"Last night, yeah. If they come after us we'll be able to tell. At least 
until it shorts again." 


"It will have to do. Thank you." 
The captain then looked around and raised an eyebrow. 
"Where's Layla?" 


"| had her working on some last second hull reinforcements," Roger 
explained. "Hang on." 


He quickly vanished below deck once more. A few moments later 
the mechanic returned, a young woman equipped with welder's 
goggles and a blowtorch in tow. By her side was a worn harpoon 
gun; a quiver of makeshift ammunition dangled from her hip. 


"Glad you could join us." Quine grabbed a nearby grease pencil and 
began to draw on a nearby window. 


"Alright, here we are at Republic Plaza," she explained. "According 
to the last radio message Salvation Fifteen sent out, they should be 
anchored about thirty miles south of us, near the mountains. That 
makes this is the final leg of the trip. We'll navigate out of the city, 
and should be able to catch them before too long. Once there, we'll 
be safe. Unfortunately, this will put us in open water for a good 
chunk of the trip. That means I'll need everyone on guard." 


"Hey, Captain?" Max chimed in. "If this is the last leg, why are we 
using the barge? Why not just load up in the jet skis and make this a 
final sprint?" 


"We barely got her through Wyoming, captain," Devon agreed. 
"Maybe a faster approach would be better?" 


Quine shook her head and chuckled. 


"What happens if we arrive and find Salvation Fifteen has moved 
on? Besides, we'll need whatever supplies we have left when we get 
there." 


The captain's expression became solemn. 


"It's been a long road, friends. No shortage of sacrifice from all of us 
to get here. | know we each lost a lot along the way." 


Roger tightened his grip on the wedding band around his neck. 
June briefly hugged the toolbox. 

Max stared at the stump where his left arm used to be. 

Layla and Devon both closed their eyes. 


"You have all been more than | could have ever asked for in a 
family. Thank you." 


Quine placed the cap back on her marker and smiled at them. 


"Let's get the 'Disaster' on the road then, shall we?" 


The morning was quiet. Their small barge made its way out of the 
waterlogged skyline of Denver and headed due south. The sun grew 
high and hot in the sky; eventually, a cruise liner appeared on the 
horizon. Most of the crew smiled at the spectacle. Those smiles 
soon vanished, however, when the "JAWS" theme came from the 
pilot house. 


"June?" Captain Quine headed over to the SONAR station where 
the old tinkerer stood. 


"I... thought it might be funny?” she mumbled, stepping aside. 
"Looks like we have company." 


"Fucking hell." Quine and June grabbed the nearby shotguns. 
"Max?" 


"Fins surfacing ahead, Captain. Five so far. Make that six. Seven!" 
Max shouted back from his perch atop the barge's storage 
containers. 


"Layla, Devon, get to the bow! | got the stern!" 


Quine didn't need to repeat herself. Devon and Layla took up 


position, each armed with a rifle. 
"Think you'll actually hit something?" Layla flipped off the safety. 


"Who knows? Maybe they'll be nice enough to hold still for me." 
Devon took aim. 


Bullets and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. 


"Three!" Layla counted, her most recent shot piercing an oncoming 
hammerhead down the middle of its snout. She swiveled, smiling as 
she picked up a new target and pulled the trigger. A lifeless corpse 
bobbed to the surface, a massive hole in the right side of its head. 
"Four! You got to keep up Devon!" 


As she reloaded, a bull shark lunged out from the water. The bolt of 
her rifle wouldn't pull back. Layla fumbled, her eyes lost in the void 
of its oncoming maw. 


BANG 


The bull shark flew back, slamming into the water. A jagged second 
mouth had appeared under its throat. 


"You can crank up as high a kill count as you want, it will mean little 
if you're fucking dead!" Devon said, reloading. "Three by the way." 


"Shit!" Max shouted from his vantage point. "More coming in from 
the rear, and sides. We're being surrounded!" 


A ring of fins had nearly encircled the tiny barge. Something 
rammed it from below. The craft shook, knocking Devon and Layla 
around like bowling pins. 


"We're running out of ammunition!" Devon warned the rest of the 
crew. 


"Can't this junk go any faster?" June's shotgun kicked as a slug tore 
off an entire dorsal fin. 


"It's a god damn barge!" Roger shouted back. "What the hell do you 
want me to do? Jump into hyperspace? We're at max speed!" 


There was a series of splashes, followed by dull thuds. Several 
sharks had jumped aboard and flailed their way toward the pilot 
house. 


"Cover me!" Captain Quine closed the distance quickly, removing 
her gloves. Her polished metal fists gleamed like fire under the sun. 


The punch crumpled the first shark's snout like a wrecked car, its 
eyes flying out of its sockets from the sheer force. The second shark 
tried to move in; it was met by a chop that cleaved its head in twain. 


The third shark lunged and bit Quine's left arm. She smashed the 
top of its head down and pried it off. The fourth fled to the railing, 
only to be seized by its tail and ripped apart. 


She threw the bodies overboard. The ocean turned a deep red. 
Inches of pulped, bloody shark paste seeped over the barge's sides. 


