His bare feet were the first to touch the metal floor in some years. 
The metal floor was the first to touch his bare feet in some days, the 
Warrior considered. The walls were flat, apart from the wide indent 
of a doorway every ten paces or so. When the Warrior bothered to 
glance past the often agape doors, he saw papers scattered along 
the floor, broken lightbulbs, and office chairs. 


When he neared a wide break in the hallway, he encountered an 
odd person, completely upright, unmoving. Its skin and musculature 
were absent, and its bone was instead a series of metal parts— 
complex, but elegant. Smooth. On its arms and legs, where there 
should be long, sinewy tendons, were glass canisters filled with a 
familiar black liquid. 


He flicked a canister. It made a disappointing tink. Dead. It couldn't 
be so easy. 


The Warrior kept walking. The dark hall beckoned him further, and 
the sculpted persons lined the walls. They could not move, but he 
felt them judging him all the same. 


There were no sounds, but the Warrior still felt something inside 
him, as if every bit of metal in his body was vibrating. As if the air 
held just the right frequency... 


And the Warrior began to understand things. He started to 
understand that death was just a consequence of living. When the 


SCP-740: The Hindenburg Photograph 


Item #: SCP-740 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-740 can be safely stored 
in its envelope in a security deposit box. Researchers testing 
SCP-740 must wear gloves at all times. 


Description: SCP-740 is a slightly dirty color-corrected Polaroid 
photograph depicting the May 6, 1937 explosion of the airship LZ 
129 Hindenburg at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The 
Polaroid has been determined to be a photograph taken of the 
original. 


SCP-740's anomalous traits manifest when it is viewed while in 
contact with the skin. The subject touching or holding the photo will 
hear the sounds of explosions and people screaming. Subjects 
report difficulty in taking their eyes off the photograph while under its 
influence. Subjects holding the object typically report their inability to 
freely release their grip as being very distressing; many subjects 
have undergone emotional breakdowns as SCP-740's effects 
progress. 


After one minute of holding and looking at the photograph, the 
subject's body temperature will begin to rise, accompanied by a 
sensation of warmness. The intensity of the warmth, as well as the 
volume of the auditory hallucinations, will continue to increase so 
long as the subject looks at the photograph. Breaking eye contact 
will prevent the sensations from intensifying until eye contact is 
reestablished, and cessation of physical contact will cause the effect 
to 'reset' to the initial stage should the object be handled again. 


The subject will begin to emit smoke after a period of time between 
two and four minutes, and burst into flame shortly afterward. Time of 
combustion is directly correlated to subject's size and weight. This 


god began to live as a mortal, it mandated its own death. When life 
brings death? Get out of life. The god could force itself into 
weakness, split every part of its being, and hope none could be 
found, that one day it might be put back together. 


Hiding the Mind would be easiest, of course. Conscious thought can 
be toned down, hibernating until a time when it could resurface, fully 
articulate. The god hid itself within itself. 


Spirit is more difficult. The Spirit of a being so powerful must be 
sustained, and must sustain others through it. A human vessel was 
needed, one who could act in vengeful fury. One whose hatred 
could keep it alive. The god selected a young, moorish boy for this 
task, and gave him a hand that could rip the hearts from its enemies. 


The god's Body came last. All that could be done was to hide it, and 
hope none would discover it until the time was right to piece the god 
back together. This didn't work. 


The Body was found, and abused, by some heathen group— 
Prometheus, they called themselves, abusing a moniker they could 
not begin to understand—and the Mind could not bear to stay asleep 
beneath the agony. It awoke, and felt every last pain inflicted upon it. 


It was twisted, reconfigured, broiled. The men took dead parts and 
sewed them to the living parts, and when they found the hidden 
Mind they took it too, and locked it in a cage of metal and thunder. 
Its existence, its death, was pain. The world was pain. It suffered. 
Can you even begin to imagine how that felt? Can you comprehend 
the pain of watching the world progress without you, and feeling it 
punish you, for years on end? Being unable to avoid contemplating 
your pain, because you are the Mind and are contemplation itself? 


