must not be broken at any time with SCP-173.

*

She could see the documentation right in front of her. Word for word. Adam remembered enough to trust her intuition.

Pietro fumbled around with the twelves rusty keys on the door, tossing those aside that would surely scatter their body parts across all time and space. Sweat rolled down his forehead, his eyes watering, fixated on that one single key.

*

Personnel […] are instructed to alert one another before… […]

*

”Blinking.” His mind was suddenly filled with that singular word, so simple in its meaning, yet he couldn’t grasp it. To hear that word from Ramone no less, he was baffled at her sudden utterance of that word. And then it made click.

”Blinking,” he said, feeling the freshness return to his eyes again, life invigorated.

The sculptures trained their own hollow sockets at them, gazing intently at them. Everything they are, everything they once were, everything they could have been, so easily wiped from the face of the earth by a single twitch of the eyes, a singular blink, a little crunch—

”GOT IT!” Pietro yelled out, haphazardly inserting SCP-004-7 into the keyhole. He turned the key to the right and flung the door open, it almost flew off its hinges.

There was a gust of wind that breezed past them, nearly knocking them and the statues over. The wind was soon replaced with their bodies slowly being sucked into the door, unable to resist, nor have enough time to react.

Space and time distorted itself around them to pull them into the darkness of the barn door, a wailing and howling permeating inside their minds, until they left they world they had just been in.

…

*

On a Cold Autumn Night

”Ramone,” Adam began, breaking the silence once again. Ramone was looking intently at him. ”I don’t know how to say this… You have been a great colleague and friend to me for the past nine years…”

He saw her attempts to hide her tears, then try to wipe them away inconspiciously with the back of her hand.

”And I don’t want what happened tonight come between us.”

Ramone sniffed so loudly that it made Adam flinch a bit. ”You sure you didn’t practice that line beforehand?”

Adam gave off a light chuckle. He held out his hand, his grey suit crumpling under his body and unnatural angle he had to move his arm. Ramone stared at it, and then took it, with only their heartbeats breaking the silence.

The seconds passed in the car, under the cold autumn night. Leaves were brushing by outside, the people still visible through the crystal-clear windows, eating their dinners on the silver platter.

”You know… we didn’t even order anything there,” Ramone pointed out.

Adam couldn’t help, but smile.

*

SO, if you only have one chance you oughta try your best to life as you like!

One day you’re going to die.

…

…

…

:)

*

Just Forty-Eight Hours after

He felt his lungs filling in with air, before exiting again. His breaths echoed through the small room, coming in short, successive bursts, his eyes fixated upon the metal door, despite the flickering of the lights.

There were screams. Screams of people he didn’t recognize. Maybe he had seen one of them in the cafeteria, maybe in the yard, or on his way to the bathrooms. He’d never know.

Paul was clutching a recorder in his hands, one that had been in one of the drawers of the cozy office, decorated with only the bare minimum to do one’s weekly amount of paperwork, Paul knew all too well.

With the flick of a button, Paul activated the recorder, and spoke into it:

”I—I… I wanted to say that I… I…” He momentarily stopped the recorder, it giving off another click. He just sat there, tears welled-up in his eyes, which he wiped away, continuing:

”I’ve never been one to, uhm… one to make a—anecdotes like these, but…” He exhaled loudly. ”I guess now’s the time.”

There was a loud banging against the metal door, the noises of stone scraping against metal. Paul noticeably tensed up, as the power began to dwindle more and more from the lights above.

”To whomever finds this recording, please, fix this. T—there must be some way to fix this. Some way to prevent all of this shit. There has to be.”

The banging only grew louder and louder, before it was the only thing the junior researcher could hear. Each bang rang through his ears, the door quaking in its hinges. He took a long, stammered sigh. His hands tightened around the recorder.

The lights went out.

”This is Paul Putsoiroytuorimaw. Sig—”

*

SITE-62C SECURITY CAM FOOTAGE

Location: Site-62C, Sector-01, Hallway-03, SCP-579 Containment Chamber

[BEGIN RECORDING]

<00:00:00> - SCP-579 lies on the floor of its containment chamber.

<00:01:00> - SCP-579 lies on the floor of its containment chamber.

<00:10:00> - SCP-579 lies on the floor of its containment chamber.

<00:59:00> - SCP-579 lies on the floor of its containment chamber.

<01:13:00> - Disturbance on the walls of the containment chamber detected. SCP-579 remains dormant on the floor.

<01:14:00> - [DATA LOST]

<01:15:00> - [DATA LOST]

<01:16:00> - Containment chamber empty.

[END RECORDING]

*

He blew into it once again.

The man entered with its trumpet.

He blew into his trumpet for one final time.

The angel laid dead in its cage.

*

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