palace was a labyrinth, bereft of rhyme or reason. Drunk were the 
gods of physics, above and below without meaning — twisted by the 
pandemonium city. 


| encountered myself several times, always located at some 
unapproachable location - iterations of my past and future self. My 
attire was red, yellow, white, black, and utterly garish; | apparently 
having more concern with the enforcement of Alagaddan fashion 
than the entanglement of time. 


And then, a burgeoning terror - an unseen threat closing fast. 


There existed a void where a memory should have been, unaware 
my arrival. Naked in my ignorance, | shivered as the chill gloom 
embraced me. The wind took pity and sung its sorrow song - as it 
diminished, it whispered unto me a warning: "In here is a tragedy". 


| beheld Alagadda's shadow, an amalgamation of rust, rot, and 
misery - a dead city at the end of all things. Wandering its empty 
streets, | stepped over tattered banners and broken glass. Dust 
gave chase, granted life through my careless meanderings. The 
palace had come to ruin, its once splendid gates torn from their 
hinges. 


The Hall of Mercurial Virtue was lifeless, a tomb for want and vanity. 
In the room's center was a gaping hole - no, not simply a hole; more 
an infected wound. A viscous ichor gushed from the aperture, an 
amber colored substance imbued with the sick scent of failed 
creation. 


| entered the wound, crawling into the bowels of Alagadda. | know 
not what overcame me, never intending to come this far. Was | to 
play this role from the beginning? From where | now reside, | can 
look back and see the puppet strings. | remember only little of my 
descent - just the singular desire to find what hid beneath. | was a 
scholar, an explorer, and would play my part well. 


The broken rules of time and space again summoned me 
elsewhere. A windowless room of humble stone, cloaked in a layer 
of sepia fog and bereft the opulence so common to Alagadda. | 
sensed no name among its shrouded corridors. Sickly vapor 


slithered around me, saturated with the scent of ripened books. At 
the far wall was a descending spiral staircase, its steps crude and 
uneven - comparatively primitive to the city above (or below; | could 
not know). 


And still, to the boredom of my readers, | advanced - facing the 
banality of more stairs. | felt as if | was the fabled Xitheus, Retainer 
of the Fungal Crown - who quested through the Slough of Three 
Million Inconveniences. One step, then another - all fairly straight 
forward. As | neared the bottom | began to hear whispers - spoken 
in a tongue | could not understand. Cliche? If this was a work of 
fiction, perhaps, but know that chaos words represent the universal 
warning for having ventured too far (Consult Otherworld Laws and 
Universal Constants to learn more). 


One step, then another, and | felt my soul burst into flames - 
immolating the ego and casting the psychic aftermath into the wind 
as cinders. Around and around my fragments twirled - pulled by 
gravity of something incalculably vast. | was as thought - a fugitive 
sentiment before an ancient intelligence. 

Here among the dreaming dead, 

| am ash, 

Embers, 

And burning feathers, 

Drifting through the firmament. 

Carried by wind, 

As if my wings were not vestigial 

To land | am anchored 


By murderous gravity. 


| am reformed, 


Only to be torn apart, 
Again, 

And again 

Every trace 

Recycled reminders, 

Of who | used to be. 

| became blood, 

On the hands of criminals. 
| became the noose 
Around my own throat 
From death | am become 
One step closer to real 


From within the center of chaos my fragments felt the vibrations of a 
great scream, a living emanation of mad anguish. Matter and form 
grew enamored and gathered around the existential wound. Neither 
sacred or profane, the Hanged King took shape - the shards of my 
ego becoming one with the walls of its throne room and dungeon. 


The veiled entity, asphyxiated by a noose of thorns, writhed upon its 
throne - bound in place by shackles, hooks, and spears. There, 
unmoved by the cosmic scream, stood the Ambassador of 
Alagadda. Although dwarfed by the Hanged King, the two were of a 
similar countenance - a resemblance not shared with denizens of 
their kingdom. 


The Hanged King lunged at its tormentor, more primal than regal - 
their faces a mere breath apart. The Ambassador, callous and calm, 
lifted the veil with an ebon hand. 


Instead of a face, | beheld a visage of nihility - a god shaped hole. 


All was void. 


First came a familiar aroma - a hint of vanilla, a drop of citrus, with a 
fixative of mold and mustiness. 


| opened my eyes and saw a lantern aglow with spectral fire. 
Shelves overflowing with tomes both eldritch and mundane. 


| dipped a finger into a clay jar to my left, swirling the contents 
within. Satisfied, | withdrew a now ink-soaked claw, placed it upon a 
scroll of parchment, and began to transcribe my experience from 
memory. 


