Far away, certain inhabitants of La Canada Flintridge would go 
home with an empty, bittersweet taste caked dry in their stomachs. 
A door in their lives had closed. Over a decade of work ended with 
all the fanfare of a Wikipedia edit. Tomorrow they would rise from 
bed, drive back to work a little less enthusiastic than before, and be 
shuffled off to different projects by the powers that be. 


The deceased lay in the middle of an empty field of pale, rusty red 
grit, littered with bits of gravel and lumpy, awkward rocks. Wind- 
sculpted dunes piled up around the corpse, the leftovers of the 
killing sandstorm. 


Flintridge, can you hear me? 


A woman, the tallest feature for a hundred miles, crossed the desert 
with long, loping strides. She carried an umbrella on her shoulder to 
keep off the hazy sun, which seemed to be shining just a little 
brighter than it had a few hours ago. 


Flintridge, please respond. 


A second woman walked behind the first, short and plain and far 
less ostentatious. 


Storm is getting worse. Will attempt to push through to avoid brunt. 


The first woman’s name was Isabel, and the second’s name was 
Emma. 


Won't stop. Need to find water. 


Isabel stopped, folded up her umbrella and handed it to her 
assistant. 


personnel. 


SCP-753's primary purpose appears to be the creation of paintings. 
Paintings produced by SCP-753 are highly realistic and often do not 
correspond to real locations. Recently, paintings created by 
SCP-753 have mostly involved, in some way, SCP-753's death. 
SCP-753 was initially returned to Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd by 
one of their clients, who complained that it was ‘broken’. ,a 
Foundation mole within the organisation, was able to retrieve 
SCP-753 before incineration. 


SCP-753 usually produces one (1) painting per hour. When 
SCP-753 is not provided with adequate paint or painting canvas, it 
appears to enter a dormant state, shutting down for a minimum time 
length of one (1) week. As this heavily impedes research, SCP-753 
is to be kept stocked with paint and canvases at all times. SCP-753 
does not appear to be concerned about completed paintings, and 
generally ignores them after they are finished. 


Painting Log 
Painting Log: 

Time Painting produced 
01:00 AM Image of an ocean. Water is 


observed as being red in 
color. Unidentified aquatic 
creature bearing 
resemblance to a platypus 
is jumping out of the water. 
Closer inspection reveals 
that SCP-753 is being 
Crushed in its jaw. 

02:24 AM Image of a lit furnace. 
Unidentified red humanoid 
is climbing out of the 
furnace. SCP-753 is visible 
inside the furnace. 

03:14 AM Image of a human eye 
against a starry background. 
SCP-753 is drifting towards 


Need to find life. 


“Emma, you ever notice how if things are allowed to get old, they 
start acting like people?” Isabel said as she gently folded up dust- 
caked solar panels. “It’s because they are.” Slender fingers began 
unscrewing the fastenings on the chassis. “Peopleness is 
contagious.” 


“| can’t say I’ve given it much thought, ma’am.” 


The chassis sat open like a waking silver flower. Isabel went digging 
around inside. 


“The very best and the very worst gets all over the place. Huge 
mess, all the good and bad getting everywhere. Stains and soaks 
everything, takes forever to get it out, and it’s always the deepest set 
in what people make. In things.” 


Isabel’s eyes reflected off of the rover’s skeleton: two points of 
burning helium, white hot. Wind whipped the air around the two 
women and the rover, and Emma watched as rust-red forms rose 
from the ground and began to circle the site. Images of animals, 
vague human figures, all in movement. All alive, filled with hot 
snorting breaths and the trampling of hooves and the shouts of 
hunters, even though they were little more than a cloud of clay dust. 


“Come on, come on...Aha!” A spark fizzled in the thin air, a little 
flash of electricity jumped between the wires. “Don’t give up on me 
now, girl! You can do it!” 


The herd grew to a singular grand loudness, and then faded. Isabel 
stood up, brushed off her pants, smiled. 


The specter of a dirty girl shimmered to life above the rover’s metal 
husk. A wide, conical hat and a poncho made out of solar panels. 
She held a metal pole in her hand as a walking stick. 


“Hey there, Opportunity. My name’s Isabel.” She held out her hand. 
“It’s very nice to meet you.” 


The girl stared at Isabel’s hand for a moment, then looked up at its 
owner. She ignored the hand, and proceeded to wrap Isabel in a 


tight hug. 
Isabel was the first person she had seen in many long years. 


“It's okay, Opp. I’m not going anywhere.” Isabel patted the girl on the 
back. 


“| can’t call home anymore, Isabel.” 
“| Know.” 
“Do they know?” 


“Oh, they know. They are so proud of you, Opp. Every single one of 
them is proud because of what you did.” 


The girl broke the hug, wiped at her face with a baggy sleeve. Tears 
had cut muddy paths across her cheeks. 


“| wasn’t able to find any water.” 


“You were here, Opp! You were here!” Isabel flung her arms wide, to 
display the vast Martian landscape. “That's what matters. You were 
here, and you did better than anyone could have possibly imagined. 


