Rita stood up and walked over to the refrigerator, pulling out a can of 
grape-flavoured soft drink. She flicked up the tab, cracking it open 


with a hiss of escaping gas. 
“The question stands, Tan. You get nothing until you answer.” 
Nobody sighed. 

“What is it that you’re doing then, Rita? Why are you here?” 
Rita took a gulp of bubbling purple fluid. 

“It's more interesting than the alternatives.” 

“Why?” 

“These people are more interesting than the other people.” 
“So you’re driven by interest?” 

“Sure.” 

“Then that’s my answer too.” 

Rita sat down at the table again. 

“Okay. Okay, Tan, it’s like... okay. What’s the worth of a person?” 


Nobody rubbed his chin, making dull scratching sounds against his 
stubble. 


“The potential of their contributions, | suppose.” 
“The sum of their parts, then.” 

“Sure.” 

“Alright, then. Let’s say we’ve got two people, right?” 
“Okay.” 


“Completely identical in every way except one: one of them has a 
different, unique offering to reality. A differentiator of worth.” 


“Hm.” 


“They can both go off and do the same thing. They’d get paid well 
for doing what they can. But that one with the potential offering 
never gets to show it. That potential dies.” 


Nobody said nothing. 


“I’ve got lots of stuff that | can do better than everyone else, right? 
I’m a genius, Tan. You pick any job, and | can do it better than 
anyone else can. But that’s meaningless, that’s not the point, that’s 
not my worth, right? The worth is in uniqueness. And that’s why I’m 
not sitting in a classroom, doing easy little sums, learning how to 
spell. I’m doing stuff that only | can do, and above that, I’m doing it 
because it makes me happy, usefulness be damned. You get it?” 


Nobody placed the hat back on his head. 
“What about obligation?” 

“Obligation to who?” 

“The world, | suppose.” 


“Capability does not equate to obligation. I’m not indebted to 
anyone.” 


“That's selfish.” 
“Yes.” 

“You're selfish.” 
“Yes.” 

“Don’t you feel guilty?” 
“No.” 

“Why not?” 


“I’ve done nothing to warrant guilt. The world owes me nothing, and | 
owe the world nothing. Obligation is bullshit, Tan.” 


Nobody smiled faintly. 
“Perhaps it Is.” 


And then Nobody went off and did something else and Rita did 
nothing and sat at the table tapping the keys on the keyboard until 
she fell asleep. 


“Have you ever tried... killing yourself?” 
| have. 
“What was it like?” 


It was morose. Everything up until then was just... nothing. | stood in 
the cool breeze of a wintery July. The coarse gravel crunched 
beneath my sandals, my legs ached from the long walk. The night 
was dark, as nights tend to be. | was sixteen at the time. 


“Sixteen? A moody teenager, then.” 


Nothing of the sort. By then | was a wise man. | was... disillusioned. 
The world had become boring again. | had already died once, ina 
way of sorts. But it hadn’t taken well, so | took to taking my life 
again. 


“Resolute in the decision?” 


| was resolute the first time. By the second, | was simply going 
through the motions. | guess... | was driven [by/to] insanity. Doing 
the same thing over and expecting a different result. So | walked 
across to the old building, tall and wooden and long since 
condemned, and yet nobody wanted to waste the time to knock the 
thing down. I'd always loved the house. It seemed... mysterious. 
Otherworldly. If there was anything interesting on the face of the 
planet, it would be in that house. And then | went inside. 


“And was there anything interesting inside?” 


Nothing but me. | made my way through a window; locked, but it 
was an old lock, and not hard to pick. | cut myself a little on the 


frame. Old paint made its way under the skin; it would have become 
infected, if | lived beyond that night. The place was interesting, of 
course. The floor was textured hardwood; | took off my sandals and 
walked around. The texture beneath my feet was unspeakable, and 
yet, the happiness was hollow. There was a table, some chairs. 
Three floors tall in all. 


“And the death?” 


The death was morose. | walked up the creaky staircases, looking 
through every room. | coughed from the dust; | brushed aside a 
cobweb. A spider jumped from the web and bit my hand. | crushed it 
and threw its body to the ground. | got to the top floor, then kicked 
out the rotten handrailing. The impact was not a certain death; | took 
my pocket knife and slit my wrists, my legs, my ankles. | slit my 
throat, then fell forwards. As the wind rushed past my face, | prayed 
that | was wrong, that this was a dream, that the world had meaning. 
| was trapped in a world that understood the symptoms but not the 
cause. A transient physician, not one that offered a cure, merely 
blind treatment. One that didn’t care. All there was to do was hope 
and pray. 


“And did G-d hear?” 


He heard and did not stop the fall. 


Ruiz Duchamp was dead. The funeral was short, boring, and 
Catholic, though two of those adjectives are redundant. 


