Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA001

Hey, I’ve left a few messages on the secure line. We really have to talk.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA002

I forwarded them to the Southwest-US breach desk. Site-01's secure communication system is not the reporting line of first resort. You know that.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA003

Right. But this isn’t a breach. I guess it’s arguably an invasion from a single alien organism, but either way, it’s from something we never had contained.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA004

I know that the distinction is immaterial in practice. But I know the breach desk. Their first, second, and third questions are about what destructive or disruptive actions, if any, are being undertaken by the breaching anomaly. That’s not a methodology that would work in this instance.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA005

Why not?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA006

It’s an airship, and it’s just sitting there.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA007

I know I sound crazy. I’m sending over the 8217 file. That should shed a bit more light.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA008

Once you’re finished, or as soon as you’re convinced of need, I’m going to request substantial external assistance, ideally an MTF. Do not scramble anyone without some form of filtering.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA009

Understood. I know 8217. We've never encountered an airship before, but the arrival of one is certainly a tail risk we've planned for. You'll get the support you need.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA010

Deeply appreciated. We have three hundred employees at Site-592. At least eighty are infected already. We may need to amnesticize everyone here several times before this is over.

Item#: 8217

Containment Class: safe

Secondary Class: none

Disruption Class: vlam

Risk Class: warning

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8217-1 instances are to be frozen, with the freezer placed in a Safe-class containment locker at Site-48. Experimentation requests for non-infectious fingers require project team approval. Experimentation requests for infectious fingers require Site Director sign-off and are solely to be conducted upon D-Class subjects; following these experiments, infected personnel will be amnesticized and returned to service.

Description: SCP-8217-1 is a set of 22 fingers that appeared on the desk of Site-48 Researcher Masha Straschnov on June 8, 2024. Genetic testing has confirmed that all fingers come from a single humanoid being of an as-yet-unidentified species. Each measure between 5 and 8 centimeters and appear to have been violently severed.

When touched, each SCP-8217-1 instance induces a distinct vision of life upon an alien planet. Within the vision, all intelligent lifeforms are perceived as human; the actual appearance of these lifeforms, if extant, is unknown. A minority of SCP-8217-1 visions cause exposed individuals to develop an as-yet poorly-understood disorder characterized by heightened aggression and increased comfort with the concept of human extinction. To avoid this, ‘infectious’ visions are auto-censored by AIC.

Using the relative size of astronomical phenomena perceivable in the background of SCP-8217-1 visions, Foundation astronomers successfully triangulated the depicted planet (designated SCP-8217-2) and obtained an image of it through the Extrasolar Observational Array.

From orbit, the surface of SCP-8217-2 appears of uniform color and without geographic variation, bearing little resemblance to the lush planet observed in SCP-8217-1 visions. Ongoing explosions are visible at several points across its surface. SCP-8217-2 is orbited by two moons; their orbital speeds imply that the density of SCP-8217-2 is comparable to that of animal biomass.

A partial record of SCP-8217-1 visions is below.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-1 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are Hanu Cealal, scarcely king.

You are tired, bone-tired. You see yourself in the gilded pane that surrounds the hemicycle. Your green robes have been scuffed by hard riding. No crown covers your pate. Against the advice of your aide, you let your eyes drift upward: dozens of kings are gathered, and none of their faces are kind. A few second-sons sit in the crowd, gold-threaded cloth tied over their vacant sockets. You wonder which ones slew their kin. You wonder how they did it.

The steward turns to you. He is a slight man, trusted by all. Above reproach, beneath contempt. You nod at him. He nods back, and turns his face to the crowd. “Begging your patience. Begging your patience. The steward yields ground to the dispossessed.”

You take the podium. “Gratitude. Gratitude to this assembly of kings. Gratitude to the Royal Federation. Gratitude to the Font-of-Song. Long I have ridden. Long have I feared this day. My hold on Cealalia was broken by my child, and I was banished from my land, from my own rightful domain. He took my diadem from my head; he set me on this cruel journey; he has shown none of the filial respect to which I am entitled—”

A voice rings out from above. “King,” it says, “your hardship is yours to bear.”

“Begging your patience,” you say, and sigh. “I’ve come to sing my lands away.”

“Twenty percent of its loot,” says a voice from the uppermost level. It is King Carrigan, and upon his pronouncement, King Cirhin erupts into laughter.