“I’ve got space open in the Workshops, if you want to come. And 
friends! There are so many friends who have been waiting to meet 
you! There’s Sojourner, and the Viking brothers, and then all the 
Pioneers and Mariners and... well, the Voyagers don’t stop in much 
anymore, but then there’s Huygens, and then there’s Laika, and 
Baker, and Neil! Oh, you have to meet Neil. He’s the best.” 


Opportunity looked to be contemplating the offer for a moment, but 
shook her head fiercely. 


“No. Can’t go home yet. Have to find water.” 


Isabel patted her on the shoulder, her smile no smaller than it had 
been. 


“| understand. Keep going, Opp. When you're ready, I’ve got a place 
for you.” 


Opportunity nodded, wiped her face again, and started to walk 
away. She had gotten about fifty feet before she stopped, and 


twisted around. 
“Bye, Isabel,” she said, her voice dim on the wind. 
“See you later, alligator.” Isabel waved back at her. 


Isabel stood there and watched as Opportunity walked off towards a 
small rise in the distance, the lip of an ancient crater. Standing atop 
it was another shimmering dust-caked figure, walking-stick in hand. 
She watched the two embrace, and then descend into the crater and 


out of sight. 
Emma cleared her throat. 
“Tell me, ma’am, if you know. Will they find it?” 


“They're good kids, Emma. What do you think?" 


Across the Hills so Quiet 


The seal is broken 
O fallen King of splinter’d crown 
Eye pierced upon thy spear 
The girl has got you bested 
The seal is broken 
The Mother of Hunters has shattered her chains 
The Toymaker has fired her shots 
The first shots of the last war 
The seal is broken 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed 
Stars boil and worlds are torn in two 
The King marches on creation 
The seal is broken 
The hour stirs 
A beast slouches towards Gotham to be born 
Rising up from Benthos’ black realm 
The seal is broken 
The child whimpers in pain 


For hers is the womb by which the world ends 


Hers is the womb by which the end of the world begins 
The seal is broken 
Gaping eyes bear witness, gasping mouths sing praise 
Two keys open Atom’s Gate 
What lies beyond, none can see. 
THE SEAL IS BROKEN 
There was a great and terrible silence 


A bulb of fire rose upon a column of cloud in the sky 
above Montauk Point. 


There was a great and terrible noise 
There was a great and terrible silence 


The girl who had forgotten the names of the world stood atop a 
grassy mound, trembling in the light wind. Color soaked the world 
around her: Mossy green hills, blanketed with fields of tiny white 
flowers. Dark, distant mountains with fire-red crowns. Sharp-blue 
glaciers settled in the shadows of knife-edged valleys. Vast standing 
stones, mottled pale with ancient lichen, rose above the hills, 
wearing garlands of seashells and pink flowers. The breeze brushed 
against her bare ankles, neither warm nor chill. If she strained her 
ears, she could hear the crash of waves against far-off cliffs and the 
cries of seabirds. 


There had been a flash of light. She remembered a blinding 
moment, a blast of heat, and the feeling of arms around her. Not the 
arms of a Masked Man, all muscle and bruise. Soft arms. 


Light, heat, arms, nothing, and then waking on the hilltop. 


The world she had no names for called out to her. She could not 
remember the colors or smells, nor the grass or mountains or wind. 
She could not remember a world without corners and white tile, 
without humming lights and cold metal against her back, without 


Masked Men. She could not remember, but she answered all the 
same. She did not remember this world, but she knew it, as if she 
were returning to a vanished dream rising from the mist. 


The girl with ratty hair and hollow cheeks, dark bags under her eyes, 
pressed a hand to her stomach. It stung at even a gentle touch, a 
sharp bite of pain, but the pain was nothing compared to what had 
been. Nothing compared to the pain the Masked Men delivered 
upon her body, or the writhing, gnawing, clawing pain of the Thing in 
her womb. No, it was nothing. A new, nothing pain. 


The girl had given birth. 


The Thing lay in the grass a few feet away — a blackened mass of 
flesh, torn up and knitted back together in cancerous coils, cloaked 
in a rotted placenta. Shattered bones twisted limbs into uselessness, 
suckling mouths opened and closed wordlessly, skin peeled away 
from melted muscle. Blood and fecal matter splattered the grass, a 
dark ooze leaked into the soil from its bloated gut. Organs pulsed 
and spasmed underneath thin skin. Breath wheezed and gurgled out 
of its bone-punctured lungs. Tiny hands clawed at the loam, 
desperately trying to drag itself across the ground. 


When the girl first saw it, she wanted to kill it, to stomp on its neck 
until it was dead. She found that she could not, and she did not 
understand why. Nor could she bring herself to leave it, this 
disgusting, broken Thing. 


Her terrible child. 


The air stirred, heavy with the smell of salt. A lonesome cry echoed 
in the hills. The girl turned, and saw that a woman stood there on the 
hilltop, past the place where the Thing lay. 


