twistedness and perversion and to me they are noticed, 
they are appreciated and respected, and they are 
refracted through me like a prism until | am nothing but 
the purest embodiment of your color, of those thoughts, 
of what you have been aching for for this long. 


This world is composed of color and light, and | have 
seen every hue. 


Your body is composed of color and light, and | know 
how to break through. 


| am everything you’ve ever wanted, and | want all of 
you. 


continue > 


Colors, Part II 


~ previous 


Most of us aren’t aware of this, but we actually didn’t 
have color video until the turn of the century. Before that, 
it was black-and-white, or it was grayscale, or it was this 
sickening sepia tone created from an amalgamation of 
too many materials and images that lost all potential 
appeal within a few seconds of observation. | remember 
seeing the first color video as a child, remember seeing 
the brilliant hues of our brilliant limitless spectrum 
displayed on a screen. It was fascinating. Motion capture 
alone is nothing compared to color. Color is of what we, 
as individuals, as souls, are composed; it is both the 
contrast setting us apart and the chains that bind us 
together. 


Our world is colorless. Our bodies are gray and our walls 
are white. Our workplaces are brown and our mines are 
black. 


There is blue, yes. That’s one of the colors we do have. 
It grows on the plants originating from the western fields, 
but | think more subspecies were recently discovered in 
the humid territories south of here. The fields where blue 
once thrived now are an unnerving emptiness of gray. 
We take all the little flowers and we put them in little pots 
in our homes. Each a spot of color in a white-walled 
room. 


Blue wasn’t enough, after a while. Every specific 
wavelength of it started to look the same to us. How 
could we enjoy ourselves when the medium of our 
pleasure at the time was only 2.3 percent of our visible 


spectrum? What about green, and yellow, what about the 
far ends of orange and red and terramaroon and the II-4/ 
VS-II series and the microwave frequencies and all those 
colors beyond? Blue wasn’t enough. Blue isn’t enough. 


Other plant types were synthetically developed as time 
wore on. We had green and purple in our vases after a 
while. The colors started to blend together. Life went on, 
life progressed; life went on and life wasn’t satisfying. We 
started to dismantle the colored plants. Pulled their 
stems from their bases and revealed the bright and 
untouched hues of their inner structures. We found they 
were even more beautiful when spread open and 
exposed and damaged, and from their exposure we 
gathered the scientific information necessary to 
understand them and to appreciate them. Suffering has a 
color of its own. 


| try to be as self-aware as | can, and I’m aware of the 
irony of picking those plants out of their growth in order 
to bring color into our own homes. I’m aware of the irony 
of the blue fields turning gray. | don’t worry too much 
because | know that Hcet-V, the biotech company, will 
keep making more; there’s really nothing to worry about 
when those plants are easily regenerated and serve no 
other purpose than to brighten up our lives. 


That all grew old, after several years. The plants, the 
housepets thereafter, all of it. We had to force ourselves 
to find color to enjoy, we realized. The nuclear science 
developments and space race of the 40s in the 49th 
century helped to distract society, yes, but those were 
gray concepts: Gray colorless metals and colorless 
plastics and colorless reams of paperwork detailing their 
composition. We had to force ourselves to synthesize 
plants, we had to force ourselves to find unaltered color 
in the wild places of our industrialized world, we had to 
force ourselves to feel pleasure in a sea of gray 
deadness and it was tiring and absurd and it did nothing 
but brew hated between us. We didn’t understand why 


color was so hard to find. We didn’t understand why 
color couldn't come to us. 


That’s when Hcet-V and the organizations of the 40s 
space industry told us it could. 


Most of us aren’t aware of this, but we actually didn’t 
have color entertainment until the turn of the century. 
Before that, it was black-and-white video, or it was 
grayscale industry and construction, or it was this 
sickening sepia tone created from an amalgamation of 
too many colored flowers shoved into one pot that lost all 
potential appeal within a few seconds of observation. | 
remember seeing the first color entertainment last year 
when it was developed, remember seeing the brilliant 
hues of our brilliant limitless spectrum displayed on a 
screen. It was enchanting. Motion capture alone is 
nothing compared to color. Color is of what we, as 
individuals, as souls, are composed; it is both the 
contrast setting us apart and the chains that bind us 
together. 


Our world is colorless. Our bodies are gray and our walls 
are white. Our workplaces are brown and our mines are 
black. Our world is colorless, yes, but your flesh is 
bursting with a billion glistening hues and when we pull 
your petals and flowers and delicate parts from your 
body in slowness and in agony a billion more spill out of 
you, each more enthralling than the last. Suffering has a 
color of its own. 


You were the answer to the unwanted tedium of growing 
and synthesizing color. We needed you; / needed you. | 
didn’t understand why color was so hard to find; | didn’t 
understand why color couldn’t come to me. 