"Yeah! Eat it!" Max shouted from his perch. "Fucking eat it, you 
selachian motherfuck-" 


The towering shadow of a megalodon briefly eclipsed the stern 
before the pilot house, along with June and Roger, vanished into its 
jaws. 


Max's taunting was drowned out by terrified screams and the 
sounds of twisting metal and shattering glass. 


Captain Quine threw herself from the stern, falling from the shark's 
mouth into a heap of debris on the ship. 


The barge stalled. More fins surfaced and closed in. 


Devon and Layla emptied their rifles into the megalodon. Layla 
pulled the harpoon gun off her shoulder and loaded it from her 
quiver, a small boxing glove affixed to the end of the harpoon. 


"Devon, get the big gun!" 
"That'll blow the entire back off the —" 


"The pilothouse is gone! We're going to have to outrun them on the 


Experiment Log 780 A 


The following experiments were performed to evaluate the extent of 
SCP-780's abilities 


Experiment 780-e1 

Host Plant: Sunflower 

Result: Full-grown sunflower produced in 24 hours, with one new 
copy of SCP-780 within flower 


Experiment 780-e2 

Host Plant: Photograph of sunflower used in Experiment 780-e1 
Result: Resulting flower was identical to the one produced in 
Experiment 780-e1 


Experiment 780-e3 

Host Plant: Painting of sunflower used in Experiment 780-e1 
Result: Resulting flower was similar to the one produced in 
Experiment 780-e1, but slight differences (number of petals, shades 
of color) showed it to be a copy of the painting, not the original plant. 


Experiment 780-e4 

Host Plant: Painting of sunflower, with only a single purple petal 
rather than many yellow ones 

Result: Resulting flower matched that of the painting 


Experiment 780-e5 
Host Plant: The word "sunflower" 
Result: No response 


Experiment 780-e6 
Host Plant: A one-paragraph description of a sunflower 
Result: Resulting flower matched description in paragraph 


Experiment 780-e7 
Host Plant: A one-paragraph description of a bush which produces 
chocolate bars 


jet skis!" 


"For fuck's sake, just do what she says!" Captain Quine dug herself 
out of the debris. Her mechanical arms hurled scraps at the flailing 
megalodon as it pulled itself along the deck after her. 


Devon vanished, then returned with a Javelin missile and launcher. 
He handed it off to Layla, then went to help his Captain. Max 
abandoned his perch for the safety of the bow. 


The crew was Clear. Layla fired. The missile vanished into the 
megalodon's throat; it then lurched forward. 


"Well that's fucking great," Max shouted. "What the hell do we do 
now!" 


"Take cover!" Quine pushed her crew away. 


The explosion tore across the surface of the vessel. A surge of 
shark meat and blood crashed across the deck. Devon blinked, 
caught in the wave of viscera. His clothes and life jacket were now 
caked in sticky fluid. 


"Oh, man..." He looked at himself, then turned to the remaining half 
of the megalodon sticking to the craft. The bleeding hulk slowly slid 
off and back into the sea. The barge was now taking on water. 


"You'll live, champ," Quine said, patting Devon on the shoulder, then 
moving across the deck and throwing off a tarp. Beneath were two 
Jet Skis, strapped down for transport. 


"Come on let's go!" Quine shouted as she released the tethers. 
"Max with me, Devon and Layla on the other! Help me!" 


With no further ado, the jet skis hit the water. 


As they rode away Devon looked back over his shoulder. Their 
home vanished beneath the waves. 


The sharks faded into the distance, outpaced by the jet skis. As the 
miles melted by, their destination crept larger and larger on the 


horizon. Devon heard Layla give a sigh of relief behind him as he 
steered. He gave Quine and Max a thumbs up. Quine replied with a 
small smile and nod. 


"Devon!" 


A harpoon whistled past Devon's head. He snapped his attention 
back to their path. Layla was reloading; a shark's carcass bobbed to 
the surface. Her harpoon was embedded in its head. Dozens more 
fins emerged ahead of them, forming a loose blockade. 


"Run it!" Captain Quine shouted over the whine of the jet ski's motor 
as she zig-zagged through the water. Max took pot shots with his 
pistol at any sharks that got too close. 


Devon followed Quine's lead. Layla's harpoon gun hissed again and 
again as she left a trail of carnage behind them. 


"Almost there..." Devon mumbled under his breath. "Come on, come 
on." 


There was a splash. Two sharks shot out of the water in tandem, 
knocking Captain Quine's jet ski upward. Quine and Max briefly 
hung in the air before they hit the water with an inelegant crash. The 
jet ski skittered off; dozens of fins lunged around it before it vanished 
beneath the tides. 


Devon turned. He held his breath and waited. When Max's head 
sprang up, they gasped in unison; the one-armed boy swam in 
desperation for Devon's craft. Blood trailed from his left shoulder. A 
cluster of three fins surfaced behind him. Devon opened the throttle 
and closed the distance. 


Two harpoons found their marks, leaving a single pursuer. 
"Devon, I'm out!" Layla shouted. 