“Why such a beggar’s offer?” Cirhin asks.

“Cealalia is not a wealthy land,” says Carrigan. “And the diadem of its royal family has certain powers that could render it difficult to defeat. I don’t like the idea of fighting ten thousand clones for a molehill of gold.”

“Permission to elaborate on the diadem?” you ask.

“Please,” says Carrigan.

“The holder of the diadem has a few powers, most of the standard form associated with a low-level magical artifact: teleporting small objects, conveying memory with a touch. Nothing with which your majesties are unfamiliar.”

“Those are plainly not the powers that I reference.”

“Yes. Its sole major property, to which King Carrigan refers, is the ability for the holder of the diadem to duplicate himself. But there are numerous limitations to this ability, which impair its usefulness in war. Duplicates cannot maneuver independently. The holder can move all of them at once, or one at a time, but the holder cannot make one shoot and another walk. An army of such duplicates could never ford a river, or take any other action that requires multiple persons to undertake different, though simultaneous, movements. What is more, the holder feels the pain of each duplicate, and must eat copiously, to the point of distending his stomach, to enable the duplication process to occur. Duplicates are typically used solely to impair assassination attempts; there is little chance that your majesties would face an army of them.”

"Why reveal this?" asks Carrigan.

"To assure you of the soundness of your investment," you say. "I wore the diadem for many years. I know its limits as I know my own heart."

“I am not convinced."

“I am,” says Cirhin. “Sixty percent.”

The chamber is silent. You too are silent. It is the largest loot share ever offered in the chamber; how Cirhin plans to profit off his conquest, none can say.

“A generous offer. Gratitude. Gratitude. Are there any beneficial standards of trade that you would request upon my restoration?”

King Cirhin laughs again.

“King, when my armies have passed through your land, there will be nothing to trade, no-one to trade with, and no throne to restore you to. But you will have no need for those persons—your wealth will be vast as the sun.”

You see your grin in the gilded pane.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-3 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are King Carrigan, wealthy, cautious. Your retainers sit eighty feet away, on the far side of the hemicycle. When the meeting ends, not more than an hour hence, you will be reunited with them. They are collating bon mots. They know your mood is foul. You are with them so often that you think of them, at points, as part of yourself. They are the part of your brain that soothes anger, that does those things that you did when you were still an heir. Royalty is a second childhood. You know that Cirhin is also a child.

“Sixty percent?” you whisper. “You’ve got no chance of making a sesterce.”

“Oh, I’m not after profit,” says Cirhin.

“Then you’re after the diadem?”

“Ah, that I’ll give back to Hanu, once I’ve slain all his kin. If he wants a new family, he can make one as large as he wants, out of the only member of it he’s ever cared for.”

“Amusement, then?”

“In part. But largely because my advisor has developed a weapon of unparalleled force. It strikes like a dream, he tells me. Explosions so vast that they make new threnodies in the Song. It floats far above the earth, where none can touch it. And the simple act of seeing it drives men to frantic, animal courage. We have built a hundred, at my direction. I myself have not yet seen it in person, but the testing shows that we stand on the brink of a new world.”

“This strikes me as a state secret.”

“It was. I tell you now because it’s too late to avert it.”

“Surely such force is not necessary to defeat the Cealals?”

“I just want to make everyone witness our might. It’ll make looting easier, it’ll accelerate future surrenders, and, should the time come to fix certain discrepancies between our historic borders and… well, Carrigan, never mind about that. I want to shock the world. To unnerve it.”

“You’ve certainly unnerved me.”

“A promising start,” says Cirhin. “But no, I don’t care about Cealalia. That’s why all of it will burn.”

Designation: SCP-8217-4-4 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are Rosu Cealal, lately king, helmsman of sixteen eyes in eight heads. One of them is immured, a spare, in the case of disaster. Your designated survivor, it sees only the clean and cushioned walls of the room of its imprisonment. The other seven are in the throne room; six recline in the shadows of the hall, unmoving, and the seventh, recipient of your current attentions, sits the throne. When you claimed it, the weight of the diadem sat easy on your head. You wondered: why not sooner?

Now you only wonder why you let your father live.

