| know, I’m an inconsolable mess over it. If we keep going on this 
route we'll end up in a buddy cop movie and GOD FUCKING 
DAMMIT SWIPER I'M TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION 
HERE...bah, whatever. What I’m trying to say is keep yer head up. 
You ain’t dead yet, and let’s be honest, that never stopped me. 
Didn't stop her either. 


DeMontfort didn’t know what to make of this. Human emotion from 
Saturn Deer? 


Bear in mind, | say that only because if you give up, I’m a Joker 
without a Batman, and that’s no fun. 


Ah, there it was. That made more sense. 


Now if you'll excuse me, | got shit to do, money to steal, and bitches 
to fuck. 


The subtitles shifted back to their usual dissertation of preschool 
Spanish. DeMontfort changed the channel. Maybe there was a 
game on. 


Hey. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry | wasn’t able to 
make it home. 


| hate the fact that I’m writing this, honestly. Part of me 
wonders if it’s a good idea at all: it might just cause you 
more pain, to hear me after I’m gone. Then | realize that | 
need to write this, because if | don’t, some things might 
go unsaid. | can’t let that happen. 


| love you. 


Salah, you’re my best friend, and the best man | know, 
and the best husband | could have ever asked for. You 
were there when | needed you, (and even when | didn’t), 
and made the little moments of my life meaningful. | 
know you'll raise Naomi right: You’ve got this. 


Naomi, |’m sorry | won't be there for you. I’m sorry you'll 
only ever have stories and pictures of me. Just know that 
| love you, and I’m proud of you. Watch over your dad for 
me, okay? Don’t want him stirring up too much trouble. 
And take care of that guitar: It’s yours now. It got me 
through a war, so whenever you're feeling down, just 
play away. 


As a final thought...don’t mourn me too much, okay? Get 
those tears out and then put that chin up. Always keep 
looking for the little things that make life good. The world 


Upon investigating those reports, Foundation agents discovered the 
main building of the estate partially disassembled. In addition to 
SCP-635-1, agents recovered _ inert instances of SCP-635-2, 

inert instances of SCP-635-3, and several rusted pieces of 
machinery that may have been an attempt at constructing an 
instance of SCP-635-4. 


SCP-635-1 is written in a combination of Latin and a previously 
unknown script that relies on numerical and logical elements similar 
to a modern computer programming language. The first volume is a 
primer in Latin, introducing the various elements of this script, and 
as the text progresses, the Latin is slowly displaced until the second 
volume is almost entirely in this novel language. The volumes 
increase in complexity until by volume _ the text consists of solid 
blocks of numerical data that has undergone an extremely efficient 
compression algorithm. 


If a subject with a rudimentary understanding of Latin begins reading 
volume one of SCP-635-1, they will experience a growing reluctance 
to discontinue that is proportional to their general intelligence, 
reading comprehension, problem-solving aptitude, and mathematical 
ability. Those with Computer Science or Engineering degrees seem 
most susceptible. If the subject is allowed to continue reading, they 
will finish the first volumes of SCP-635-1 in approximately 12 
hours. (Note: Post-exposure interviews reveal that long-term 
retention of material read during this period is minimal. When asked 
to explain what they’ve read afterwards, most subjects only report a 
general impression of something “really cool.”) 


After completing the first volumes of SCP-635-1, subjects will enter 
a fugue state where they will stop reading and immediately search 
for tools and material to start construction of an instance of 
SCP-635-2. (Note: Post-exposure interviews reveal that subjects are 
conscious and aware during this period, and report that they felt a 
strong desire to “try some of this stuff out.”) Design and materials 
used in the construction of SCP-635-2 will vary based on the 
aptitude of the subject and materials and tools available. However, 
SCP-635-2 will always be built with a method to input the text of 
volume of SCP-635-1. Subject will continue to construct 
SCP-635-2s, and inputting SCP-635-1's text, to the best of their 


is a tough and ugly place, but there’s more than enough 
good to make all the pain worth it. God's in the little 
things. 


You two taught me that. 


| love you both, and | always will. 


|, Salah Zairi, hereby resign from active duty in the Shepherd Corps 
of the Horizon Initiative... 


Salah laid Naomi down in her crib. First night home from the 
hospital. First night of the rest of her life. The scars would stay, as 
would the damage to her lungs, and she would grow up knowing no 
life but one filled with those injuries, but it would be life. 


The house was quiet. Dark. Empty. And yet Salah felt like he would 
simply walk into the next room and find Mary-Ann sleeping on the 
couch, exhausted from work or from playing with Naomi, hair all 
frazzled and snoring gently. 


