Birds had become the only thing on the brain. And when humanity 
realized what it was doomed to become, it convulsed, grasping its 
collective head one by one. Millions of individuals fell to their knees, 
screaming to the heavens, tearing out their hair as their eyes 
bulged. Slowly, but surely, all were affected. All had become equal. 


The cawing came. 


While some people were more naturally resistant to the meme, it 
was impossible to fully ignore something so ridiculous. The more 
they gazed into this abyss, the more it gazed back. Once inside, the 
idea stuck. Everyone is forced to follow the current eventually. The 
singularity was not technology. It was birds. And the black hole 
consumes all in the end... 


August 2nd, 2018 | New York City 


Or... does it? 


As the sun descended, two silhouettes stood abreast, punctuated by 
the nearly lifeless husk of a massive whale. The silhouette on the 
right: an armoured human, towering a lofty two meters tall. The 
silhouette on the left: a pelican bird, barely a meter in height, yet 
somehow seeming more composed than the human. 


Two seagulls and one pelican stood nearby, taking glimpses from 
behind the pelican in front, waiting for the cue to attack. 


"If you're willing to supply some muscle for our war, we will help you 
fight yours. That means full co-operation on both sides. Deal?" said 
the human. His name was Quinn Griffith, Captain of an elite unit of 
shark-punchers. 


The pelican paused for an uncomfortable amount of time, shrugging 
its wings back as it eyed the human intently. And then, a clearly 
modulated yet unmistakably Avian voice spoke. "Deal," said the bird 
through a translation device. Her name was Keshrayuth, leader of 
an equally elite unit of birds fighting to uphold the veil of normalcy 
that now hung in tatters. 


"Keshrayuth, what are you doing?" interjected Quibba, the second 
pelican. "We have no clue who this one and his team are, aside 
from the fact that they’re dangerous, and screwed with our efforts to 
keep the world ordered in the first hour they’ve been here." 


Keshrayuth shook her head, her bill flopping about. "How, exactly, 
have we gone about fixing things as of late, Quibba? | understand 
this one is violent, perhaps ridiculously so, but this is the only hope 
we have had in months. It won't to be cast aside, and | certainly 
won't stand for that. Neither would Hoygull. In fact—" she turned 
around, "—the language of violence these ones communicate with 
could be the perfect key to finally gaining the upper hand on Thoth." 


"I’m sorry, who is this ‘thot’ you keep mentioning? Like, am | missing 
something here?" Quinn said as he awkwardly toyed with the helmet 
in his shaky hands. 


Keshrayuth sighed, her bill once again floundering as her head 
shook. 


"I’m not trying to make a joke here! Come on, my team and | had a 
long journey. We’ve been away from home for months, fighting a 
war against a Deviant enemy we know next to nothing about. It 
would help if someone, anyone, explained what the hell was going 
on. Just once," said Quinn. "| mean, if we’re going to be a team, we 
should gain some common ground here." 


"Alright, alright. What is your name, human?" 


"I’m Quinn. The rest of my team’s in our, uh..." Quinn cleared his 
throat. "Inside this giant whale. That’s where my team is." 


Quibba shot a terrified look at the leviathan towering over him. 
"They're in that whale? Did they get eaten? Oh my god." 


"No, they’re alive. The whale’s on our side too. Here, let me show 
you." Quinn placed a hand on the whale’s damaged fin. 
Immediately, the ground began to vibrate as a whalesong coursed 
through it. All four members of Eta-4 jumped back. 


"Wakey wakey, Geegr. | have some new friends | need to show you." 


August 12th, 2018 | Day | Site-18, somewhere in Southern 
California 


A few days ago, a supernova of blue exploded into the skies. Ever 
since, the Avian Division busied itself with plans of evacuation (now 
that the world had officially ended) but had only been able to devote 
a few personnel to that plan. Amidst the hustle and bustle, Dr 
Frederick Hoygull's mind was haunted by a single thought: 


Migration. 


He flew down through specially designed vents at the base of 
Site-18. The vents entered into an airlock, where MTF-Eta-4 
("Begone Thoth") was perched. Quibbs was pecking himself clean. 
Kesh was watching with disgust; she was one of the more 
humanized birds in the room. Linda Duck and James Crowl, the two 


birds with combat experience, who had changed their names to 
better conform to Foundation standards, looked straight ahead, 
though Hoygull could see Crowl eyeing the shark punchers with 
some suspicion. MFT CHARYBDIS argued with one another on the 
other side of the room. 