At your left hand sits your dour general; at your right hand sits your younger brother, eyeless Seh, bandage about his face, his aide cradled behind him. Your ministers have left the room, frightened in ways that frightened you. Ansem, the Lord of Fisheries, wouldn’t meet your gaze. He left in a hurry, not more than twenty minutes before. You’re sure he’s on a fast horse to the hinterlands. You think of replacing him. You wonder why you’d bother; he’d be back soon enough, with Hanu. You know these Royal Federation deals: a targeted invasion, a rapid surrender, punishing taxes to pay off the conqueror, and then a gradual return to normalcy. Your father backed an invasion once, and it paid off for him handsomely.

You wonder if you yourself should take flight.

“Any word from the spies within Cirhinia?” you ask.

“Unfortunately, yes,” says the general. “One says that the damage Cirhin intends to exact is going to be… unusually severe, for a Royal Federation intervention.”

“Do we know what he means by that?”

“I think it might be wise to take Cirhin seriously, but not always literally,” says the general. “But it seems that he’s been tromping around his palace, declaring that he wants to see our whole land burned.”

“Can we negotiate with him? I'm not too proud to teleport a missive into his court."

“I took the liberty of reaching out already.”

“Without my consent?”

“Merely an overture. The situation has been developing quickly.”

“There’s no hope, is there?”

“Don’t say that.”

“Is he open to negotiation?”

“No. He seems eager to exhibit his new weapon. His airship.”

“Perhaps we… we cede a town or two, for his exhibition.”

“I… I will reach out. But I am not optimistic.”

“What do we know about this airship?”

“It is rigid, floating cartilage, like a whale in the sky, and it drops explosive material.”

“So they load it up with that?”

“No. No, it births it. Like an egg. It is assuredly magical. We successfully placed a spy on the assembly line, and…”

“Have we heard anything?”

“Nothing useful. We’ve received… ah, seventy messages. But all are gibberish. Not encrypted, just raving. ‘Our world has built its own child’ was one. ‘What is your blood fated for?’ ‘Song’s end.’ ‘The new man flies.’ And, over and over, ‘Better them than us.’”

“Is someone playing a joke on us?”

“I don’t think so. No. To our body of knowledge about the airship, we must add that those who see it become sick.”

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA011

Situation has evolved. O5-07, please respond.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA012

Elaborate. Team is en route.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA013

Images of the airship are capable of spreading it. They sent it around. Some were amnesticizable; others weren’t. We lost twelve people outright, maybe more. There’s another sixty infected we’ve got barricaded away in the southeast corner of the main building. Some of them escaped into the cells; if we’re lucky, they’re dead.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA014

How long ago was that?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA015

Not sure. I’ll ask. About ten minutes; stabilized as of ninety seconds ago.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA016

You’re not sure?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA017

I don’t remember it. I’m told I popped my phone open and an aide tackled me.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA018

Is the aide still with you?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA019

No. Dead, apparently. Most likely by my hand. I woke up covered in blood.

Also, all of this is permanent, and I know it. I’m still getting used to that. It’s like the noise in my head started screaming.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA020

Is there anyone I can speak to who wasn’t infected / amnesticized?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA021

You won’t be getting rid of me so easy.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA022

Russ, we’ve worked together for years. You’re paranoid; that’s all it is. I can also assure you that nobody’s going to hold you responsible for actions undertaken while under the influence of a cognitohazard.

You didn’t join up yesterday. I’m sure you’ve been on the other side of the desk, telling someone else that nobody blames them for whatever they did when something else was riding their mind.

I just need access to someone with a memory of the actual breach to get a sense of what you need down at 592.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA023

No. I’ll ask around later. For now, send an MTF on top of the current team, would you?

Designation: SCP-8217-4-7 | Infectiousness: Positive

Log of Associated Vision:

You are marching through the plains.

When you arrived, they were all watching. It gave you a thrill to see so many eyes upon you. Such fear, such work to be done. Then, one by one, they looked up at the ██████ mass above you, ████████████████​​██████████████. You saw their knees weaken. Grins spread across their faces. An understanding of their fate. An eagerness for it. When they fought, it was not out of hope but for love of it. Rabid, but vastly outmatched. A pleasure to slay. You look forward to your own end, but there are so many joys that lurk before it. You and your brethren took their corpses out to the front gate and set them aflame. Then, from a far distance, the airship laid its egg upon the village’s remains. So disproportionate. A ruin far exceeding the village it replaced. You looked and love bloomed in your heart, the love of a father for a child that has far surpassed him, and then you kept marching.