But she wasn’t there. The house was hollow. The living room was 
dark. The bedroom was empty. The kitchen was cold. The feeling 
was finally sinking in, now that Salah no longer found himself 
spending every free moment at the hospital with Naomi. 


Salah walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. He’d make 
some soup for himself and go to bed. He hadn't eaten all day. He 
felt like sleeping forever. 


It took a moment to realize that he had opened the wrong cupboard. 
Instead of canned soup and corn and peas, there were plates and 
cups, and a glass bottle with a thumb of whiskey left in the bottom. 
The last little bit of Mary-Ann’s rainy-day stash. 


There was a pang of pain. This was the last anchor of Mary-Ann in 
the house: her guitar had been passed on to Naomi, and most 
anything else was just dressing. Just things. Not really hers. But this 


was hers, and it would just linger in that cabinet and grow old and 
dusty and unused. Well and truly dead. 


Salah stared at it fora moment, before reaching for the bottle and 
the tumbler that sat next to it. A thought had occurred to him, and 
without hesitation he was going to follow it through. The young man 
he thought tamed dusted himself off and screamed at him, 
screamed that he was turning his back on his own identity, that he 
would be no proper Muslim. Salah told the young man to shut up 
and fuck off. Identity? Who was he, when you really got down to it? 
A Muslim who loved the Queen of England and wrote essays on 
Chaucer and had heard the Clockwork Voice of God. A man born in 
obedience, raised in hate, turned to peace, who had found love and 
ended up with more questions than answers. He was Salah, and 
right now there was one thing he was sure of. There was one Truth 
he could define with absolute conviction right now: No god worth 
worshipping would throw a hissy fit over a man who wanted proper 
closure. 


He sat down at the table, opened the bottle, and poured himself 
what was left. 


“Here’s to you.” 
He lifted the tumbler and drank its contents in one swift gulp. 
Eight Years Later 


Naomi Ibtisam Zairi-Lewitt sat on top of her father’s desk, legs 
dangling over the edge. A thick book rested in her lap, and her face 
was scrunched in concentration as she read it. She had a day off 
from school today, so she had spent it exploring the English 
department and browsing through her father’s collection of literature 
under the watchful eye of Joan of Arc on the wall. 


A few feet away, Salah typed away at his computer, putting the 
finishing touches on his e-mail. 


...Either way, I’m thrilled that they’ve considered review 
of the Old Brass Gospel for entry into the Universal 
Texts. Three cheers for progress! We might actually be 


able to see it published before we die of old age. 
(Though it will probably take them another decade to 
make any changes.) 


Give my best to the others. Naomi and | will visit soon. 
God bless 
-Salah 

“You ready to go home, sweet pea?” he said to his daughter. 


“Yeah.” Naomi shut her book, hopped off the desk, and began to 
gather her books and drawings and inhaler into her backpack. Salah 
sent his e-mail, shut down his computer, and collected his papers 
from under the paperweight that had a lot of ciswords on it. A short 
time later, the two left the office. 


To anyone watching in the hall, they would have seen nothing but 
two average people: one a man with glasses and a few grey hairs at 
his temples and a red paisley tie and a grey jacket and a brown 
briefcase. The other a skinny, dark-skinned girl with dirty straw hair 
and scabby knees and burn scars all over and a bright blue t-shirt 
with Pikachu on the front and a cherry-red backpack and twiggy 
arms weighed down with books. 


They went home, and had dinner, and finished the rest of Naomi’s 
math homework, and after a while Salah tucked her into bed, though 
he knew she would stay up late reading the next chapter of Hayy ibn 
Yaqzan anyway. Salah sat up a while and graded papers, and then 
went to bed himself. 


Life went on. 


« Empire of Dirt (Part 3) | Hub | » 


Mud on the Carpet 


On the night of April 19th, 2026, the Veil broke. Ten thousand years 
of strain building up against the fabric of postdiluvian reality finally 
proved too much to bear, and the Self-Keeping-Secret tore like 
moth-eaten cloth stretched too far. 


In a single night, the foundations the world had built itself on were 
swept away, and the pillars beneath were exposed for the first time 
in ages. 


In a single night, magic returned to the world. The Ways opened 
once more, and the old gods woke from their slumber and wandered 
again in the world of men. Secrets lost since the dawn of man found 
themselves new voices. 


In a single night, the world returned to how it had been before. 
In a single night, everything happened. 


All at once. 


A trail of muddy footprints wound across a once-pristine carpet. The 
prints belonged to a pair of taped-up sneakers, and the sneakers 
belonged to a little girl wearily treading her way across the room. 
The girl’s name was Naomi, and she was very tired. 


