It was a beast, he recognized, as the sound reached his presence. 
He could feel himself resonating with it. The sound was not of a 
hammer, but the beast roaring. Somehow, among the heat and the 
darkness, he felt drawn to it, as if the beast was calling, and that the 
roar was a language. 


He reached towards the beast within the fires. 


For a split second, he saw its fiery eyes, its body of a golden metal 
that shined brightly. It stood there, its mouth open, as the fire 
scorched and burnt. And then, he opened his eyes. The pool of 
metallic liquid was gone. He was standing there, at the bottom of the 
pool. The machine around him came to a halt, and the serpent man 
looked at him in disbelief. 


He looked down to see his hands, but what he saw could no longer 
be called hands. Golden, metallic claws were in front of him. The 
metal that surrounded him minutes ago now made up his whole 
body. He moved his fingers, and then elbows, arms, torso, and legs, 
and they responded immediately to his thoughts. There was no 
longer muscle straining, but nor were there sounds of ticking and 
grinding. Everything just fit together perfectly; the movements felt to 
him even more natural than the body he was born with. 


He had expected to see lost, vengeful souls, or to see his broken 
lord reaching out to him. But the image of the beast was now 
scorched into his being, and somehow he found comfort. 


He was still in the vague shape of a man, but nobody would mistake 
him for one. Even aside from his now beastly headpiece and claw- 
like hands, he was filled with a fiery presence, the same presence 
that turned and twisted in molten metal. 


He was successful. He thought, as he walked up from the now 
empty pool. 


“| have a favor to ask,” He recalled the serpent man’s words, before 
he led him deeper into an underground cavern. “Take it as your first 
battle, the first beast to slay.” 


He had agreed, as he was eager to try out his new strength. The 
cavern, unlike the chamber, was cold and damp. As he walked down 
with the scaled man, he could hear an underground river flowing 
nearby, and occasionally, water dropping from the cavern ceiling. 


It had been four days since his coversion, and he neither slept nor 
ate. He could still sense the heat in the chamber, and smell the thick 
metallic scent, but no longer experienced pain or exhaustion. The 
serpent man, meanwhile, had been busy taking notes and testing 
with visible excitement. 


But today, it was different. As he led the young Mekhanite down into 
the underground tunnels, deeper and deeper, as the automatons 
carrying lanterns and torches drove away the darkness, he was 
almost silent. But finally, as they stopped in front of a dark cave 
entrance, the serpent man spoke: “This is it.” 


“The first beast to slay?” He asked. His sound now carried a strange 
echo. 


But the man didn’t answer. He only looked up the cave, and called 
out a strange name. The Mekhanite recognized that the name was 
in that foreign language he couldn’t quite understand. Then he heard 
a rustling sound, that of large scales slipping through wet floor, of 
something smooth and wet slithering towards them. 


The first thing he saw was an eye, or rather, a vertical slit in the 
head. Then, the head of something resembling a snake, with mouth 
filled with unnaturally sharp teeth and bone horns protruding 
randomly from all sides. Its color was a pale white, its scales almost 
translucent. There were a row of half-formed appendages alongside 
its body that occasionally twitched. The first two of them looked 
alarmingly like human hands. As if responding to the name, the 
creature quickly slid towards them. 


Immediately, the young Mehkhanite recognized that stench, the 
same stench of the flesh beasts that plagued his lands. But even 


then, none of the flesh beast he had enountered was this... 
enormous. Its head alone was thrice of his height, and its body 
seemed to stretch infinitely into the cave’s darkness. 


“What?” He asked, shocked. “What is this?” 


“My father,” The serpent man said, there was a coldness in his tone. 
“Please release him from this.” 


Before he could ask or even comprehend the words, the Mekhanite 
was thrown to the side of the cave, his body hitting the stone wall 
with a loud clank. The giant snake turned to him, and hissed so loud 
that it was almost a roar. 


He expected pain, but as his metal body clashed against the stone 
war, he realized he no longer needed to worry about that. He got up, 
but his mind was still in shock. “What do you mean?” 


“Release him from his pain, please,” The serpent man said. His 
servant automatons had retreated to a safer distance, but he 
remained where he was. “Slay your first beast.” 


The Mekhanite looked at the man, and then the giant snake coming 
towards him. And as he sought a weapon, a blade came out of his 
arm. He struck quickly, slashing the serpent, and with a painful howl, 
a translucent liquid poured out. 


And as he fought on, he realized that dodging the snake was easy 
enough, as the cavern was too narrow for it to move freely, and 
somehow, it seemed unwilling to damage the surroundings. But to 
his frustration, even though his blade could cut through the white 
snake’s skin easy enough, seconds after the cut, the wound would 
heal. 