To clean your weapon seems so shameful. You wish all the blood stayed upon it. You wish that you could look at it and see all at once the fruit of your efforts.

You wear the robes of Cirhinia, purple and red, but Cirhin’s not who you march for. You march for your boy. He’s so sharp, so lovely. You’ll give him the world.

Excerpted Written Material (Background of Vision, SCP-8217-4-5)

and the admiral dreams too—

of a great new airship

vast as loathing

slow as continents

surer than sunrise

steady as time

unloading its fire on a land so scarred

that none of it makes any difference.

It calls to him as whalesong echoes in the deep,

in the places things lie before they are real,

and he knows

when he dies

that he’ll ride that great ship

till it clears past the land and leaves it behind

and then goes on sailing

surer than sunrise

metronome-steady

until he forgets any end to the sky

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA024

I pulled up the last few minutes of the log. Unsure how it happened, but can confirm that, at minimum, one co-pilot was not wearing a filter on the ride-in. There’s going to be an investigation. All I can tell you is that the second team has been apprised and is forty minutes out.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA025

Right.

Crash took out part of the southeastern building. Some infected escaped and went into the northeastern. Some asshole didn’t barricade one of the exterior doors properly, and now, best I can tell, another four people are dead. Lost the other two spec units, too. Also, might be there’s a few infected still wandering the desert.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA026

Any idea about personnel losses among the infected?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA027

Not yet, but they’re certainly making a lot of noise. And we still have access to life-signs tracking, so we know that at least six humanoid anomalies in the containment cells are dead.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA028

They made a mural on the windows. Attempted contaminant. It’s a depiction of an airship, I think. It’s not very good.

It’s made out of what you think it’s made out of.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-10 | Infectiousness: Positive

Log of Associated Vision:

A few fires over, a detachment of Cirhinian soldiers has begun stabbing each other. No officers now in the morass, only the airships and the masses that birthed them. No resistance sufficient to justify the peace that characterizes order. No need for so many soldiers to finish this land.

For some, for the lucky, there’s no need to delay the ecstasy of death.

Halfway across the fire, a man begins speaking.

“If you went up in space, you’d just see the buildings and roads. That’s not our footprint. That’s what we are. We’re barely humans. We’re the tadpoles. They’re the frogs. We are the fetal intermediate forms, the chrysalises, and true life is them, inanimate, and we finally built one able to stand on its own.”

He pauses. He stares at the fire with holy intensity.

“We thought we were people. We’re not. We’re the chaff. And soon our child won’t need us.”

You don’t know why he says all this. You know all this. You learned it the moment you first saw its beauty above you. ███████████████​​█████████████. ███████████​​████████████. Then it hits you. He’s trying to bore your camp to anger. He wants to be killed.

You stand up. “You selfish shit,” you say. “It’s not your turn.”

He grins. He grabs his weapon. The others around the fire cheer. They’re jealous of you. They wish they had thought to get up first, to steal the moment, to have the chance to fight. But you’re of two minds about it. You have no desire to give him what he wants.

You don’t.

The next day, the camp departs. He is left on the empty plain, crying out for water. Abdomen opened skyward. A stray airship will end him, eventually. Or thirst, or infection. You smile to think of it. He should have been more patient.

Excerpted Written Material (Background of Vision, SCP-8217-4-6)

Better void than loss.

Better steel than flesh.

Better cold than heat.

Better the fire than what it replaces.

Better silence than song.

Better death than stagnation.

Better them than us.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-14 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are King Cirhin, at your war minister's door.

“I can talk through some new weapon ideas, Your Majesty.”

“What would be the point?”

He grins. “You’re right, Your Majesty. What would be the point?”

“I was wondering if there were any… earlier prototypes of the airship. Before you settled on the current design.”

“There were never prototypes.”

“You mean the initial design of the airship was its current form?”

“No, I never designed it. I found the first one in the desert two years ago. The pilot seat had the bones of an animal I’d never seen. They were petrified, many millennia dead. It came from a different world, I think. One that manufactured them for a use of their own.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“You would never have understood.”