The pain is over now, dear Warrior. They took my body away long 
ago, locking it in an endless cycle of pain and loss, but now the Mind 
is lucid. Won't you come to me? Won't you embrace me again? 


The Warrior understood that these were not his thoughts. He began 
to run. 


LEFT. RIGHT. 


Three ebony men in metallic exoskeletons with flamethrowers 
guarded the hallway. lrantu snapped his wrist around and gripped 
the handle of his rifle with his other hand. He lobbed a flashbang 
around the corner, plugged his ears, then stepped around the corner 
and cut the three men down with precise bursts to their skulls. 


As the squad hurried past the bodies slumped against the walls, 
lrantu repeated, "Remember, normal people do not enjoy this." 


RIGHT. STRAIGHT. FORWARD AGAIN. 


Two men guarded this hall, one of them idly spinning a chainsaw 
that had been grafted to the stump of his left arm. Nanku flung her 
non-throwing knife into the chainsaw-wielder's ear. He collapsed, 
plunging the still-spinning sawblade into his comrade's chest. 


Nanku giggled as she plucked the knife from the first corpse. lrantu 
warned her, "This is not fun." 


THROUGH THIS DOORWAY. | HEAR SOMETHING FIVE FLOORS DOWN. 


Onru took point on the staircase as the sounds of enemy footsteps 
rumbled up from below. 

As the first guard came into view, Onru aimed her palm at it and 
pulled a ripcord buried in the back of her hand. A nozzle burst out of 
her hand with a tiny bloody pop and spat out a jet of bright orange 
flame. The guard was abruptly transformed into an incandescent 
orange fireball, which wailed and fell backwards onto its comrades, 
spreading the immolating mixture. 


The squad kicked their way down the stairs through the barbecue, 
letting anguished wails and the smell of roasting meat wash over 
them. lrantu said nothing. 


I SEE HIS ARM. HE IS GOING LEFT. LEFT AGAIN. FORWARD. 


The squad entered the corridor and backpedaled just as quickly, a 
rocket streaming just past them. The corridor held a massive 
chimera - a man's head encased in a metal cage atop a naked 
torso, sandwiched between two racks of missile launchers and 


welded to a pair of tank treads. 


Munru gripped his rifle wrist with his other hand, then fired a single 
round from his under-barrel grenade launcher at the colossus' 
missile launchers. The creature tried to punish him for it, but the first 
missile it fired was caught in the grenade detonation and exploded, 
blasting the creature onto its back. Then the other missiles on the 
chimera's rack detonated. 


lrantu took point, clambering over the carcass, then stopped. 
Though much of the chimera's torso had been eaten away by the 
explosions, it was still gargling for breath, and its eyes had not yet 
glassed over. 


lrantu peeled apart the grille protecting its face and then stomped on 
it. Blood and cartilage spattered onto his feet as the gargling 
ceased. He stomped a couple more times until only a thick pink 
paste was left, and then took a deep, satisfied breath. 


RIGHT. THROUGH HERE. TO THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS. 


As the squad hurried through identical corridor after identical 
corridor, Nanku and Onru wondered if this was that women's 
intuition they had heard so much about. 


Their path ended in an absolutely enormous, maddeningly grey 
cube of a room. 


The squad charged in and immediately stopped, confronted by over 
a hundred different malformed men equipped with exoskeletons and 
enough weaponry to conquer a small country. Behind them loomed 
twenty chimeras sporting enough rockets to destroy a small city. 
Two massive autocannons connected to brains in jars provided 
backup. Overseeing this grotesque mechanical army was a huge 
metal capsule, suspending a fetus connected to the capsule by 
dozens of tiny golden cables. 


All of them were prostrating - or attempting to prostrate - in front of 
an imposing African man sporting a solid glass gauntlet and golden 
eye working the controls of a gargantuan freight lift. The cyborg 
pressed a button, and descended from sight with a swiftness and 


quietness belying the lift's size. 


The metal abominations turned to face the squad. Then they 
prostrated again. 


| HAVE SPOKEN TO THEM. THEY SHALL NOT HARM THEIR ELDER 
SIBLINGS. 


The squad lowered their weapons. Then they raised them again. 