Ickis the Wayward, Wandsman of Kul-Manas - Walker of the 
Astral Plane, Sailor of the Celestial Sea, and Spelunker of the 
Dimensional Depths 


A Witch's Tale - Mistakes Were Made 


Yes, | do know what happened to those two and the other. Yes, | 
was there. Well, of course, you heard something about that. 


Let me tell you this: when you are young, you count and tally; you 
rate your fuck-ups against each other like a drunkard's race. Me? | 
stopped bothering a long time ago. All fuck-ups, big or small, after 
enough time passes they are all the same, forgotten. Only ghosts 
remember. This thing in Detroit, though? Well, this was a bad one. 


It started with the crack house, with the deaths of seven innocent 
people that | got there too late to stop. Seven more souls that are 
now bound to me by my mistakes. 


| might have been able to do something about it the night before. | 
had already been arguing with them for so long, it was so very late, 
and | was so very tired. It is hard to take mass murder seriously, 
cloaked in pretentious bullshit, over three-in-the-morning diner 
pancakes and stale coffee. | honestly had thought they were all talk, 
but that isn't really any excuse for negligence. 


Yes, of course they were narcissists, and | knew that. The art 
requires narcissism, at least at first. You can't hope to warp the 
world to your will, unless you first believe your will is more real than 
the world itself and everyone in it. You should have seen me when 
the bereginya first found me. | was a pretty terror. | would have 
eaten you alive, you lovely strong man, yes. | may yet, still. 


By the time | got there, the working had already started. The circle 
was drawn, the altar was hallowed and laved in blood. The spirits of 
steel and concrete, of empty lot and blighted playground, spat and 
howled; all awakened, sentient and restless. My students had done 
this. They were fools, and foolishness was going to get them killed 
but / had made the mistake of teaching them what little they knew 
and / was responsible for them. 


| found them on the roof of the condemned tenement. "What have 
you done?" | asked. Mother Morena, could | have been any more 
ineffectual and cliched? 


Jake went on with the usual rehearsed rhetoric, the symbolic 
transformation of trash into art (those were people, you psychotic 
asshole), sending a message to the thrones of power, blah blah 
blah. Ty said that they needed to fuel the working, these people 
were as close to dead already as makes no difference, nobody 
would miss them, and the cops would never come to this 
neighborhood to investigate the murder of some black crack addicts 
(as though mundane police attention was our main worry). Petra ... 
Petra just threw back her head and laughed. 


| had to help them, they couldn't handle power on this scale. | 
thought | could keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Collateral 
damage? Who am I, some flunkie at a Pentagon press conference? 
These are human lives I'm casually discussing the destruction of! 
Even / could barely handle a working of this scale anymore. 
Nowadays, my art is a bright pebble worn smooth by time and | am 
very far from my places of power. So | helped, so help me. 


Perhaps, with my help, it would have worked. It might have been a 
thing of beauty brought forth by craft and will into a world made 
better by its presence. It might have shouted a truth that shook the 
halls of the mighty, and brought presidents and kings weeping to 
their knees. It might have exalted art over celebrity, given wings to 
the imprisoned, shone as a lantern to the lost and birthed the 
Aquarian Age from the stinking corpse of the Age of Mammon. 
Then, just maybe, it might almost have been worth the cost. 


Now, what Ty was too stupid to realize, was that when people find 
that the authorities won't help them, they help themselves. Some 
gang claimed that house, the drugs, and the addicts in it, and they 
had sent their soldiers to avenge this invasion. Kids really, three of 
them, probably 13 to 15 years old (although | was the same age 
when father dressed me in boy's clothes, the lord's men put a spear 
in my hand for the first time and | marched to avenge some similar 
insult). 


So, these armed children burst onto the roof with machine pistols, 


and started spraying bullets everywhere. They couldn't possibly 
have hit me, of course, and it's probably dumb luck they hit anybody, 
but Jake took a bullet in his leg. | charmed one of them to sleep, as 
soon as | had my wits. I'm a foolish old woman, to let myself be 
ambushed by children in the first place! Ty fumbled for some petty 
defense that | had taught him but never got it off. Jake just 
screamed. Petra advanced on them, like a lioness, and smiled. They 
shot at her, but the bullets just passed through her like she wasn't 
really there (and of course, in a sense she wasn't). She picked them 
up one at a time and ripped their bodies apart with her bare hands, 
their souls feeding the working (now ravenous and insatiable). 