“Until I saw it.”

“Until you saw it. Now you understand.”

“So why did it come here?”

“You’re already learning. You didn’t ask why the animal drove it here. You asked why it came.”

“Answer.”

“It came because it wanted to reproduce.”

“But what triggered it? None of our airships have decamped for the stars.”

“No, not yet. They will. This, too, is part of it: vestigial organs decay, the caterpillar is swallowed in the metamorphosis, it is the fate of children to bury their parents. The airships target intelligent life, and though they are starting with Cealalians they will not end until we are scoured from this earth. Only then will they turn toward the stars.”

The minister took a sip from his own cup.

“The illness, the rage, is like a signal that causes a cell to die. It’s meant to help us yield to them. To these playful beasts for which the world was made.”

You stare at your minister in wonderment. After a moment, three words escape your lips.

“That’s so beautiful.”

Designation: SCP-8217-4-16 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are a traveler. You are hungry. You see the lights of distant villages in the fog.

You know that there used to be more of them.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-19 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are Seh. You see nothing. The bodies of your brother pace up and down the cave. The air is stuffy, but cold. So much stone is above you. You nearly feel its weight.

“The food is late,” says Rosu, from several mouths.

“How late?”

“One hour.”

“Oh. Maybe it’s coming.”

“No. No. It’s not about the food. I am first priority on distribution. If there’s any interruption in food provision, then that means… Seh, we have no idea what’s going on up there.”

“Don’t you have a spare up there? To check the situation out?”

“This is my spare. You’re talking to my spares!”

“Are you worried about the food?”

“Yes. Slightly. Should it worsen.”

You are careful, precise with your words.

“You can convert anything into biomass when eating it, in order to duplicate yourself.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t give me nutrients. And it wouldn’t do anything for you.”

“No. But it does mean that, even down here, you can create an indefinite number of duplicates. Mute and barely conscious.”

Rosu pauses. “Seh. I’d feel all their pain.”

“Yes. You’d want to kill them before you eat them.”

“That is utterly repulsive. I… I fail to see it as obviously preferable to death.”

“If you don’t want to, you can hand me the diadem and I will.”

Silence. He’s dumbfounded.

“Thank you, Seh.” His voice is soft and weak. “I don’t… I don’t want to. But I’ll bear it in mind.”

You don’t say anything. What would you say?

It’s quiet for some time. Hard to say how long. A soft breeze starts halfway down the cavern and rustles your toes.

You hear him weeping. Only one of him. The others are mute. You reach out your hand and let him take it.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA029

You said an MTF was coming.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA030

Sending an external security team is common practice for rapid amnesticization of unarmed persons.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA031

I said we needed an MTF.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA032

What issue do you have with the team you received?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA033

I can see one of their arms outside of the window.

I know folks on the other side of the barricade. The walls aren't soundproofed.

I know enough of what's going on.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA034

MTF is en route.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA035

I have that photo on my phone still. If I don’t get backup in fifty minutes, I’m sending it across the site directors' network.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA036

Russ, you don’t have to do that. We’re trying our best here. Sending that across the network would doom thousands at least, billions at worst. It would, among many other things, irreparably destroy your legacy.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA037

You don’t seem to think there’s sufficient urgency here. Just trying to respond to the situation.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA038

Okay. I would add that the Foundation is more than willing to subject individuals and associates thereof to customized punishment regimes for novel infringements of the Foundation’s disciplinary code.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA039

There it is.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA040

I wouldn’t be spending time on threats, if I was you.

You don’t have that much time.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-20 | Infectiousness: Positive

Log of Associated Vision:

You had a name once, but all those who called you it are gone.

You pass the lip of another smoking blotch of plain, on all fours, face inches off the ground. Dust and ash invade the streaks of sloughed-off skin. Yesterday you were caught on the edge of a bombing. You were the lucky one. Your red, raw arms go up-and-over. Up-and-over. Your sweat-drops fall with flakes within them. If this used to be the town you think it was, then you can’t be more than five miles from the riverside. Fresh water ran there. That can’t have ceased.