The shark swimming after Max lurched out of the water. It had a fist- 
sized hole in its head. Captain Quine surfaced soon after and swam 
to Max, grabbing him by the collar. She hurled him into the waves by 
Devon and Layla's jet ski. As they pulled him aboard, the blockade 
closed in. 


Captain Quine headbutted an incoming shark. "Get out of here!" 
"Captain, n-" 
"That's an order! Go!" 


Devon turned the craft around and took off at full soeed. Layla and 
Max watched as an army of fins descended upon their commander. 
The waters churned with crimson foam as shark carcass after 
carcass surfaced. 


Some had holes punched through them. Others were missing fins. 
Still others were torn completely in half. 


As her head shrank out of sight, they could just make out her 
slipping beneath the churning sea of chum one final time, a blanket 
of over forty dead sharks serving to mark the grave. 


Max gave a sad chuckle as he looked back. 


"Shark fin soup..." 


The jet ski ran out of fuel a quarter of a mile away from Salvation 
Fifteen. The three survivors drifted towards the cruise liner quietly, 
its tall form anchored near where the mountains still managed to 
peak above the surface. 


No one spoke. They paddled their craft in silence as they limped 
along. On occasion, one of them would look back out to the open 
water. Their eyes would linger, then return to the task at hand. 


"I'm not seeing anyone up there, guys." Max eyed the towering ship 
with his telescope. "Didn't they say they had, like, a hundred or so 
people aboard on the broadcasts?" 


"It's a big ship," Layla answered. "They could all just be inside." 
Max nodded. 


"Right. | guess we made it then." 


"Home sweet home," Devon agreed and pulled out a radio. 
"Salvation Fifteen, this is the survivors of the barge ‘Disaster.’ We 
are approaching from your starboard side, please respond." 


There was a long stretch of quiet. 


"We see you, ‘Disaster’ survivors. Glad you made it. Please make 
your way towards the stern, we'll be sending a rope down to you 
shortly. You're safe now." 


They each let out a sigh of relief. 
CRACK 


The sigh was short lived. Before their eyes, a massive claw 
emerged from the water. It plucked up Salvation Fifteen like it was a 
bath toy. The vessel split in half; it was then slammed into the 
mountainside, left to tumble back down to the water below — where 
it proceeded to explode. 


The claw then retracted back into the sea, vanishing as swiftly as it 
had arrived. 


"No way," Max whispered. 


"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Layla said. "That's not even a 
goddamn shark!" 


Devon just sighed. 


The three survivors looked on in defeat. For a while, they let the 
silence speak for them. 


When Devon got tired of what it had to say, he broke it: "Hey, Layla? 
Do you remember what Captain Quine said started all of this?" 


"Yeah. Something about some big fish in the middle of the ocean 
finally waking up. End-of-World K/O Failure Scenario, or 
something like that." 


"Right." 


Devon went quiet again. 


"That's a stupid fucking name." 


Agent Apocalemur's Journal 


The following are the journal entries made by [DATA EXPUNGED], 
currently known as Agent Apocalemur, over the time period between 
his discovery of SCP-307 on , 200 , and his recovery by the 
SCP Foundation three weeks later. 


, 200 
| found the weirdest plant today. It was just growing 
under that locust tree in my front yard. It looked like 
English ivy, but it was purple, and had thorns. | was kind 
of in a hurry to get to work, so | didn't get to look at it very 
closely. 


, 200 
It's Saturday! My god, | hated this week. | swear, my job 
gets harder every year. | had to [DATA EXPUNGED]. 


| got to look at that weird plant | saw yesterday. | saw it 
growing. It was growing up the side of the tree so 
quickly, | could see it. Yesterday, it was just a little sprig. 
That's some plant. 


It also looks like there's a pair of robins making a nest in 
that tree. 


, 200 
| got up early to get a look at that plant. Maybe | should 
have stayed in bed. When | got outside, it was growing 
onto the branch that the robins were nesting in. It grew 
right up to the nest. When it touched the robin in the 
nest, it stopped growing. A few seconds later, the robin 
fell to the ground, dead. 


, 200 
| called in sick to work today. | had to call in sick, 
because they never would have believed me if | said | 


had been chased away from my car by a purple vine that 
was growing out of the eyes of a dead bird. The ivy 
looked like it was growing towards me, and | wasn’t 
taking any chances. | wasn’t about to end up like that 
robin. 


, 200 

is dead. My only sister...dead. | haven’t told Mom 
and Dad. | don’t know how to tell them. “Hey, um...you 
know that ivy that you told to cut away from the tree 
while you were out? Yeah...it killed her.” | wish I’d known 
they told her to do it. | could have stopped her. | could 
have saved her... 


, 200 
Mom and Dad are in shock. They haven't left their room 
since they got home last night. | heard Dad screaming at 
someone, but that’s the last | heard from either of them. | 
don’t think they want to accept what’s happening. The 
plant has grown into the backyard. and are both 
dead. ! 


LOG OF 911 CALL PLACED ON [DATA EXPUNGED] 
Operator: 911, what’s your emergency? 

Man’s Voice: My daughter’s dead!