It felt "the spear of Sudita, Lord Of All Men, Founder Of Imar," (no 
longer a club or a sword or an axe) plunge through its heart (no 
longer its head or its eye or its gut). The pain of death was nothing 
new, but somehow this one was. "Gilgali, The Tiger With Lantern 
Eyes heaved a mighty last breath and fell on its side." The linked 
shapes which dragged it to its side (not longer its back or its belly) 
burned more than the spear itself. It felt itself swiping at Sudita, Lord 
Of All Men, Founder Of Imar, but found itself too slow, it heard his 
challenges and responded with a roar. 


Gilgali, The Tiger With Lantern Eyes shut its lantern eyes as it died, 
and waited for the story to end. But it didn't. It saw Sudita, Lord Of 
All Men, Founder Of Imar, as he defeated the Six Wicked Lords and 
founded the city of Imar and bedded Ninla, begetting the line of 
Kings. But it was still swiping at him, hearing his boasts, feeling the 
spear driven through its heart, dying. Every moment was 
suspended, each as real as the next. 


The victorious warlord moved through the dark blood-stained halls of 
the Palace of Imar, surrounded by humming gaggle of priests. 


"But as promised-" 

"Are you sure that-" 

"A new temple to Ammetu and fifty gold pieces apiece was-" 
"-could anger the gods..." 


The warlord paid them no mind. The reward for their treachery 
would be given in due time. Most likely, he mused, in the form of 
beheadings. Never trust a traitor, his father had told him. 


They entered the dark throne room, the dim glow of several torches 
the only light. The king still sat on the throne, his eyes open in 
uncomprehending surprise. His robes were stained dark red 


beneath where the priests had slit his throat. Before the throne laid a 
small heap of clay tablets. The warlord gave the king's body a push, 

toppling it from the throne. He gingerly picked up the rod of kingship 

and sat down. 


"All hail King Cambises the First, ruler of Paadu and Imar, Lord of 
the World, Bringer of Rains!" The priests surrounded the throne in a 
semi-circle. The King looked on with disinterest as they continued 
their adulation. A pair of slaves discreetly removed the former king's 
corpse. When the priests were done, Cambises pointed to the heap 
of tablets before him. 


"What are these?" he asked to no one in particular. 


One of the priests stepped forward. "Your grace, these are the 
records of Sudita, the Founder of Imar. They tell of h-" 


"Burn them." The king flicked his rod in the direction of the priests. 
"Or smash them, or whatever. | don't care. Just destroy them. Imar 
has no history before now, understood?" 


"B-but your worship, a display of such... disregard for a man such 
as Sudita, Grandson of Pazhu, could ang-" 


"I'm sorry, was | unclear?" The king sat up straight in his throne. 
"Get rid of them. Now." 


"Y-yes, your worship." The priest bowed and gathered the clay 


tablets for destruction. 


In a place that wasn't a place, Gilgali, The Tiger With Lantern Eyes 
felt itself freed from its bonds. It gave a monstrous grin. 


Interlude - Scenes From the Fall 


Two siblings, a brother and sister, were playing in a garden among 
the vine-blanketed trellises and burbling streams that their mother 
had so dedicated herself to cultivating. The two siblings were 
cradled and nursed side by side. They had stood on the same day, 
walked on the same day, spoken on the same day and giggled at 
the same jokes. 


However, today they had begun to diverge. The sister sat the bank 
of a stream when a tiger approached her. 


"Little one, why do you sit alone?" it purred. 


"lam watching the stream! Look how beautifully it flows, listen to it 
babble," she said wistfully and unafraid. 


"It is beautiful yes, but would you like to make it more so?" 


A look of intense consideration crossed her face, the sort that only a 
child can muster. "Yes," she answered, "Show me how." 


The air was sweet with the scents of sandalwood, aloe and incense 
as the palace was consumed by flames. They blended with the 
smell of blood, ink and unwashed clothes. The stink of fear washed 
over the inhabitants of the blessed city. 


Above the cries arose new buildings built of the bodies of the slain. 
Here was the House of Wisdom done in human bodies and flame, 
the palace in slain children, the bazaar in dead scholars and women. 
Hegleu was a masterful architect. 


Two lovers are lying on a rooftop, under the fronds of a date palm 
that had sprung up from the gardens of the palace below. Their 
whispers flutter like birds through cool desert night. Wrapped up ina 


mantle embroidered with the symbol of the Caliph the young woman 
reads aloud from a book by candlelight. The young man leans in 
close, his fingers and thawb stained with ink. 


"...Like a strand of pearls through a pair of breasts." She snorts, 
stifling a laugh, her eyes a pair of happy almonds. "My city is not 
pair of breasts for a Valencian traveler to gaze at." 