Funerals, normally, are attended by those closest to the deceased. 
Ruiz, having been an abrasive asshole for the majority of his adult 
life (and the entirety of the time before that) had never found much 
time for ‘friends’. Acquaintances, yes; Ruiz knew a lot of people, but 
the difference between acknowledgement and acceptance is... 
hmmm. Not as much as you’d think, really. Simply a matter of 
opinion. 


He did extract a sort of grudging respect from most of the people he 
mocked. He wasn’t really a good artist, or at least he wouldn’t think 
so himself, yet somehow, through a strange series of coincidences, 


out of the smithy. 


Surviving subjects are severely crippled and deformed, with many of 
their bones broken and joints twisted, but invariably demonstrate 
great manual dexterity. Persons interacting with surviving subjects, 
even those with previous experience working with the disabled, 
express feelings of disgust at their disfigurement. The only long-term 
psychological impact on the survivors themselves is withdrawal from 
social activities and failure to seek out human contact. 


Periodically, the chains will keep a subject within SCP-727 for days 
at a time, forcing it to work on one large object instead of several 
smaller ones. So far all of these large projects have met with failure, 
as all such subjects have died before completing the item's work. 
For a list of the failed crafted objects see Addendum-727. 


SCP-727 was discovered by tracking repeated reports of a "miracle 
forge" by mysteriously disfigured people in , Greece. The item 
was contained; its victims were given Class-B amnestics and placed 
in hospitals throughout Greece. 


Addendum-727: The list of failed crafts from SCP-727 are as 
follows: 


« A humanoid construct 10 m tall, with jointed limbs. 

« A massive chariot of unknown metal, capable of withstanding 
temperatures over 6000°C. 

¢ A helmet and pair of sandals with intricate silver 'wings'. The 
subject expired while engraving the ‘wings’. 

* A large piece of unknown metal, nearly indestructible. The 
metal was placed into SCP-727's forge for 65 hours, in which 
time the subject expired. 

¢ A large door frame and door. The subject expired while 
working on the locking mechanism, which did not match any 
known design. 

¢ Aclay statue resembling a young woman. The subject was 
strangled by the chains for an unknown reason; the statue 
shattered when it was thrown out of SCP-727. 


« SCP-726 | SCP-727 | SCP-728 » 


he’d convinced an astonishing number of people into thinking he 
was. Perhaps he was just a really, really good liar. If only he’d gone 
into politics. 


Of course, for every lie Ruiz told, there was some truth. Nothing 
comes of nothing; the web of lies caught glistening segments of the 
‘real’ him. A million shattered pieces, intricately refracting a single 
source, reflecting a presumably coherent whole. 


Or was it? 


Of course it was. People are, after all, just people. After all the 
condescension and mad artistry and utter insanity, there was a 
thinking, living, breathing human being, seeking validation through 
the only source he could. And when validation ran out, there was 
nothing left for him. 


His eulogy didn’t really mention any of this. This was because Ruiz 
wrote and delivered his own, recorded as always with a banged up 
Betamax recorder. When it was left to Ruiz to sum up his own life, 
this was what he said: 


“Greetings friends, enemies, frienemies, enemiends, cyborgs, 
wizards, dogs, cats, mice, flies, microbes, virii, supermarker 
cashiers, and other subjective existences potentially living ina 
comparatively relative future. Best regards from beyond the grave! 


“CUT. Alright, I’m going to record this bit a few times. When you're, 
y'know, actually airing this, just pick whichever one seems... valid, 
the most. And then everyone will be all like “woah, he was psychic 
or something, amazing!” and everyone will think | was a cool guy, or 
psychic or something. Okay? Okay. 


“ONE. This one you air if | die of old age, or by accident, or 
something boring. This is basically the generic one. So when you're 
clipping all of this together, start from here: 


“So I’m dead now. | bet | went out with a bang, no? Some enormous 
fiery explosion got me, most likely, while saving a sack of kittens and 
orphans. | went out bravely, unwavering in my convictions in the 
strength of the human spirit, or something. 


“CUT, and TWO. This is for if some asshole kills me. Start from 
here: 


“So I’m dead now. And I’ve got a confession to make... | know who 
murdered me. Spooky, no? That person, in fact is sitting in this very 
room. The police will be along to take statements shortly, and 
probably kill the one judged guilty. 


“CUT, and THREE. Alright. This one... well, this one’s for if | see 
myself out. Starting: 


“So I’m dead now. I’ve ragequit reality and left the lot of you morons 
behind. 


“CUT. Yes, | know, it’s short, but fuck it. Nobody likes funerals. Hell, 
who’s to say I’m ever going to die anyway? Dunno why I’m even 
bothering to record this. Okay, from now until the end, just keep it all 
in. Well, | mean, not this bit. After | finish this sentence. 


“So here’s my eulogy to you, people of a boring planet, insignificant 
blobs of pus and flesh with delusions of importance and grandeur; 
may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. May you sit and be 
entertained in masturbatory bliss, may you rot forever in your filthy 
sty. | cannot live to hear the news from England, so burn my mail for 
me while I’m away. 


