The air tilts at a sickening angle. The streets are crowded, yet empty. Cold, yet sharp. Up, yet left.

The Painting That Ate Paris, Texas

SCP-6454 — The Painting That Ate Paris, Texas

"In the name of Duchamp and Tzara and Breton, in all the names of that sweet celestial host but most of all in the blessed name of Saint Arthur Cravan, the nihilist martyr, we offer you… The Painting That Ate Paris!"

Doom Patrol, Vol. 2: The Painting That Ate Paris by Grant Morrison

+ CODE

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ITEM#: SCP-6454

LEVEL▼▼

Double Unsecret

SATIATION CLASS:

starveling

SECONDARY CLASS:

none

DISRUPTION CLASS:

RISK CLASS:

critical

Item#: {$item-number}

Containment Class: {$container-class}

Secondary Class: {$secondary-class}

Disruption Class: {$disruption-class}

Risk Class: {$risk-class}

SCP-6454 (behind a lemonade stand), shortly after eating Paris, Texas.

Surrealistic Contrapment Policies: SCP-6454 is to be contained within the north-left wing of Site-⌘'s anart.A word which here means "anomalous art," "anxious arthropod," or "ah! an artist!" gallery, right between the stuffed heads of those dogs that play poker and the box where we keep Monet's real paintings..I'm not allowed to describe them here, but they're quite saucy, I'll have you know. When interpreting or critiquing SCP-6454, viewers are not to use the following terms:

Color

Shape

Texture

Emotion

Depth

Paint

Personnel are not to feed SCP-6454 if it requests food in a manner that could be considered impolite— like screaming, telekinetically yanking some poor sod's limbs off, or devouring the entire facility again..It can never keep us down, mind. Like a children's toy from any fast food restaurant, Site-⌘ is a choking hazard. If SCP-6454 requests food politely.As it is a painting and cannot speak, a "polite request" is composed of pleasing weather patterns and freeform jazz. it is to be fed immediately. Watching SCP-6454 eat isn't disallowed, but let's just say the roving glass storms aren't the only reason why we have so many emergency eye-wash stations in our art gallery..Trust me when I say you're not missing out. There is a downright distressing amount of slime involved in the process.

SCP-6454 can be fed pretty much anything on hand, with the following exceptions:

Milk products.Lactose intolerance.

Anything in sets of prime numbers

Mirrors

Trickle-down economics

Feet.Lack-toes intolerance.

Windows

The flayed corpse of God

The Spanglish Inquisition

Butterflies

Lists.I threw some lists into this document to prevent SCP-6454 from chowing down on it. You're welcome.

Photo of SCP-6454 (with lens cap) in containment.

Description: SCP-6454 is a 1.5 meter by 1 meter canvas painting.See attached image to the right. that was discovered on 07/28/2017 in the center of a ~59.65 km2 expanse that previously held the landscape of Paris, Texas. It is not currently known how SCP-6454 was created, who/what created it, or how arrived in Paris..Investigators claim that it's probably not important anyway and that they'd like to see you try, if you're so smart.

All that is currently known about this event is that when SCP-6454 ate Paris, it only left behind 9-year-old Mary Ashling's handmade lemonade stand..See attached image above. Ashling is currently in Foundation custody, pending interrogation.

Addendum 6454+1: MTF Logs

Shortly after Paris, Texas' disappearance was made known to the Foundation, Mobile Task Force ⌘-0.25 ("Doomed Patrol") was dispatched to retrieve SCP-6454 and ascertain the whereabouts of Paris' inhabitants.

Exploration Team: MTF ⌘-0.25

Subject: SCP-6454

Team Lead: Vincent Von Vincent

Team Members: Abthony South (Navigator), Sasha Escher (Anart Specialist), The Late Octavia Key (Ghost Lawyer)

Sasha Escher

EXTERIOR: A VAST WASTELAND. MIDDAY.

[The sound of dirt, tiny rocks, and beetle shells crunching underfoot. The faint stench of boredom. MTF ⌘-0.25 strolls towards Ashling's lemonade stand. Their transport.A vintage 1973 Volkswagen Beetle half-embeded in the week-old corpse of an antarctic minke whale. lies not far behind them in a smoking wreck.]

Escher: —both at the same time?! [Delighted.] South, you dog!

South: I— yes. What?

Vincent: Heads up, everyone. Our bodycams just switched on. I set them to only record when interesting things are happening, so keep your third eyes peeled. Copy?

South: Copy.

Key: Copy.

Escher: Copied!

[The group nears the lemonade stand. SCP-6454 is leaned up against it in plain sight.]

Key: This is the anomaly, yes?

South: Looks a bit shit.

Vincent: What's your read on this, Escher?

[Escher scrapes a bit of paint off of SCP-6454 with her fingernail and pops it into her mouth. She hums thoughtfully.]

Escher: [Thoughtful.] Hmmmmm.