"It is shameful for the city," the young man replies, equally giddy, 
stroking his short beard in false contemplation. "What would happen 
to our fair city if all came simply to stare at it?" 


"A tragedy!" She puts her elegant hand to her forehead feigning a 
swoon before her face relaxed into semi-seriousness. "Although it 
would be a tragedy to lose the voice of this city." 


"To lose you would be a greater tragedy," the young man murmurs 
lovingly. 


"Your poetry is better than this, you flatterer," she sighs, laying her 
head against his chest. 


"Would you like to hear my latest then?" 


"If you'll hear mine." 


The palms that shaded the roads to the splendid city on Tigris had 
been shaped into the engines of the city's demise. They strained 
and stretched and launched pieces of the countryside into the air. 


Behind the battlements a company archers stood at the ready as a 
stone demolished a bookbinder's workshop near the market. The 
first widow began wailing. A old archer felt his resolve harden. This 
was the jewel of Islam, seat of the Caliph. God would not let the city 
fall. He could not let the city fall. 


At the bleeding edge of bowshot the archers watched a disorganized 
rabble approach one of the city's irrigation canals with shovels and 
baskets in hand. The army trampled over the farms beneath their 
feet and began to fill the canal like they had done before when they 
had burned through the countryside. 


The archers loosed a volley of arrows, a cloud of nettles against the 
enemy. The dead of the rabble fell into the canal. It was only when 
the dead pulled the living down with then that the archers realized 
that the rabble was composed of hostages bound limb-to-limb. 


"Look brother! Look and see the wonders that the tiger and | have 
wrought!" the sister exclaimed excitedly as her flowers bloomed. 
The stream had been dammed with stones, filling a little floodplain 
and reservoir. Dry seeds received water they were unable to reach 
before and exploded to life. The tiger purred as the girl danced in 
excitement in the garden. 


"If however, you desire war, | have thousands of troops who, when 
the moment of vengeance arrives, will dry up the waves of the sea." 
The Caliph clapped his hands at his scribe indicating that he was 
done. "Take the message back to your master Helegu. God is with 
me." 


The emissary put the letter into a scroll case and formally excused 
himself. 


At the gates of the city the emissary was set upon by a fanatical 
mob. His clothes were rent. He was beaten and spat upon. Only the 
intervention of the Vizier's own men saved the emissary and his 
fellows. It would not be enough. 


"Lay down your arms and come out of the city. Let the scholars and 
great men come out to meet us!" The emissary had returned with his 
master to the city. 


The Caliph agreed and bid his people to leave. As they filed out the 
people were parceled into groups of ten. Each group was assigned 
a warrior. Each warrior was ordered to decapitate their group. And 
so murder was mechanized before mechanization. 


Afraid of the consequences of spilling royal blood Hegleu locked the 
Caliph in a room full of gold. 


"If your defeat was the will of God let what happens to you here be 
His will also," he said as he left the Caliph to die. 


The young man was cut down in front of his lover. The ink of his 
poems mingled with the red of his blood when both swam in the 
Tigris. The blood and legacies of the scholars were swept away by 
the river that nurtured them. 


She wept as she was dragged away, a valuable prize for the Khan. 
There would still be an audience for her poems among the captives 
of the Khan but she would never compose again. 


Hearing sister's laughs the brother stepped out onto the bank. He 
beheld the garden that his sister had cultivated. The flowers radiant 
and prismatic reflected the orchestra, the spectra, coursing out of 
the sun. 


The brother was stricken with anger. His sister had gone done 
something without him. His sister had made a friend and given 
shape to life. He spat at his sister and shoved her aside. 


He pulled at the largest of the flowers, yanking the stems in twain. 
He ripped the flowers to shreds and tossed them into the stream. 
The dam of stones was kicked asunder, the floodplain dried. The 
sap of the flowers flowed red against the mud. 


His sister stared aghast and unable to move. When her brother had 
departed the tiger came out of the underbrush. 


"What has happened?" 
"My brother..." She was unable to say another word. 


"Hush," the tiger cooed, and nuzzled her. "I will show you how to 
grow thorny flowers, flowers with tubers, flowers that creep and 
climb and flowers that send seeds into the air. | will show you other 
streams so that you can have other gardens. Sophia, child of 
knowledge, | will show you much," 


And the girl followed the Tiger. 


external stimuli, along with a strong reaction originating 
from the nucleus accumbens. 


[CLASSIFIED. O5 CLEARANCE REQUIRED] 
SCP-691-INV-30 

Date: / / 

Time: 1325 

Subject: D-691-25 


Procedure: Standard experimental procedure followed. 
Dr. requested a D-class subject with a generally high 
quality of life, a background free of alcohol and drug 
abuse, and lacking traits generally associated with an 
addictive personality. Subject D-691-25 was acquired via 
[DATA EXPUNGED], and subjected to a series of 
psychological tests and a precursory interview to gauge 
mental well-being and to confirm background. Subject 
was to listen to SCP-691-0 and was to give a verbal 
account of their experience. 