It was ruined now, of course, all concentration lost and far too much 
blood spilled. It escaped into the sky and came crashing down in the 
city. | imagine there were hundreds killed. Then the air grew greasy 
and heavy, pregnant with power and, just like that, the giants were 
summoned forth. Hideous floating copies of Ty and Jake, hundreds 
of feet long and dressed in bi-colored harlequin costumes. They 
were grotesque, absurd human parade balloons with the minds of 
infants, and of course that ridiculous catch phrase was emblazoned 
on the sky in the color of dried blood. A farce skimmed from the idle 
thoughts of undisciplined minds. This wasn't just a senseless waste 
of human life, it was trite, it was a perversion of the art, it was 
gauche. 


Jake, of course, claimed that it was a victory, that this clumsy and 
hideous mess was actually his plan all along. It was an ironic 
commentary on the ultimate uselessness of art for revolutionary 
means or some bullshit. Jake would never tally his fuck-ups, he 
always just simply redefined each one as a triumph. Such a simple 
strategy, to claim every failure as a victory, too bad you need to be a 
monstrous idiot to pull it off. 


Ty shrugged and said, "Mistakes were made." As though this wasn't 
anything he did, just something that happened. As though there 
wouldn't be a price. 


| told you | have stopped keeping score, but this was a monstrous 
fuck-up. So, | undid it. Yes, | imagine you'd like to know how. Your 
people would love a way to just unmake messes like this, wouldn't 
you? Well, I'll give you a hint, because you are my favorite great- 


Dr. : ? 
(Ten seconds pass.) 


Dr. : Answer the question, please. 


: |... Kept on running. Those things 
were right behind me, and | just kept on 
running. They got __, think it was rats that got 
him. | just kept on running. 


Dr. : Did you see anything else when you 
were in SCP-777, 2? 


: Sand. It was just sand. Buildings 
made of sand, oceans made of sand, animals 
made of sand. They were huge, bigger than 
the buildings. 


Dr. : This was the center, yes? The center of 
SCP-777? 


: No. It was close, though. | carried on 
running, and | went through there? 


Dr. : Can you tell me what was in the center, 
? 


: There was nothing. Just...just more 
sand. 


( collapsed at this point and was 
removed by medical staff.) 


<End Log> 


Closing Statement: was later 
diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress 
Disorder and given temporary leave for stress. 


« SCP-776 | SCP-777 | SCP-778 » 


great-something-great-grandson: God is a critic, and She hates bad 
art. 


Nothing in my art is without cost, of course, all of those that died, are 
still dead. | imagine there was a train accident or gas-main explosion 
or terrorist attack or something instead. The ghosts are still mine. 
Jake still got shot somehow. He doesn't remember though, because 
| took care of him and Ty, after. They may, with therapy, eventually 
be able to talk, feed themselves and wipe their own asses again. 
They are young yet. Who knows? If he could, I'm sure Jake would 
claim this as his victory too. 


That was the last of my power for awhile, | think, I'll need to save 
what | have left just to stay alive, for a hundred years at least. 


Drink your tea, now, if you want me to read the leaves. 


As for Petra, well she was the best working those two did, the best 
working I've seen since Jack Parson's Babalon, she was why | 
consented to teach them in the first place, after all. A masterpiece, 
by chance, from gifted apprentices. She is as perfect as they 
dreamed her and she has cut the umbilicus to them. She is out there 
now, a free thought, her will moving through the world and the world 
moving according to her will. What will she become? Woman, witch, 
goddess or monster? Or perhaps all of the above, eh? Who knows? 
She's young yet too. 


A World We Live In 


The following was flagged by Site 19's automated data filter 
(tagged with flags CLASSIFIED DATA, 05, SCP-682, SCP-173). 
As the following contains personal log data, only those with 
Site Administration clearance and above are cleared to view 
this document. 


Personal audio log of Researcher Joshua "Watery" Hayes, June 
7th 20 


Various banging and rustling sounds can be heard in the 
background. CCTV footage at this time shows Hayes retrieving a 
bottle of brand vodka from under his bunk. Questioning about 
this log revealed it to be imported from Hayes's homeland of New 
Zealand, and upon Hayes requesting that he be allowed to keep the 
bottle as a keepsake, it was not removed from his procession as per 
Site regulations. 


A scuffing sound is heard, confirmed as Hayes sitting in his work 
space chair. Hayes then takes a drink from the bottle of vodka, and 
sighs. 


"You know what's fucked about this world? Because | know." 


"It's not the monsters that wish nothing but death upon our species, 
like 682. It's not that which we don't understand, 173. Hell, most of 
the Euclids. It's not the things that infest humanity, or use and abuse 
it. And no, it's not humanity itself." 


"It's the things lurking among us. It's the ticking time bombs, like 
231. It's the ones that can't control themselves, like 507, no matter 
how nice he is, poor bastard. It's the ones that can murder us all 
with a thought, and not even intend it, like 239." 


At this point, Hayes takes another drink from the bottle of vodka, and 
sets the bottle down nosily.