Escher: It's alive, but dormant right now after a big meal. Hasn't yet gotten to digesting, either, which is good for the Tex…

Escher: Texans? Texites? [Pause.] Texicans!

Vincent: Is there a way we could enter the painting without being eaten?

Escher: 'Course. It's like this: art is a mirror, yeah? Reflects the dark heart of man or whatever. The question is: is your reflection in there…

Abthony South (right) and SCP-6454 (left, covered by a slightly larger picture)

INTERIOR: PARIS, TEXAS. UN-DAY.

Escher: …or out here?

[The sky is the spoiled yellow of the hollow sun's oceanic kidneys. Paris has been made wrong, or inside-out, or destroyed and replaced with a perfect replica, but you know, you just know that something is off. The air tilts at a sickening angle. The streets are crowded, yet empty. Cold, yet sharp. Up, yet left.]

Escher: Great work, me.

Key: I feel like I'm gonna yarf.

South: …Can you even do that?

Key: You don't want to find out.

Escher: I do.

Vincent: Focus. We need to find the location that the anomaly began eating from.

Key: Why?

Vincent: Because the end is always found at the beginning, where the end is. Or the middle, sometimes.

Vincent: Obviously.

South: I'll lead us there.

Vincent: Have you picked up a scent?

South: [Hastily shoving the script to SCP-6454 into his back pocket.] Sure, we'll call it that.

Octavia Key, two weeks prior to Department of Surrealistics recruitment.

OUTERIOR: EIFFEL TOWER WEARING A COWBOY HAT. (NO, REALLY.) NOONISH.

[The Eiffel Tower heaves with the bodies of SCP-6454's gut microbiota. They crawl and twist and shiver, a postmodern swirl of color and light stretched, membrane-thin, across the bars of the tower. They are a bookshelf made bare, a prosthetic hand without fingers, a frozen plum.]

South: We won't be able to do anything about Paris with these things swarming the place.

Vincent: Agreed. Key?

Key: I'll handle it.

[Key steps forward, crackling ectoplasmic energy alighting in the gelid furnace of her chest. The caverns of her eyes shine with bright darkness as the dead begin to manifest around her. The corpses of conversations, relationships, moments, moods.]

South: [Glancing at the camera.] This is going to be really good.

[Key calls to the dead and they rise to meet it, crawling up into the world of the living through the temple of her vocal chords. A carcass legion drags itself from the muck of charnel realities, its teeth stained with moss, its blades encased in rust. With a single voice, the dead speak.]

Key: WE WOULD LIKE TO NEGOTIATE.

South:

South: Wait, wha—

Vincent Von Vincent (probably)

EXTRATERIOR: CONFERENCE ROOM B12. 25:64 PM.

[The group sits with several nondescript lawyers in a generic conference room. What, you want a word picture about this, too?]

SCP-6454 Microbiota Representative: I think I can say with certainty that our clients will be quite pleased with this arrangement.

[South looks around, confused.]

South: When did we get here?

Key: So long as Paris is returned to the "real world" with all of its inhabitants intact, my people will say the same.

Escher: You can say that again!

South: Why would she say that agai— hold on.

[South pages through the script, silently mouthing out words as he speed-reads.]

Vincent: All's well that ends well!

[Everyone laughs. Freeze frame.]

[Everyone laughs. Freeze frame.]

South:

South:

South: Seriously, what the fu—

CREDITS.

Addendum 6454+2: Paris Recovery

Shortly after Paris, Texas was removed from the painting, Class B and Class ⌘ amnestics were applied to the city via an old-timey biplane flying overhead with two open buckets..Class B amnestics remove memories from people.

Class ⌘ amnestics remove memories from places. At time of writing, Paris has been successfully rezippered and returned to consensus (un)reality.

Addendum 6454+3: Addendum 6454+4

A standard size postage stamp has been discovered on the back of SCP-6454. The following text was written on it in large block capitals with mango-scented marker:

Greetings and saluditations, fellow reprobates!

I must say, I am rather disappointed with you! Here I thought this "Department of Surrealistics" shared our ideals— when it turns out you're just like the rest of those fun-hating Foundation fuddy-duddies.

You really ought to loosen up. Life's a party, after all, and we're all invited! Live a little! Take a risk! Steal from your workplace! Feed a city full of thinking, feeling people to a malevolent painting!

We were going to invite you to our semi-annual barbecue & knitting tournament, you know. I had a roast pig stored in my cold oven.An appliance that people who are wrong call a "fridge." just for you!.Oh, but I do enjoy these footnotes!

There's no need to worry about hard or harmed feelings, however. We meant to send the painting to that other Paris, but someone who's about to lose their job (among many, many other things) got the aim wrong. If anything, we owe you for cleaning up our mistake! You can keep the painting— consider it my gift to you.

Hugs and kisses,

Rataplan R. Handlinger, Vice President of the Shivering Brigade

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