“Such are the worshippers of Mother Dragon, no organs they can’t 
regrow.” The serpent man said, “You may want to take out the 
brains first — and then burn their bodies.” 


Hearing this, the Mekhanite climbed onto the serpent’s back. 
Grabbing the bone horns, he easily made it to the head. As he 
clawed his way up, to his disgust, he realized the scales of the large 


snake resembled fingernails more than actual reptilian scales. But 
he holds tight against the writhing serpent, and plunged his blade 
into its skull. 


The bone cracked as if it was nothing against the sharp metal. The 
snake screeched, and he hit again. And once more. He hit it over 
and over until its body slumped to the ground, still twitching, but no 
longer moved. 


“You slew your first beast.” The man said, slithering close. 


He looked at the man with scales and tail and claws so much like 
the snake he had just slain. But he only responded: “Much easier 
than | expected.” 


” 


“Your enemies back home will have intelligence, but he had none. 
The serpent said, his voice distant and cold. And before the 
Mekhanite could ask any question, he continued: “Like me, he 
wished to rebuild our past glory. But as you can see, he failed. His 
methods failed; the power of the Dragon of Flesh is too 
uncontrollable.” 


“lam successful, then.” He said, standing up. 


The serpent gestured, and one of the automatons handed the 
Mekhanite a package. “The map back to your land, some robes, and 
a few other things you might need.” He said. “I can only wish you 
good luck.” 


He nodded, and started walking back up. His thoughts once again 
flew to his home, so far away from this foreign soil. 


The serpent looked at the remains of the giant snake, its one eye 
staring back at him. He bent down to close its eyelids. The torches 
the automatons held ignited the body. 


Among the smoke and fires, the serpent man watched silently, as 
the beast, blessed with the golden armor of the Great Brass Dragon, 
faded into the shadows of the cavern. 


| Stand Atop a Spiral Stair 


lt was a soundless stellar morning when | held my audience with my 
creator. I'd come looking for a resolution, but I'd left my resolve 
behind, which was why | was smoking in my cabin, half-hearted 
dregs of nicotine filling the room with wispy doubts burning in the 
oxygen for a crew long-since gone, along with almost everything 
else here. 


A queasy feeling knotted and curled in my gut at the thought of 
confronting her — | told myself it wouldn't get better if | didn't do 
anything, forced myself to eat my words and swallow my lies. 
Besides, a quieter voice spoke in my head, she knows you're here 
already. Chances are she knows why you're here. Who knows how 
long she's been watching? 


(| could give a definite answer to that last question, which was how | 
knew it was wrong.) 


After a half-hour that stretched out into an endless back and forth 
with myself, | decided to do something. Shoving myself out of bed, | 
let my inertia carry me through the door and into the facility at large. 
Here | felt like a pawn of my momentum, all agency stripped away 
by Newton's first, which was just how | preferred it. 


Eventually, | came to the entrance for the observation post at the 
center of the station and it opened, seemingly expectantly. | 
swallowed. | didn't need to be reminded of her omniscience — | 
already had enough problems with my existence without wondering 
if or how she'd pushed and pulled me throughout my time here. 


If | didn't know why | was here, | could've lost myself in the soft 
twinkle of the stars against the steel and Plexiglass manacle around 
what | assumed was her waist. But | had a goal | knew I'd come up 
with for the first time in fifteen years, and | was looking for my fellow 
aberration, not the reassuring fusion glow of normalcy. 


The radio equipment clicked on with a muted thud of static. She was 
definitely here, but she was expecting me to make the first move: 
the board had been set and | was playing white. 


| took a deep breath to steady myself. Adrenaline tends to start 
pumping when you're confronted with the reason for your existence. 
After letting it out in a long, protracted sigh, | softly laid my hand 
against the glass. 


Contact. 


The radio slowly crackled with life, first with static, then trembling 
versions of words I'd heard spoken by a voice that was literally a 
lifetime ago: "We cast. We cast. We cast." Her words were cut off by 
sharp howls of static that sounded like keening, electronic sobbing 
through the speakers. "Foundation? You're there." Then after a 
moment of silence: "Kari?" 


My throat tightened with tears and post-mortem reunion fugue. "I-I'm 
here again. I'm sorry | left you." 


"| missed you too. You're... different." She sounded disappointed. | 
couldn't blame her. "You're not as many as you were, last time we 
met." 


"A lot of things changed while | was gone. I'm sorry." 


As if to prop up my rapidly-crumbling composure: "It doesn't matter. 
You're back." 


| took a deep, hiccupping breath. "You didn't forget me?" 


"No. | can wait. | can always wait." | could hear her smile through the 
speakers, eyes twinkling with high-frequency EM beaming down at 
me — what | could also hear were the unspoken words, / can 
always wait — but for how much longer? 


