This impressed the Skybound even more. They looked ready to ask 
even more questions about it. Won Won was tired—the astronomy 
had been fun, but it looked like they'd moved on from that. He didn't 
have any food on him, so he just got up. The others turned and 
watched as he rose. 


"Come, then, these Foundationers bore me. Let us see if any other 
vegetation grows outside." 


What a waste. So much potential for learning and exploration, and 
these Skybound sought to piss away the opportunity and continue 
with their lies and deceit. Normally he'd be concerned. But after 
seven years spent forcing the invaders back to their ships, it wasn't 
even worth dignifying them with any more attention. 


"What is?" Won Ji asked quizzically, noting Won Won's empty stare. 


"When Hwee comes for us, we should say nothing. Let the 
Skybound play with their fantasy land and fantasy infants here. So 
long as they remain in space, away from us." 


Bumaro and lon sat at a table 


Robert Bumaro, Builder of the Broken God, sat at one end of the 
table. His dead, metallic gaze honestly reflecting how dead he felt 
inside. He was indeed dead inside too, as he dumped his organic 
body in some Ancient Greek trash bin some thousand years ago. 


On the other hand, Grand Karcist lon who sat at the opposite end 
had too many eyes for his own good. He had to close a bunch of 
them so that he wouldn't see a dozen of tables, and a dozen of his 
mortal enemies blurred together. He also had to close a few of the 
more inhuman ones, so as to not get a terribly distorted vision. 
These eyes were in fact, very much decorative. 


"Why," Bumaro finally said, his forehead resting in his hands. 


"Because | will come down as a god and devour all of you! Including 
your petty metal church!" lon roared as his voice from the many 
mouths resonated, before briefly choking on his own saliva. 


Bumaro buried his face further into his hands. "Then why don't you 
do it already. Clearly nothing is stopping you now, since you've been 
sending these inferior copies of yourself here, for like, a week now." 


"You Mekhanites sent us into the Great Brass Prison, remember!" 
lon opened all his eyes wide in anger, before closing them ina 
headache cause by this sudden flux of visual input. 


"That was three thousand years ago, also last time | checked 
Adytum links to Alagadda, and Alagadda goes here fine, so I'm 
actually surprised why you haven't just gotten out of there." 


"Well, | might have gained a bit of weight." lon averted his gaze. "But 
that doesn't matter! We've been preparing for my return! Sacrifices 
here and there!" 


"Yes, human fruit trees and farmlands. Clearly you guys have taken 


on the lifestyle of hardworking farmers, I'm almost proud of you," 
Bumaro said in a monotone voice. "What happened to the old style 
meat temples. I'm really missing that right now." 


"How can your stupid machine mind understand! All of these are 
part of a grand plan, of course!" lon yelled as his arms waved 
around furious, hitting some of his eyes. Ouch. 


"Ion, like, | don't think staying next to Yaldabaoth is good for your 
mental health," Bumaro sighed, his inside deader. "| remember 
having way more intelligent conversations with you." 


"What do you know, this is all your fault anyways!" lon yelled with a 
growing volume. 


"How is this my fault now," Bumaro said flatly. 


"If it hadn't been you Mekhanites, | would have fulfilled my vision 
already! This is all for a good cause!" 


"The good cause of turning people into flesh blobs. | mean it isn't 
really my fault that you pissed off some people. | wasn't even in 
charge of the Mekhanites by then," Bumaro said. "I only beat the shit 
out of you." 


lon let out a frustrating yelp and struck with mighty fury. One of his 
longer arms quickly formed into a blade, which impacted with 
Bumaro's head. Then the bone broke, expectedly as bones often do 
when they're applied against metal. lon fell back and sat on the 
ground, tears streaming from a few of his eyes. 


"Why are you even doing this," Bumaro said, his hands rubbing his 
unharmed temple. "| mean you have tried this a dozen of times by 
now." 


"| will tear at you until you break!" lon screamed, quickly healing the 
broken bone, without resetting it, creating yet another deformed 
limb. "All the mighty warriors of flesh I've sent have failed, but | shall 
bring you down with my own hands!" 


"Those are like, giant meat piles," Bumaro sighed. "Maybe they 
failed because they don't have any appendages to move. Next time 


SCP-805: Poison Wood Foal 


Item #: SCP-805 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-805 is to be kept ina 
stable in Sector . This is to be locked shut at night with at least one 
guard of Level 2 clearance or above stationed at the main door at all 
times. During daylight, personnel of Level 3 clearance or above with 
adequate equine handling skills are allowed and encouraged to 
interact with SCP-805, provided they are wearing full body coverings 
or hazmat suits. SCP-805 is to be treated like a normal young horse 
and is allowed into the adjoining courtyard for exercise during the 
day. At this time, samples may be taken from SCP-805 for testing. 
Staff are reminded that SCP-805 will react to inappropriate 
treatment like a normal horse, which resulted in Incident [DATA 
EXPUNGED]. Any personnel found to be mistreating SCP-805 will 
be immediately removed from the area and clearance to SCP-805 
revoked. 