“Good night, dead society. The rest is silence.” 

The church, of course, didn’t have a Betamax player, and so nobody 
heard the eulogy. 

“Have you ever tried... killing yourself?” 

| have. 

“What was it like?” 


It was frightening. Everything up until then was just... nothing. | 
stood in the freezing breeze of a wintery July. The coarse gravel 
crunched beneath my sandals, my legs ached from the long downhill 
walk. The night was dark, as nights tend to be. | was twenty at the 


time. 
“Twenty? Tired of stacking shelves, perhaps.” 


Quite the opposite. All | wanted was simplicity. | had long since 
given up on choice, | had long since given up on hope, | had given 
up on life and love and everything. Self-preservation is not an 
emotion. Fear, yes; fear of death is emotional, but the drive itself is 
not. Nor is it logical. The drive to keep existing is common among 
things that exist, simply because that which lacks the drive does not 
exist for long. Even bacteria try to live, but not for fear of death. They 
do so because they must. 


“You digress.” 


| do. The ground crunched beneath me. | stood at the bottom of the 
hill, the beach stretched out in front of me. Salty sea air ripped 
against my lips, flaying my skin in the lightest of blows. | took off my 
sandals, sinking my feet into vaguely damp sand. | wiggled my toes, 
working tiny granules behind my toenails. | walked towards the 
ocean. Such a powerful thing; waves crashed down unrelentingly. | 
took my phone from my pocket and threw it far away, unable to hear 
a splash above the constant roar of wind and water. 


“ve never seen the ocean.” 


It is a thing to see. As, | suppose, all things are. Raw, unharnessed 
energy, tearing out the ground from underneath. | walked through, 
goosebumps up my arms, shivering from the wintery gusts, 
breathing shallow breaths and still placing one foot in front of the 
other. The icy water hit my legs and | fell over from the shock. 


“And then?” 


| stood up again. | Kept moving, striding through the fear. It needed 
to end. It had to end. | just wanted to cash out, | needed to leave the 
table. | had all the chips, why was the game still going? When you 
win, the game is over, and you move to another. But the universe 
likes this game, and it makes me keep playing. | scooped a handful 
of seawater and threw it in my mouth. The cold numbed my taste 
buds, but not enough for the salt to shine through. | walked more, 


and then the wave hit, and | collapsed. | opened my eyes; again, the 
salt stung, but | did not mind. The water pulled me out, the currents 
kept me down. | breathed in and felt heavy and full. My body 
matched the ocean’s density. | was one with it, at its mercy, and 
soon, ideally, to pass. And so | prayed that this time would change. 
That anything would be different. 


“And did G-d hear?” 


He may have heard, but Poseidon won. 


Carol gave Sandra Paulson and Felix Cori their beverages, then 
walked back behind the counter. Felix blew softly across the top of 
his cup of coffee, then raised it to his lips and took a tentative sip. 
Sandra closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead with her palms, 
grumbling a query. 


“What happened?” 
“Does it really matter?” 
“It kind of does.” 


“You’d know more than | would. Gallivanting around like a pair of 
idiots...” 


“We know ‘something’ happened. All communication gets cut, stops 
living in the gallery, and, y’know, actually releases wowwee to the 
public.” 


“So glad you’ve thinned it down to ‘something’.” 
“How well did you know him?” 
“Pfffff, not at all. Only met him after he sent that stupid video. You?” 


“| Knew him a bit. We went to school together, see. | think he 
might've had a crush on me or something for a while? | dunno. I’m 
not good with things like that. Fuck, he definitely wasn't.” 


“What was he like back then?” 


“Pretty much the same.” 
“Condescending asshole?” 
“Yeeeeeep.” 


Sandra cracked her knuckles, then picked up her mug of green tea. 
She sipped it, swilling around the bitter liquid in her mouth. 


“He stopped taking his pills.” 


The pair of them looked towards Carol, the disingenuous smile 
common to food service workers plastered across her face. She 
slipped out from behind the counter, sitting at their table and resting 
her elbows on its surface, her chin in turn resting in her opened 
palms. 


“He used to come in here around midday, order a few coffees, then 
drink with a handful of pills. The last few weeks, he’d still come in 
here and order the same thing, just never taking anything with them. 
It was almost as though he had completely forgotten, because of 
‘something’ happening. Like someone made him forget... but that’s 
just silly, isn’t it?” 


Carol continued smiling blankly, tapping the side of her knows. 
Sandra and Felix glanced at each other, Sandra uttering a question 
they both wanted answered. 


“And who are you, again?” 
“The Janitor.” 


Felix spat tea all over the table, drawing the attention of people 
seated nearby. Sandra froze, processing the new information, 
comparing it to what was known previously. Carol continued. 


“| could have drawn that out longer, but there’s no real point in 
hiding it.” 


Felix pulled some napkins sitting in a holder, wiping the table clean 
while posing a query. 


“Can you prove that?”