"Okay." | wiped tears away from my face, watched them glimmer off 
into the harsh whiteness of the station around me. "| missed you 
too." And then | feel my lungs — artificial and entirely unnecessary 
reminders of a life since-incinerated — have the oxygen pulled out 
of them, absorbed into a giant hand of void which caresses my 


cheek. 


It hurts the most that | can recognise the brush of fingers long-gone 
in her alien non-warmth, feel visceral tenderness in the negative 
space, and | can put a name to that person who lies just underneath 
the cloak of nothingness. But then we've both changed: one after 
the other, and no matter how much | hate her for doing so, | can't 
hold that anger when she can't feel anything for me. 


"They want me to be part of the crew up there." Alexandra Poole 
pointed up at the sky, her finger's target obscured by the shadow of 
the Portland Observatory: somewhere a tiny fraction of a lightyear 
away stood a brilliant citadel floating in space, a childhood fantasy of 
spacemen going to faroff planets reified in the brutal construction of 
a Foundation observation post. 


It was cold enough that night that the shock felt like an icy sting to 
Kari. Even if she hadn't known about it she'd subconsciously picked 
up something, the uneasy silences over their usual coffee, cracks in 
the conversation when Alex's tells became just obvious enough to 
dent her usual direct rapport — still, it hadn't lessened the blow any. 


For what it was worth, Kari did her best to smile at her: "I'm so 
proud." The embrace was held just a little too long, arms too tight, 
as if clutching the broken pieces of something fragile and 
irreparable. 


Alex swallowed audibly, and with Kari's ear at her neck she could 
hear the discomfort in that motion, subtle cues amplified into an 
overwhelming burst of something that left her unable to speak. 
"They wouldn't let me tell you earlier, I— they geased me, dammit, it 
was just there at the tip of my tongue..." 


"It's fine." When Kari finally released her, her eyes looked just the 
tiniest shade darker even under the soft lights of the Portland 
starscape. "C'mon, I'm not gonna hold this against you. Your dream, 
isn't it?" 


Mist filled the air as Alex let out an unconscious breath. "I didn't want 
to have to live it alone. I'm just— sorry. Sorry it turned out this way, 


Class D personnel who touched the portal reported that it felt like 
putting their hand in a cool bowl of water. They were unable to 
remove their limbs from the surface, reflecting the difficulty of 
extracting inanimate objects from the portal. The personnel claimed 
that it felt as though an array of wires were holding them in (video 
recordings of the puddle showed no change in the skin formation of 
these participants). After five minutes expired, the limbs were 
severed, which later examination showed to be due to a large 
number of irregular, shallow cuts. The first batch of personnel totally 
submersed in SCP-874 were [DATA EXPUNGED]. The next 
sequence of experiments were conducted after the winch system 
was tested with non-living objects, which were safely retrieved if 
pulled up before five minutes of submersion. When the next group of 
personnel were retrieved with harnesses, they reported [DATA 
EXPUNGED] (see Document 874-9). Upon extraction, the group 
expressed elation and awe. Shortly afterward, they began to self- 
mutilate and exhibit violent and suicidal tendencies. 


Interview Log #874-1 


Document #874-2: Interview with D-17549 


Dr : Before you were extracted, what did you see 
behind the portal? 

D-17549: Those eyes. Like they didn't care a bit. How 
beautiful. 

Dr : What eyes? Please explain what you saw 
thoroughly. 

D-17549: And their were like little knives! And how 
they played against each other. 

Dr : D-17549, you are being uncooperative. If you 
do not answer the questions I'm asking you, you may 
have to suffer an early termination. 

D-17549: Ah, yes. That would be nice. Please, ask away. 
Dr : What did you see whe - wait, did you say 
"nice"? 

D-17549: We saw quite a large number of [DATA 
EXPUNGED]. Now, | helped you; will you help me? 

Dr : You aren't in any position to be making 
requests. 


sorry | didn't fight harder—" 
"Don't be. I'll still miss you too while you're out there, spacegirl." 
"Yeah. I'll... miss you too." 


Later, Kari would look back on those words and realise how fucking 
stupid they were: emotional duct-tape designed to smooth over the 
sharp edge of something neither of them could control, candy 
coating on the bitter pill. 


But by that time it was too late for retrospection. 


When | woke up the next day, there was the heavy warmth of 
something filling the absence next to me. The smell of hazelnuts and 
floral shampoo with the tinge of sweat after a night's work fending off 
the dreams, each sleep bringing crushing existential cramps about a 
star coming to bear down on the human race in a vision of fiery 
chariots and Russian Morse that she wouldn't see realised in her 
lifetime.