Report: No formal report compiled. Transcript of 
D-691-25's account is as follows (translated from 
[REDACTED)). 


[BEGIN RECORDING] Ok. | hear a man 
speaking. | can't understand what he's saying, 
sounds like English. He's finished now, do you 
want me to....? Ok, doing it. There. | hear 
music. | don't recognise the tune but- can you 
see this? It's a city, it's how | imagined 
[REDACTED] would be, well until those border 
security people caught us. Elaborate? You 
mean you can't see it? It's beautiful, shining 
skyscrapers, everything's just gleaming. This 
is the [REDACTED] my brother told me about 
in his letter. This isn't like a city back in my 
country, Doctor, you'll have to see this to 


A Child to Teach 


It relaxed for a moment, savoring the moment. It liked to have some 
leeway, and little children afraid of the dark gave it plenty. It 
wondered what it should do this time, pull it under the bed? No... the 
kid kept stuffed animals under there, and if he thought those 
wouldn't save him, he would eventually learn to cope with the dark, 
and nobody wanted that. Well, maybe some people did. Those "men 
of science". It would show them, as much as they wanted to believe 
humans were rational beings, calling a hand a foot does not make 
the name fit. It had already started fostering movements against 
them, expanding people's imagination so that they could see what 
would happen if they let these charlatans and quacks continue their 
practice. 


But for now, it had a child to teach, and it was starting to think that 
maybe the ceiling fan might work as a proxy. 


Billy laid wide awake on his bed in his polka dot pajamas. His eyes 
were wide with fear, glancing around his room, trying to see if any 
monsters were coming to eat him. He pulled down his covers and 
looked underneath the bed. His teddy bears were still down there as 
usual, holding down the fort so he could sleep safely at night. 
Breathing a sigh of relief, Billy pulled the covers back up and looked 
at the ceiling. He tried to not think about the video he had seen 
earlier that night, a scary mummy man who came out of people's 
closets and ate them as they were asleep. 


He remembered to say his good night sentence, "Good dreams with 
good people.", and faced away from the closet, hoping that his older 
sister wouldn't walk around outside his bedroom door to scare him 
like she did last night. 


Billy really hoped that there was nothing in his closet. He decided to 
make sure, and peeked over his shoulder quickly, trying to catch the 
mummy man unawares. The closet was still closed, dark as always. 


Billy faced upward again, trying to focus on the ceiling. "Good 
dreams with good people." he whispered to himself, unsuccessfully 
trying to not look at the closet out of the corner of his eye. 


He finally refocused on the ceiling fan, non-threatening as always, 
its mesmerizing blades slowly sweeping through the air. 


There was something off about the fan though, something... sinister. 
Its dancing paddles no longer floating through the air, but cutting into 
it, grasping it, molesting the space around it. The four bulbs no 
longer seemed like sources of protection as they did when they were 
turned on, but more like eyes, one staring directly at him. The chain 
used to turn it on gradually extending itself like a long finger, 
wrapping itself around Billy's feet, slowly working their way up to his 
neck, where it strangle him while the eye bulbs watched. 


Billy squirmed under his covers, pulling them up over his head. Safe 
in the darkness, he closed his eyes in an attempt to go to sleep. 


It didn't work, he couldn't stop thinking about the ceiling fan, how it 
had seemed to come alive, trying to ensnare the little boy beneath it 
into its dastardly trap. Through the covers, his imagination saw the 
blades curl in like hands, extending their reach and plucking the eye 
bulbs out of their sockets throwing them onto the covers around him, 
slowly closing in, as the fan itself detached and began to 
encapsulate Billy. He saw the inside of the fan, a giant gaping maw 
of teeth and claws, ready to start eating him from the toes up. Green 
arms growing out of the top, grabbing Billy's feet, and holding him in 
place while he was eaten by the fan. "Good dreams with good 
people." Billy whimpered to himself this time, feeling the drowning 
weight of the covers and the stifling hot air around him close in. He 
started having trouble breathing, and with a quick motion, he 
brought the covers off of his head and took a deep breath of fresh, 
cold air. He made a quick glance at the ceiling fan, and it was just as 
it was before, spinning slowly in the fascinating way only a fan can 
spin. 


Billy once again sighed a deep sigh of relief, closed his eyes, and 
entered a good dream, with good people. 


Bill sat in the board room all by himself. Its cold, blank walls and 
empty chairs all seeming to stare back at him. He had been early, 
and was starting to wonder when everybody was going to show up. 


It was already fifteen minutes past the set time, and Bill was starting 
to worry. 


The only people who were so notoriously late was the Human 
Resources manager, and only when he was going to fire somebody.