But you did. You came to me and you continue to come 
to us, without conviction and without obligation. You do it 
of your own accord, unlike those plants and those 


squealing incoherent lesser creatures that dwell in their 

growths and in our homes. They held no value after long 
enough. We needed more. We needed intelligence. We 

needed you. 


You are everything to me, and without you our world 
would be colorless. You’re so obedient. | can tell how 
desperate you are to please me. You're observant. 
You're beautiful. You’re perfect. And you keep coming 
back. 


Thank you for bringing color into my life. 


Comfort Breaks 


Note: This is part eight in a multi-part story. It is 
recommended that you read the previous entry Victims, 
or start from the beginning At the Library. 


Harold Maine pulled another beer from the six pack, walked over 
and unlocked the door. “Yeah | hear you.” Geoff Mansani was 
becoming tiresome again. How many times this week? The grille 
swung open lazily. “What is it now?” 


But it wasn't Geoff Mansani at the door; it was Helen Gwandoya. He 
looked at her, not quite understanding, unable to process what he 
was seeing. She took the initiative and pushed through; he stepped 
back in fear and disbelief, the can of beer dropping to the floor. Her 
left hand found his throat; with her right, she pushed something cold 
and metal and hard against his belly. Her momentum propelled her 
forwards and he backpedalled frantically until the back of his head 
struck the apartment wall behind him. The wall, solid as it was, 
shook. 


The shock was so great that he didn't see the obvious for maybe 
three or four heartbeats: she had hands. She had arms. The 
realisation took away his bladder control. The hot peppery smell of 
urine cloyed the air as the crotch and then the left leg of his trousers 
became soaked. It didn't even register. 


“Helen,” he gasped. “You're okay, you're okay.” 


She shook her head. “You made Aidan murder my little girl. You 
made him rape my little girl.” 


“l miscalculated,” he croaked. “I made a mistake. Please. You're 
hurting me.” 


“A mistake? Okay, he's dead.” A new voice at the door. Aidan 
Brown, fully human again. He strode in, no longer in need of walking 
sticks or rest breaks; he locked the door behind him and turned to 
face his tormentor. 


Harold Maine watched the man with a sick fascination. No claws, no 
shell, no flicking antennae or cluster of legs around his stomach. 
Just an ordinary man again. He became aware, finally, that he had 
wet himself. 


“This ends now,” Aidan said. Maine’s mind raced. 


Helen's grip on his throat tightened. “Killing my daughter was a 
miscalculation?” 


Maine shook his head. “I'm sorry. Knew soon as | did it. I'm sorry. | 
can't breath. Please.” He was starting to black out. And then, from 
nowhere he said, “That's why | gave your hands back.” 


Helen's grip loosened. “What?” 


Harold Maine took a deep breath, dragging the air gratefully into his 
aching lungs. “Knew I'd gone too far,” he panted. He glanced over to 
Aidan and the claw hammer in his hand. “Both of you. I've hurt both 
of you so much. Making you whole again was the least | could do.” 


Aidan hesitated. He put the hammer on the table softly. "This was 
you?” 


Maine nodded. Helen took her hand away from his throat. The metal 
object was similarly removed from his belly. It was a knife, he saw. A 
very big, very sharp knife. He rubbed his stomach where the point 
had been pressed. “I know it doesn't make it alright,” he admitted, 
“put I'm through with being the bad guy. No more. I'm done with 
that.” 


Aidan scoffed. “My fucking hero,” he said. He looked back at the 
hammer on the table. Helen followed his gaze. 


“Wait,” she insisted. “I believe him.” 


Harold Maine's heart leapt into his mouth. The stupid, thick bitch. He 


Experiment Log 819-F-1 
Test: 
Subject: 
Results: 


shriveled. Patient was able to feel 
the eyes shrinking, but did not 
experience any pain until the eyes 
reduced to the point that it was 
straining connection to the optical 
nerve. Eyes did not rehydrate 
after the end of the experiment 
due to the vitreous humor being a 
non-replenished fluid. Subject 
was terminated after this 
experiment. 


Purpie 
Effect of Consumption 
D-2941 
Within 20 seconds beginning to 
eat the lollipop, subject 
complained of a sudden severe 
headache and weakness. 
Reclining appeared to lessen the 
pain, indicating an orthostatic 
headache. Subject was ordered 
to sit up and continue. Subject 
also complained of dizziness, 
vertigo, and double vision. Within 
3 minutes of starting the 
experiment, subject became 
unconscious. Subject pronounced 
dead 30 seconds after loss of 
consciousness. The sample of 
SCP-819-F was only slightly 
consumed. Autopsy showed a 
severe lack of cerebrospinal fluid, 
causing the brain to lose 
buoyancy and constrict blood 
vessels providing blood to the 
brain. 