The air was warm, musty, thick with motes of dust suspended in 
beams from an illusory sun. Perhaps on another day, she would 
have pulled books from the shelves and found a comfortable corner. 
But not today. Too tired. Exhausted. The act of standing was almost 
too much for her to bear. She didn’t know when she had last slept, 
how many hours had passed since then. It hadn’t been much sleep, 
she knew. A few hours on hard ground. A cough tickled at the back 
of her throat: she swallowed it down. 


The books absorbed the noise of her passing, looming with polished 
hardwood and leather binding. 


The girl felt very small, treading through this place. Very small, and 
acutely aware that something was missing, that she was not truly a 
child anymore. Not fully? How could she be, with what she had seen 
over the last few months? Everything that was familiar, her home, 
her school, her neighborhood, most everyone she knew, gone. 
Never to return. 


She felt...hollowed out. What was the line? Butter scraped over too 
much bread. Too true a phrase, now that she had lived it. Some 
thoughts dragged themselves through her autopilot mind. 


Her shoes were ruined, that was first. Soaked right through. Her feet 
were cold, her socks were a lost cause, and she definitely had some 
blisters swelling up. She made a note to get a pair of proper boots. 
The jacket was okay for a while longer, though she was beginning to 
pick up the rather distinctive stink everyone else claimed it had 
acquired. 


With her group of refugees led away by the docents from 
processing, she had closed up the Way, as she was obligated to do, 
and now had to file a report with the Head Librarian. Her report 
would then be copied down and filed with the Archivists, with further 
copies disseminated to the other Conductors. 


As the crow flies, it would take just under eighteen thousand years 
to walk to the Head Librarian’s office from where she now stood in 
the marginal stacks. Of course, crows are notoriously unsubtle 
creatures with a bad head for direction in esoteric dimensions. In 
taking advantage of the various junction points between there, here, 
and somewhere, the walk could be made in twenty minutes or so. 


Naomi’s muddy footprints eventually dried up as she made her way 
across narrow hallways and reading rooms. The architecture, 
direction of gravity, and even what classified as a book shifted often. 
Spider-legged Pages scuttled about the shelves, readers lurked in 
the corners, and all seemed to be as it normally was. Today she saw 
a trio of pale purple fish-men discussing philosophy in burbly voices, 
the Minister of Clouds (May He Forever Be Voluminous and Fluffy) 


pacing through a section on practical application of romance theory, 
and a large bucket of curly fries leafing through an atlas of the 
Amberbradcht Food Zones. 


One got quickly used to the number of alien forms found in the 
Library: most were welcome, after all. 


Past a brilliantly illuminated reading room inside of a god! anda 
corkscrew passage of slate-blue steel, she arrived on a little balcony 
in the edge of the center chamber of Library: the Head Librarian’s 
Office. 


It was at this point that Naomi’s sense of scale and proportion hung 
itself right then out of self-preservation. It was the only way of 
viewing the enormity of the room, and the thing that filled it. 


The Serpent moved. A serpent the size of a planet, coils of muscle 
bunching and twisting. A head the size of a continent rose up, a pair 
of pince-nez spectacles balanced on its snout. 


“Hello, child.” 
“Hello, Satan.” 


“| suppose you’re here to tell me that you’ve brought more refugees 
to my Library.” The Serpent continued moving about, pulling 
country-sized, granite-bound books from the walls of its office with 
its tail. “They’re tracking mud on my carpets, child.” 


Naomi glanced down at her own feet for the briefest of moments 
before looking back at the Serpent. 


“Sorry.” 

“Bah. What is one more pair of feet? How many this time?” 
“Twenty-one. Through the Yzlotski-Rubharbic Way.” 
“Anything else to report?” 


“It’s still stable, but there’re a lot of Ten-Colors running around, 
trying to get in.” 


“Go on.” 


“We tried talking to them, but they didn’t feel like listening. Three 
people died.” 


Naomi felt like she should feel something about that, should feel 
something about watching them die. She knew she did, once, but 
that was...only a few months ago. 


Only a few months to strip her of that. To turn that switch off. 


“Mmm. Very well. We will re-route through the Pendlock and 
Whaizha Ways until this is settled. | will send a squad of Collectors 
to regain control. You have done well, child. Go, rest. | suspect your 
father is awaiting your return.” 


Naomi nodded, but instead of leaving, she sat down on the balcony, 
arms on the railing, legs dangling off the edge into thousands of 
miles of space. 


“You're a lot nicer than people say you are.” 


“Pure character assassination. Better than confusing me for that 
thrice-damned rapist on his sodding throne, | suppose, but please 
restrain presumptions of nicety. | am a tester of men and a god of 
difficult choices and a keeper of delicate knowledge. An ass by 
trade. But, that said, | do have a vested interest in keeping mankind 
alive and well. They keep me both entertained and employed.” 


“Someone's got to do it, | guess.”