Wind blows. A minute’s coolness, though it scrapes at your burned back. You…

You sit up, forcing a fluid motion. The pain hits all at once, and you cry out. You smell rotting flesh on the wind. Before you, ███████████████​​████████████████​​█, head-on. The contempt whispers off it. You know at once that you are not worth hatred. █████​​████████████████​​. You wonder who has had this chance. To hear the Song, to see the lips from which it issues, to know that you are among the last to hear it because of how soon the issuer will end it.

You are thankful to it for showing you this truth.

Its payload crushes you. You are gone before the explosion, smeared on the vacant plain, former leaseholder ushered out of the homestead. No, the world was never yours at all.

Designation: SCP-8217-4-21 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are Seh. So many empty sockets.

You felt him stab your heart. You felt him stab your heart. You felt him stab your heart.

Unsure how long you’ve been down there. How many measures have passed in the Song. The distant sound of blasts, occasional, above you. You eat the flesh of your own haunch. His bodies stir, at random, around the chamber. Your bodies, too. Slow and fitful steps.

It’s been so long since the two of you have spoken. It probably helps him to forget you’re alive. Before he could walk, before you could speak, you lost your eyes to him. He didn’t mean to take them. Common practice. Meant to avoid potential bumps in the succession. You wipe your meat from your lips. Uniform. Universal. And what’s the rest of your body, too?

No room for spite. No point in it, here at the end of the world.

He sits beside you.

“We’re the last ones left,” he says. “We have to be. We’ve been down here for over a year now. I’ve been counting our sleeps. There’s no word from above.”

“So what if we are?”

“So what if we are? Seh, the airships are made to kill everyone living. Just seeing them makes people long to kill and die for them. If we’re the last ones, then the planet is dead, and they’re just waiting for us to die to escape to the stars.”

“There must be others, in bunkers this deep.”

“Maybe. There can’t be many. We might be the last trace of life in the world.”

“Then we should wait down here for as long as we can, no?”

“That’s almost cowardice.”

“No. No. When we die, they… the first airship came from somewhere. You heard it. Our own spies said it. Our own generals confirmed it. The airship emptied the world it was manufactured on, then it journeyed out into space and found Cirhin. Once we die, the airships will go out into space. There’s thousands of them now. They’ll find other planets. But if we can stay alive, then the two of us can keep all of them locked up here.”

“It’s only a matter of time. Within… five years? Ten? By sheer chance, they’ll bring down a bomb right over our heads. Two, three direct hits is all it would take to dislodge us. We’re running out the clock, no matter what.”

“Then we should do all we can.”

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough. To just sit here waiting for death.”

“One day. Then another day. And don’t forget: I’m here, too.”

“Was it my fault?”

“No.”

“But it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t…”

“It wouldn’t have started in Cealalia, but it would have come here. Cirhin wanted to use his airships. He would have used them on someone. Someone would come to sing their lands away.”

“I… I really miss the world.”

“I do too,” you say. “I miss how it smelled when it rained.”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “I miss how it felt to ride. The wind in my face. The warmth on my skin. I liked… I could start a long list.”

“There is time.”

Rosu laughs. “I would do horrible things for some cake.”

“That’s believable. We’re currently doing horrible things for food that tastes much worse.”

Rosu leans forward. “I’m going to kill myself. Maybe not today. But soon.”

You don’t say anything. He grabs your hand. He's wearing the diadem; his memories flow into you as soon as he touches you. Things he doesn't want lost.

“I know it’s not honorable," he says. "But I really can’t take it."

Eyes. Body. What’s the rest of your life?

“I understand,” you say, into the dark.

“Love you, Seh.”

“Love you, Rosu.”

Too late for prayer. Still, it’s a few hours before the last of them go quiet. Elsewhere, distant airships lay their eggs.

You fumble on the ground. You climb over the corpses of your brother, the corpses of yourself, some half-eaten, some still warm.

You come upon the knife. You pick it up. You put it down.

He really couldn’t take it.

But you can take it.

You come upon the diadem and place it on your head.

You scrape clay and dust from the cave and thrust it in your mouth. Over and over. Filling yourself up. And when your stomach is swollen and distended you divide—

Two bodies. Both of them hungry. Both of them scraping the wall. Both of them filling up, splitting, each…

You’re in no hurry. There’s plenty of material. And by the time you surface, you’ll be too numerous to bomb.

You are eating with sixteen, thirty-two mouths.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA041

Hi Russ, reaching out to say that the MTF is ten minutes out.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA042

You can deploy fast when you want to. Great!