« SCP-818 | SCP-819 | SCP-820 » 


allowed himself to relax a little. He wasn't in danger; he could wrap 
these two round his little finger. “| can never redeem myself for what 
I've done,” he said, and he shook his head sadly; but inside he was 
jubilant. 


“| just wish | could bring your daughter back,” he said, his eyes cast 
towards the floor. “But | can't.” 


“| know,” said Helen. “She wasn't in your contacts.” 


Maine looked up at her sharply. A little piece of fear reaffirmed itself 
inside. “What was that?” 


“She wasn't on your phone,” Helen said. “That's how you change 
people. You add them as contacts and then you can do what you 
like to them.” 


“No,” Harold Maine said weakly, seeing the trap too late. 
“Yes,” Helen said. “And now it's your turn.” 


Maine watched entranced, unable to look away, as she reached into 
her clutch bag and pulled out a cellphone. It was a Televono Telefex 
Secrecy-8, just like his. Oh dear Christ, no. 


“We went looking for you in the library,” Helen explained. “You 
weren't there. We found this instead. Just sitting there on a reading 
desk. Switched it on, and it... Well you know the rest, don't you?” 


Harold Maine felt faint. They'd found theirs the way he'd found his. 
And he would be in the list of contacts. They could do anything to 
him. 


“You're a piece of shit,” Helen said. “A piece of shit.” She advanced 
on him; he drew back against the wall. “You know how | know?” 


Maine shook his head in terror. She held the cellphone up to his 
face. “It says so here.” He didn't want to look but couldn't help it. His 
eyes scanned the screen. She'd written it into his contact details: 
piece of shit; laughable, and infinitely horrifying. 


“No,” he said, “you don't know what you've done.” For the first time, 


he saw the duffle bag slung across Aidan Brown's back. 


“Change of clothing,” said the ex-lobster man. “For after.” And he 
took the claw hammer from the table and swung it in lazy half- 
circles. “But this is for now.” 


Harold Maine felt his bowels loosen, felt his underwear fill as if he 
were two years old again. He staggered forwards; Helen 
sidestepped and Aidan pushed him back. Maine's legs gave way; he 
reached out to stop himself falling and grabbed onto to Aidan's 
jeans. Aidan swotted his hand away with contempt. 


“Christ, look,” he exclaimed, pointing downwards. “It's started.” 


All three looked at the brown, slimy imprint on Aidan's leg. Maine 
turned his hand to face him; there was excrement smeared on his 
fingers and on his palm. 


Dazed he tried to wipe his hand clean on the carpet, but it didn't 
make any difference. And then he saw that one of his fingers was 
gone, just a mushy mess in its place, and the skin on his palm was 
slewing off to reveal flesh that was brown and rotten. 


Aidan Brown stood above him, careful not to get too close. “Don't 
you understand?” 


Harold Maine understood only too well. The stench of excrement 
surrounded him; the taste of it was in his mouth. He gagged, trying 
to fight the urge to throw up, but he couldn't hold it in. The contents 
of his stomach splattered onto the shit-browned carpet. 


He was bringing up more of the same. 


Helen turned and headed for the door. “I don't want to see this,” she 
said. “I can't, | can't.” 


Aidan nodded. “You go. I'll take care of things here.” 


She fumbled with the lock, turned the key and opened the door. One 
last glance at the scene of horror behind her: Harold Maine was 
reaching up to Aidan, imploring him for mercy, trying to get up. 
Aidan extended the claw hammer out and Maine grasped it with 


grateful fingers; but his cries turned to shrieks as his skin split like 
overripe fruit. Instead of blood and flesh, excrement seeped out from 
the wounds. Even so, he saw her leave. The Future Mrs Maine, 
gone. 


She fled the apartment in tears. Suffering was suffering, no matter 
how well deserved. The door slammed shut behind her. 


Aidan Brown had no such qualms; not here, not with this 
grotesquery at his feet. He reached down and grabbed Maine by the 
belt. The skin tore easily as he hoisted him up; everywhere it was 
the same. Maine was becoming a literal piece of shit. His slippers 
were cast off, abandoned, no longer needed now that his feet were 
nothing more than lumps of human dung on the carpet. 


“Come on,” Aidan said. “Only one place for something like you.” And 
he dragged Harold Maine by his belt towards the bathroom. 


“No, no,” Maine shrieked. “I don't want to | don't want to.” He tried to 
hook his arms and his legs around the furniture - his left leg finding 
purchase against the TV stand, his right hand flailing and finding the 
coffee table - but he was more shit than flesh by now, and his 
anatomy smudged and smeared and slurried wherever he made 
contact. Even his own body would not help him. He could only look 
on, a trapped and horrified passenger, as Aidan heaved him into the 
bathroom. “No! No!” 


But Aidan was not to be argued with. He flicked the light switch on 
and dragged Maine close to the toilet. He lifted him up so that his 
head was above the pan.