Occult Orientation: Dept. of Presumptive Divination - SCP Foundation

OCCULT ORIENTATION:

DEPT. OF PRESUMPTIVE DIVINATION

The knife drew a foreboding red line in its wake as it slipped through the underbelly of the goat. Practiced hands connected the horizontal gash to two previous, verticle incisions. As blood began to seep from the wound, the knife was pushed inward, twisting as it did so. Within the body, the cutting edge slashed along the entrails, effortlessly disconnecting the tumbled mess from the corpse it hitherto nourished. The hooked back edge of the knife embraced the liver in its curve, and pulling outwards, eviscerated the organs into the waiting receptacle.

You watch as the bloody mess spills forth into the shallow copper bowl. The sharp scent of rust rises in intensity as whisps of steam vanish off the red, writing forms. Your pulse quickens in fearful sympathy as you focus on the slow seepage of blood pooling in the basin. Its collection there is a mockery of your still-beating heart: circulation becoming stagnation.

It is the face of the woman that pulls you from your distraction. The one that wields the knife possesses a body defined by tension: her muscles hover at the ready, conserving strength, moving only when needed with absolute precision and purpose. Her face leans in, angular and sharp — one eye is clouded grey — the other fixes itself upon you in a gaze of intense emerald-blue. Flecks of gold give depth and substance to the otherwise unnerving uniformity of the iris.

"What does it mean?"

Her voice cuts through the silence, to your core. You fail to respond.

She hands you a metal stylus, nearly a foot long. One tip of the device ends in a gentle nub, the other a narrow point.

"What does it mean?" she repeats. "You have until the viscera cools."

She turns to the door, carrying the still-dripping carcass with her, leaving you alone with the copper bowl and the pressures of expected prognostication.

With the click of the door closing, you turn to the work before you. Now — sequestered from the expectations of rational thought and deductive reasoning that gather outside, ears pressed against the division between this room and the rest of the Foundation facilities — you can begin. Breathing slowly and steadily, you prepare yourself for the influx of information. You seize onto the details before you, taking in the intricacies of form and shape, colour and presence. As you command yourself to capture the ephemeral and bloody contortions of the warm, wet air, you hold the moment in your mind, extend it into infinite stillness, and from that extrapolate meaning and significance. Something, anything: a sign, a peculiarity, an implication, the spectral hauntings of a dream.

The mishappen heap refutes you. The viscera appears oblivious or uncaring to your initial grasp for meaning and understanding.

Nothing comes to you. No meaning or omen.

It shakes you, slightly; you didn't expect an immediate revelation, but one always hopes. You resolve yourself: where immediate divulgence fails, methodical inspection may yet succeed.

You turn to your pack, withdrawing a heavy tome embossed in golden fillagree. In it are tables and charts, maps and accounts. The work is a compendium of interpretation and knowledge. Its structure is disorderly, an affect of its pre-scientific methods. You flip to a relevant page, lines of small-point text are arranged across its span:

BLOOD:

If the blood runs swiftly, the passing of the soul will be quick.

If the blood coagulates in a solid form, the situation is dire.

If the blood appears vicious, sanctity may be preserved.

If the blood pulses with vigour, the blessings are many.

If the blood…

VAPOURS:

If the vapours rise in a North-Easterly direction, the harvest will surely fail.

If the vapours collect low to the basin, the outcome will be inevitable.

If the vapours smell sweat, the water will flow.

If the vapours dissipate swiftly, the death fortold is imminent.

If the vapours…

ENTRAILS:

If the entrails shape the head of a lamb, the time for penitence is at hand.

If the entrails discharge yellow bile, the herd will die.

If the entrails are engorged, the ruling is just.

If the entrails taste of pure wine, give thanks.

If the entrails…

You pull your eyes away from the repetitions of columns and rows. You do not know how long it has been since the test was laid before you. The swollen mass has cooled somewhat after its forced expulsion, and the urgency of your situation bears heavier upon you with each passing moment. As your gaze sweeps from the typeface to the dish and back again, you strain to formulate a clear relation: hoping that from desire prognosis may be achieved. But the connections you grasp at are fleeting, refuted by further study and examination. The process is one of doing and being undone. Those tentative claims are dismissed as projections. You stand at the cusp of pre-scientific understanding, built on ancient methodologies. The process isolates you from the present, the modern. Time becomes a flat circle, where through the past the future must be known.

Yet it remains unclear; the eternal limbo of disknowledge perpetuates itself, refusing to collapse into a resolution of past, present, and future.

In the face of futility, you redouble your efforts. Technique and hope align in the desperate struggle to recognize a meaning that eludes you.

The uncertainty endures.

The door opens, as the woman walks in. Her tall frame moves softly across the stone floor, until it comes to a rest before the now-cool innards gleaming in the polished metal of the basin. Your attempts to avoid her piercing gaze are futile, as she turns her eye to you and inquires:

"What does it mean?"

"I," you begin - sensing the futility of lying would only draw more light to your failure. "I don't know."

She nods. Picks up the basin from the stone plinth.

"What you have seen is uncertainty. You will see it again. This is the first lesson."

Confusion seeps between her words and tumbles through your skull, driving out its previous fixation on knowledge and meaning. Only her words remain.

"Disorder, misunderstanding, errors in interpretation — these are constant. The future you saw is your own, the mistaken for one external. Time and time again, you will fail: you will misconstrue and misconstruct. You will see things that do not come to pass - not as you know them to - and miss things that do. Ours is a preoccupation with failure, it always has been and always will, and we must accept that. It is a burden and a freedom. To know with certainty all that will be, that is to lose yourself in causation. We watch the currents of the river, dip our hands and drink of its water. When we wade we remain close to shore, for to swim too deep is to be caught in its currents and become a vessel through which action occurs, rather than a being who acts."

"So if all I've seen in my failure, why continue?" You ask, pulled from the edge of defeat, awaiting revelation.

"Because you tried, because you wanted to know, because — sometimes — you will be right."

She presses the basin into your hands. The metal is cold; the viscera no longer haunting or challenging. You see, through the coverage of blood, your face reflected in a reddened glow.

"Come," she answers. "There is more work to be done."