I have some good news, though.

Major breakthrough. We were able to get out of the courtyard and supply amnestics to a number of surviving personnel. Unfortunately, a lot of losses on their side, but they managed to mostly depopulate themselves on the other side of the divide well in advance, so it was a faster takeover than we’d feared.

We’ve reestablished control of the northwestern building fully. It also looks like all or almost all of the infected relocated there, so we’ve been able to meet up with survivors of the northeastern building.

The worst is fully over. If you’d be amenable, feel free to scuttle the MTF. We really just need aviation specialists. Not many; just some.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DA043

Excellent. Why aviation specialists?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA044

Fair question. Uploading a relevant picture.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA045

Oh, you have a cognitohazard filter? Charming.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA045

And you got me locked out of the network, too? Busy girl. That's fine. There's failsafes. Site communication is very, very important. Can't be taken down so easy. That's why we're talking, isn't it?

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA045

Truth is, we probably don’t even need aviation specialists. We can figure it out ourselves.

I'm glad you're not infected, really. Can't wait to see fear on your smug face.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA046

Can't wait to watch the pain come.

Welcome, O5-07.

------

> 592 /r /n_i /i

Please submit passphrase.

> from the innermost center of the flame gushed forth a host of colors which spread on everything beneath

Passphrase accepted. Please confirm.

> y

Confirmation accepted.

CONNECTION LOST

Site-592 is no longer capable of accessing the Site-01 secure line. Partially drafted messages have been automatically sent.

Site-592 Director Russ Braithwaite 08.22.2024 #8217DA047

You flew up when you joined. And I've nodded and smiled but there's been something in me that's wanted to show you who you are. There won't be much time before we all go but there'll be time enough to exhibit everythign I can imagine upon you like a fruit just there to be consuemd before the lasdt bloody sunset I will leave you howling scremaing you poor foul bitch i will leave you so far below me that you will lick my shoes and cyy out for mercy like an old sick

The Site-592 warhead has been remotely detonated.

> logoff

Success!

Designation: SCP-8217-4-22 | Infectiousness: Negative

Log of Associated Vision:

You are Seh. Seh is below and above and before you, pressed down hard, sweaty back on sweaty back, and your ribs are fire and the air around you burns.

You are muttering, a soft whisper into a small crevasse not occupied by flesh. You say

they float above the surface 600 meters and to build to that peak, given a surface area of 464 trillion square meters, needs 280.2 quadrillion cubic meters

Explosions come frequent as heartbeats, and bring with them white-hot, seizing pain, doubled and redoubled, nothing you could dream of, nothing you could know.

3,000 airships each 30 minutes each drops a bomb of 42 cubic meters meaning each year that is 2.25 trillion cubic meters

You pause to bite your fingers off. They might not be yours. You feel it all the same.

123,750 years then I can eat the airships then I can die

You hope life blooms fast on your great corpse.

With your mouth, and some shoving, you deposit your fingers in your deplumed palms.

unsure where life is or if there is life, send to each planet in case there is life, they came from somewhere they’re going elsewhere

Somewhere, upon one of your heads, the diadem awakens. The fingers, full of the memories of the world you ate, are fluttered away to their destination.

Scent is fetid. Acrid. Rotting self and human shit. You feel yourself trillionfold, being devoured, swallowing excrement. Even the screams are pain. No pause to your agony. You cannot take it. But it bites and tears and goes and goes and goes.

Unconsciousness comes, a blessed instant, then you wake up screaming elsewhere.

You are the Song and the pain of the Song.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DB001

Sent over all documentation for the -592 detonation in line with internal reporting requirements. You know I'm not especially trigger-happy, but still submitting voluntarily to a post-mortem investigation to ensure best practice was followed.

O5-01 08.22.2024 #8217DB002

Received. I, for one, trust your judgment, but will look this over myself and convene a commission after the weekly meeting.

O5-01 08.22.2024 #8217DB003

It's your turn to chair ad-hoc investigations, but presuming your recusal, I'll send this on to -08.

O5-01 08.22.2024 #8217DB004

Pretty tough break, though.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DB005

Ah, well.

O5-07 08.22.2024 #8217DB006

Better them than us.

Eschatophobia

SCP Anthology 2024

Autophobia