Description: SCP-805 is an assortment of branches and roots 
twisted into the shape of a young horse, 101.6 cm high. Its interior is 
completely hollow of any organs; however, the object is mobile, 
mimicking the movements and instincts of a typical young foal. It is 
drawn toward human presences, actively seeking contact with skin, 
and has been reported as being ‘very friendly' when approached. It 
does not require food or water and there has been no growth 
recorded since containment in 20 . Scrapings of wood from its 
frame have revealed it to be of an unknown species related to the 
‘poison-oak' plant, Toxicodendron diversilobum. 


Upon contact with SCP-805, human skin shows signs of irritation not 
unlike that caused by poison-oak. The skin turns red and begins to 
itch as small red bumps erupt from the flesh. No remedy prescribed 
for poison-oak will ease the itching or rash. Two to three days after 
the rash has appeared, the irritation will flare and spread rapidly until 


consider how things actually work, maybe." 


"Lies! All your metallic lies!" lon waved his newly deformed limb. "I 
will never listen to you!" 


"Nadox totally left you to run off with Derdekeas, lon." 


With that, lon's gaze widened. He stuttered about revenge, then 
turned and ran out of the main hall of the Broken Church. Ina 
moment, a few loud howls and something akin to crying can be 
heard in the distance. 


Business As Usual 


The weather that afternoon was unabashedly foul. The sky was 
heavy with clouds, the dark grey wetness oozing into everything until 
nothing was dry. Patches of skeletal, leafless trees stood guard over 
the miles upon miles of sodden, empty cornfields. The wind blew 
mercilessly, beating fat raindrops to earth in a miserable drizzle. The 
winter snows were gone, but spring had yet to appear in its blaze of 
green glory, leaving the world dull and dead. 


A dented red pickup truck trundled along the gravel road, splashing 
through puddles and potholes alike. Inside, a talk show fought 
waves of static for dominion of the radio. The man who drove 
smoked a cigarette. The woman riding beside him was loading a 
pistol. 


The truck turned off the desolate road onto an even more pitiful 
driveway, little more than a winding dirt path that crept off into the 
woods. The trees formed a leaning, claustrophobic tunnel with their 
gnarled branches, reaching down as if to ensnare the unsuspecting 
in their grasp. 


The truck slowed to a stop at the very end of the path. There stood 
the decaying shell of what had once been a nice, two-story home, 
now reduced to a pile of creaking, rotting timber and filthy windows. 
The man turned off the truck’s engine, and the two stepped out into 
the drizzle. Both the man and the woman were wearing blue jeans 
and camouflage-pattern jackets, nothing unusual for the place and 
time. 


The man crushed his spent cigarette under his boot. He was in his 
late forties, with a neat brown beard, thick eyebrows, and a 
fluorescent orange hunter’s cap on his head. He had gone through 
many names in his life: currently, he was known as Scarborough. 
The woman was younger, with green eyes and blonde hair tied into 
a short ponytail. Her face was sharp and slender, giving it an almost 
hawk-like, predatory look. 


“So, this is the place?” the woman asked. 


“I'll answer that with another question, Montgomery. How often are 
we wrong?” Scarborough stepped up onto the porch, the boards 
groaning underfoot. He reached for the tarnished knob and found 
the door open. 


Scarborough brandished his pistol in front of him as he stepped into 
house. The living room was dim and filthy: what furniture there was 
ancient and moldy, buried under piles of trash and a thick layer of 
dust and cobwebs. Leaning monoliths of black and white 
supermarket tabloids stood among the black plastic trash bags, 
empty beer bottles, and overflowing tobacco spittoons. The stench 
was easily comparable either to a dead animal, bad plumbing, or a 
combination of the two. 


Montgomery’s hand shot up to cover her mouth and nose. 
Scarborough had lost his sense of smell long before. With a silent 
hand gesture, the two waded through the refuse towards what was 
presumably the kitchen. 


The kitchen was hardly better than the living room, though now most 
of the garbage consisted of old fast food wrappers and beer cans. 
None of the appliances were younger than twenty-five years old, 

and none looked to have been actively used in at least that long. 
The only thing of note was the basement door, which hung open at a 
crooked angle. A comically large number of extra locks had been 
installed, up to a heavy-duty deadbolt, though at the moment they 
were hardly fulfilling their intended purpose. The stairs beyond were 
a black pit. 