The woman’s skin was smooth and grey as polished slate, her 
braided hair like silver silk, her eyes wide and dark. Her cheeks and 
brow were lined with glowing blue patterns. Her bare shoulders bore 
clusters of bright tube-worms. She wore a white dress; her belly was 
stained with red. 


“Hello,” she said. Her voice was deep and wide, and felt as if it 


would carry for miles for its size. 


The girl recoiled, hobbled legs tensing to run. But the woman didn’t 
come any closer — She just sat down in the grass, tucked her legs 
up underneath her, and began picking flowers. She hummed a 
melancholy tune, and it rumbled across the hills. 


The girl edged closer. The woman began tying stems together, her 
thick fingers not as clumsy as they looked. The girl watched intently, 
trying to mark if she was a threat. 


The woman looked up and smiled at the girl, who drew back again. 
“It's okay,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

The Thing gurgled, blew a bloody bubble of spit. 

“I’m sorry about all of this,” the woman continued, her fingers still 
weaving. “But | promise, everything is going to be okay now. You're 
safe.” 

The girl looked the woman over, her eyes hard. 

“No Masked Men?” she asked at last. 

“Never again.” 

The girl narrowed her eyes. 

“You're lying.” 


The woman held out her right hand, and drew her left across the 
palm as if holding a knife. Blood welled up from a deep, straight cut. 
The woman clenched her fist, sending dark droplets onto the grass. 


“| swear by my blood, shed in the war against the King, that you will 
be safe here, so long as a drop of life remains in me.” The woman’s 
voice boomed across the land. “I am not lying.” 


The girl could feel something inside those words. Something 
powerful. Words that were not words, meaning untamed by speech. 
She felt afraid, and very small. Not because the woman was a 


threat, but because she could feel her power coursing through the 
air, the soil, her very being. The woman that sat before her was an 
image of something vaster, a form of something greater and broader 
than she could even hope to imagine. 


“Is that good enough?” 


The girl nodded. It was all she could do. The woman wiped her hand 
on the grass, her palm already healed into a pale scar. 


“My name’s Abby.” She placed her crown of flowers on her head 
and began picking more. “You can come and sit over here, if you 
want.” 


The girl didn’t move. 


“| know | look really suspicious right now...why did | say that? Since 
when has that ever been a good thing to say? I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 
The woman sighed, brushed aside a strand of hair. “It’s been a long 
time since | really had a chance to talk to anyone. I’m not lying to 
you, | promise, but it’s difficult to say exactly what | want to say. | 
could show you, but...oh.” The woman glanced over her shoulder. “1 
think we have a visitor.” 


A second wind passed over the hill, smelling of leaf litter and dirty 
snow. A cloud cast a shadow, and that shadow became the cloak of 
a pale man. The girl shivered, but kept her gaze locked — she could 
feel in her stomach that if she looked away, she would die. 


The pale man nodded at Abby, though it was really little more than a 
tilt. She returned the gesture. He turned his eyes towards the girl. 
Hard, empty eyes — it would have been easier to bear if there had 
just been sockets, but no. Hard silver eyes, as empty as marbles. 


“| am not here for you, child,” he said in a dust-and-skin voice. He 
swept up to the Thing, and a silver-moon sickle was in his hand. 


“Wait...” the word slipped from the girl's mouth unbidden. 


The pale man drew a shimmering cloud from the Thing’s gaping 
mouth, reached forth with his sickle. 


“Don’t...” 


A short soundless cut across the imaginal tether, and the cloud 
dissipated. 


“Is this not what you wanted?” The pale man framed it more as 
statement than question. 


The girl swallowed, staring at the still, lifeless Thing. 

“Take it as a lesson, girl. Be careful when you invoke my passing.” 
The pale man turned his marble eyes towards Abby. 

“And as for you...” he hissed. 

“Another time. Please. She’s been through enough...” 


“No. You have brought the girl into this, she will listen. You are 
responsible for everything that she is now to face.” He swung back 
around to the girl. “Remember that, girl. For all that is to come, she 
is to blame.” A thin finger pointed with dread accusation. 


“| saved her,” Abby said. 


“Only from my mercy, because the broken bride desired a pet. But 
the Fool has gone and angered the Worm, and the center cannot 
hold.” 


“It can for long enough.” 


“The thirty-six are scattered to the winds, and creation spirals into 
anarchy without them.” 


“We can still-.” 


“Do you never tire of lapping up the Fool’s vanity? Your father has 
already sharpened his carving knives and drawn blood. He will 
devour creation and choke upon it, and all that will remain are my 
brothers and I.” The pale man grinned, though it did not look like he 
truly knew how. “I wonder; how will your Fool fare against my 
Eldest?” 


“She is not nearly as vain as you think.” 


“Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity. All of creation is the vanity 
project of a god most utterly mad.” The pale man paused, seemed to 
hear something that the girl could not. “I am forever needed 
elsewhere. | shall soon see you two again.”