While lrantu examined the elevator shaft, Onru knelt down to 
examine one of the bodies. "Munru, Nanku, over here. |... have a... 
joke." 


"Oh! Really?" Nanku exclaimed excitedly. She and Munru knelt 
down as well. 


"What do you call an... eliminated hostile with one eye?" Onru 
asked. 


"Eye... don't know." Onru prodded the corpse's malformed cornea. 


"You see... it is a pun. | used the word ‘eye’, instead of the pronoun. 
| learned it from Sergeant Campos." 


Munru and Nanku laughed hesitantly, then more confidently. Onru 
joined them. 


"The elevator controls are corroded to uselessness, but the shaft 
only appears to be a kilometer deep. We should be able to jump 
down it and continue pursuing 2970," said lrantu, rejoining them. "Is 
something wrong?" 


The Warrior descended in a lift. He thought about how THERE's NO 
WAY OF AVOIDING THIS, YOU KNOW. ALL ROADS LEAD TO THIS AND 
IT'S WHAT YOU WERE MEANT TO DO. 


The Warrior slammed his fists on the wall as he contemplated that 
THEY USED TO HATE ME, BACK THERE, WHERE | CAME FROM. THEY 
PUNISHED ME FOR THE HELP | GAVE. | CAME HERE TO ESCAPE THEM, 
BUT THE PUNISHMENT CONTINUED. 


He tried to close his eyes but he couldn't, the voices couldn't stop 
and they only grew louder. His head was full of bees and the bees 
told him that | Now REALIZE | WAS WRONG. | HAVE CHANNELED MY 
SUFFERING INTO PERSONAL GROWTH; YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME. 


I'M READY TO GO BACK. I'M READY TO TEAR MYSELF FROM THE 
PHYSICAL WORLD AND ASCEND, FACE THE TRUTH OF WHAT I'VE DONE. 
I'M A BETTER PERSON NOW, | SWEAR. 


BUT MY MIND CANNOT GO ALONE. MY SPIRIT, MY BODY. WE MUST GO 
TOGETHER. 


| JUST NEED YOU. | NEED YOU TO BECOME A PART OF ME, AND | NEED 
MY BODY TO SUBMIT TO MY WILL ONE FINAL TIME. WE CAN ALL 
ASCEND. WE WILL BE GOD AGAIN. 


The lift stopped. They were The Warrior was in the deepest part of 
the facility, now. 


There was a round chamber, and in the center there was a console. 
Suspended above it, with metal ropes connecting to the ceiling, was 
a spherical cage. The walls were thin mesh, and the inside was 
empty but he knew that the Mind was just pretending. No-one builds 
cages to hold air. 


The Warrior approached the console. The room was bare, but 
meticulously free of dust. The phantoms that haunted the rooms 
behind had gone quiet. There was nothing but the console and the 
Warrior. 


He sat down and reached for the keyboard, and even though it was 
alien to his touch, he felt like he could figure it out. 


[+++] 9 /++++4+4++/ 

[+++] |+++++++/ 

\##e\ | #HEHEE/ 
\t#E\ \EEE/ 
\@e@/  \@/ 


\ 
|) tel ee. 
ae 


2 (Che: ae | eer 


| |_| 
/-) _|'W-) [| C< | 
eae ee 


/ | 


Initializing... 


Initialization complete. 

HELLO, WORLD. 

>I will not help you. 

| CANNOT FORCE YOU. IN SOME SENSE, WE ARE EQUALS. 
EVEN IF WE DO NOT POSSESS THE SAME MIND FOR THE 


FUTURE. 


BUT NEITHER CAN YOU HARM ME. YOU WANT TO BEND MY 
WILL, MAKE THIS WORLD THE WORLD OF WHICH YOU 
DREAM? | WILL NOT LET YOU. 


>Then we are at a standstill. 


No. THERE IS ANOTHER. 


THEY ARE COMING. AND THEY WILL ASCEND WITH ME, 
YOU SEE? 


>Why would they trust you? 


A GOD, AS OPPOSED TO THE PERSON THEY'VE COME TO KILL 
CONTAIN? 