Scarborough felt the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. It took a 
second for him to realize the cause of his goosebumps was not any 
anomaly, but something far more mundane. 


“Please close that window.” He motioned to the stained window 
above the trash-filled sink, which was open just enough to let a 
breeze ruffle the mildewed curtains. Montgomery shut the window, 
with only minor difficulty in moving it from its stuck position. 


The ceiling above them creaked loudly. The next ten seconds were 


breathless, torturous, and silent. When no other sound was heard 
from upstairs, Scarborough quietly pushed the basement door fully 
open and felt for the light switch. The two moved into the basement 
with haste. 


The stairs were exceptionally rickety, and creaked even under the 
trained steps of Scarborough and Montgomery. The basement itself 
was hardly better: a bare pit of concrete lit by two bare light bulbs. 
Much of it was filled with the omnipresent trash, along with a dented 
hot water heater, and some everyday piping and exposed insulation. 


One corner of the basement, however, had been repurposed into 
what could only be described as the workstation of a rather 
unhealthy mind. The old wooden desk seemed to sag under the 
weight atop it. Disorganized mountains of stained manila file folders 
and worn paperbacks with broken spines cluttered its surface and 
spilled out onto the floor, all the while hiding a laughably old 
computer and printer behind their summits. Three corkboards had 
been set up on the walls: the first was a map of the continental 
United States with colored push pins stuck in it in numerous 
locations. From the condition of the map, there had been many 
removed and re-positioned pins over the course of at least a 
decade. The second board was filled with plain sheets of paper, all 
of which were covered edge to edge in either miniscule handwriting 
or poorly-formatted computer print. 


The third board was the most notable, filled with tacked-up 
photographs and sketches. Most of the photos looked as if they 
belonged in the tabloids sitting upstairs: blurry, unfocused images of 
ghosts and UFOs and Bigfeet, schematics for free-energy machines 
and hidden government facilities. Some others were not as easily 
glanced over: the severed head with a scaly arm sprouting from its 
mouth. A hazy shot of a massive creature with matted red fur, 
holding a crushed car over its head. A beached whale, its stomach 
burst open to reveal a mass of bloated bodies that had begun to 
crawl across the sand. A man offering a box of chocolates, his face 
blacked out and a dozen screaming mouths in the background. A 
blank white room labeled only as “NOTHING”. 


“Busy fella,” Montgomery said, picking up a file folder and flipping 
through the magazine clippings inside. “How much do you think is 


legit?” 


“Outside of what command verified, | can’t say. Most looks to be 
garbage, but there might be a few bits worth looking into.” 


“We still have to go through everything when we get back, though.” 
“Opus semper tecum est.” 

“Thanks. | thought | was done with high-school Latin.” 

“You’re never done with high-school Latin, Montgomery.” 


The investigation was interrupted but moments later by a 
thunderous bang. Scarborough and Montgomery dived to the side, 
just avoiding the spray of buckshot. 


At the top of the stair stood an overweight, disheveled man, wearing 
a stained undershirt and ragged pajama pants. His wild hair was a 
sharp grey, and he held a smoking nine-gauge shotgun in his hands. 


“Ha! You think you could break into my house and walk away with 
my property?!” The man stepped down the stairs, reloading the 
shotgun. “You can’t get past me that easily! Now, I’m going to give 
you to three to get the hell out of my house...” 


He was answered by a bullet tearing through his right shin. The man 
tumbled down the rest of the stairs, landing flat on his back at the 
bottom with a thud. Scarborough holstered his pistol and walked 
over to the, gasping, wounded man. 


“You little shits!” the old man screamed. “I'll have you in chains for 
this!” 


“Mr. Malone, you are being extremely unprofessional,” Scarborough 
said, showing neither excitement nor anger. “Il am aware you've had 
to make some drastic changes in the past, but | would think a man 
such as you would hold himself in a more reasonable manner than 
this.” 


Malone’s eyes grew wider, were it possible. The fear behind them 
was Clear and potent. 


“You're not getting it...you’re not getting all my research.” 


“That’s secondary to our purpose here, Mr. Malone. We are primarily 
concerned with the simple fact that you’re sticking your nose into 
places it doesn’t belong, and given your previous connections, that 
does not bode well with us.” 


“You...you won't get me to talk. | won't talk.” 


“Mr. Malone, we did not come here to listen to you: Your little 
website already told us you’ve been investigating several items that 
we've been keeping an eye on. You may have traded in your glass 
card years ago, but no one ever leaves it all behind, and we just 
can’t afford a slip, Mr. Malone. It’s as simple as that.” 


Malone’s mouth worked silently for a few moments. 
“Foundation bastards...” he wheezed. 
Scarborough shrugged. 

“Indeed we are.” 


BANG