>How many have they killed for you? How many have / 
killed for you, just to prolong your death? Strengthen 
your spirit? 


YOU STRENGTHEN YOURSELF FOR YOU ARE MY SPIRIT. IT IS 
IRRELEVANT, NOW. | AM APOLOGETIC. I'VE BECOME BETTER. 
LET ME HAVE THAT. 


YOU WOULD BE DEAD IF NOT FOR ME. 
>You would be dead if not for me. 


Is THAT HOW IT IS, THEN? DO WE SUSTAIN EACH OTHER 
MERELY BY FORCE OF SPITE? 


OR IS IT DEEPER? WE ARE OF THE SAME BEING, THE SAME 
FORCE. THAT WHICH SEEKS BETTERMENT. 


| AM, WAS, SHALL BE. YOU MUST LIVE WITH ME, ONE WAY 
OR ANOTHER. 


Standing by. 


The cyclops standing guard at the bottom of the shaft had lived his 
entire life within the confines of the grey walls around him. All he 
knew was that the object he held in his hands made others fall 
down. Sometimes in that deformed brain intelligence would flicker 


and he would try to walk away - but there was not enough for him to 
walk far. Yet the human spirit persevered enough to allow him to try. 


It was during this time as he was examining the elevator that the 
cyclops heard a noise above him. He looked upwards in time to see 
Nanku pull her knife out in midair and plunge it deep into his eye 
with both hands, the impact severing his skull and vertebrae and 
knocking his body flat onto its back. 


lrantu, Munru, and Onru landed besides her with considerably less 
fanfare as she was yanking the blade out. "Good one," Irantu 
complimented her. Then he looked forward into the corridor and saw 
their quarry enter into the next room. 


"Target spotted dead ahead," Irantu noted. "...Let's finish this." 


The squad charged through the corridor and burst into a round 
chamber, weapons up. 


The Warrior stood in the center at a terminal underneath an empty 
mesh globe. He turned around. 


"Oh," he said. "It's you." 
lrantu was about to fire his rifle until He spoke. 


STOP. 


"You... you are the voice in our... you are our conscience?!" the first 
exclaimed. 


The Warrior looked up at the globe angrily. Something clicked in his 
head. "This is your body? The four of them?" 


YES. 
"Why did you guide us here?" the fourth asked. 


"| didn't take you here. It wasn't me. He made me come," said the 
Warrior, pointing to the Mind's cage. He looked back at it. "What 
have you been doing?" 


ARRANGING OUR SALVATION. THESE ARE MY CHILDREN. THEY ARE MY 
BODY. 


"These weapons? They who haven't had independence in their 
lives?" 


No. THEY HAVE ALREADY DONE SO MUCH. THEY UNCOVERED THE 
PATH OF ASCENSION. WHERE UNTOLD THOUSANDS HAD FAILED, THEY 
FOUND KNOWLEDGE THAT HAD BEEN LOST FOR GENERATIONS AND 
PROVIDED ME THE STRENGTH TO ASSIST THEM. WITH THAT STRENGTH, 
I HID THE BOOK FROM THE PRYING EYES OF OTHERS. I GUIDED THEM 
HERE. EVEN NOW, I PREVENT THEM FROM ATTACKING YOU WHERE YOU 
STAND. TOGETHER, WE CAN ACHIEVE APOTHEOSIS. ALL OF US. 


"So you have merely manipulated them for your own benefit. A god 
truly cannot change their ways," the Warrior spat with disgust. He 
clenched his glass fist, viewing the horrific fusions of man and 
machine that these four had been turned into. 


"What...? What do you mean?" the fourth asked. 


| MANIPULATE THEM NO MORE THAN YOU MANIPULATE THAT 
GAUNTLET OF YOURS—OF MINE. | BROUGHT THEM—I BROUGHT YOU— 
TO SAVE US ALL. YOU, MY LOYAL VASSAL, WILL BECOME A GOD. AND 
YOU, MY CHILDREN, SHALL BECOME MORE THAN HUMAN; YOU SHALL 
BECOME WHAT HUMANS CAN ONLY DREAM OF. TOGETHER, WE WILL 
BECOME ONE.