The shark punchers were an anomaly in and of themselves. Hoygull 
found himself stopping to admire their muscular biceps. He shook 
his head and began to speak to Quinn. "While the Avian Division 
manages our contingency plans, | trust you'll be busy with 
Operation: DIVINE RUSE?" 


"Jaedan and Haruki have something under their sleeves. They'll be 
the ones handling the operation. Leah and | are gonna escort you to 
the ship. Don't even get your feathers in a bunch," laughed Quinn, 
before he choked on the awkward realization that this figure of 
speech didn't exactly work on a bird. Leah shuffled away from 
Quinn, leaving him to bask in his awkwardness alone. 


Hoygull intently stared at Quinn for a moment that lasted an eternity. 
Suddenly, a klaxon wailed from the other side of the room. Hoygull 
nodded before quickly waddling to the other side of the room. He 
swiped a clearance card across a nearby door lock to open the 
doorway to the chamber beyond. The room became silent as the 
door slowly slid open. 


SCP-2785, the source of the alarm, sat inside. He'd recently 
undergone an upgrade, courtesy of Haruki, the tech expert of MFT 
CHARYBDIS. He now had several antennas sticking out of him, and 
was furnished with a helping of brass, giving him a golden sheen. 
This was all done, of course, so SCP-2785 would be more receptive 
to not only radio signals but significant events in the Noosphere. 
Hoygull counted on him as an advantage Thoth couldn't possibly 
know about. 


"I'm... I'm getting air-information!" SCP-2785 said, using his made- 
up term for radio waves. "There's a voice in it, this time!" 


"So...? We haven't got all day. Play it for us," said Quinn. 


SCP-2785 closed his eyes. Sounds emitted from an internal speaker 


Haruki had installed inside of him. The speaker erupted in volume, 
sounding more like a tuba than a speaker. The sound reminded 
Hoygull of when he would sit down with Researcher Calvin and 
watch those odd orchestras on the TV. 


"Greetings, to whom this concerns," said the voice. The voice was 
deep, obviously male, but he sounded like he was trying to keep 
calm in the face of fear. "This is General Tarland of the Global 
Occult Coalition." 


Hoygull fumbled with his clearance card before dropping both it and 
his translation device. He flapped his right wing, motioning to 
Quibba, pausing, then covering his face. /solate that signal, dammit 
he thought furiously to himself. 


"My men and | are currently stationed inside of Bunker Alpha-5," 
continued Tarland, "five miles south of the Mojave Desert. It seems 
that the statues have forced their way through an unsealed access 
shaft, and are currently commencing a full-scale assault on our 
bunker." 


"Wait, statues?" replied Haruki. "Wait, is he talking about that god- 
ugly Deviant sculpture?" 


"No," said Duck, speaking through her translation device, "it’s like, 
the bird-men outside aren’t heavy enough when it comes to fighting 
armed resiings of Thoth." The translation device tended to stumble 
across grammar and some words; hers wasn't as up-to-date as the 
informational logistics aspect of Eta-4 comprised solely of Kesh. 
"Thoth told his followers to make them." 


Haruki nodded. SCP-2785 continued to broadcast. 


"Fortunately, we have an ace up our sleeves: Project HYPERION. A 
missile to be fired into one of the Ways, equipped with enough 
hostile memes to obliterate KTE-4581 and all affected subjects. 
Unfortunately, it's in a base underneath the city of Las Vegas, and 
the bastards killed the strike team we sent to get it. It looks like we're 
going to perish before we get the opportunity to fire it. 


"Hopefully, somebody gets this message. Maybe it's the Foundation. 


Maybe it's the Insurgency. Maybe it's one of the isolated groups of 
survivors. There's a shed on the outskirts of Las Vegas marked with 
a seven-pronged star. It's an entrance to the HYPERION facility." 


Tarland paused; over the static of the radio, Hoygull could hear 
some form of commotion behind them. He sighs before continuing. 
"The statues have entered the facility. We're out of men to fight 
them. If you're hearing this, get to HYPERION. It's humanity's last 
hope. This is General Tarland, signing off." 


"Medila, bless us," muttered Crowl. 


"That's the end of the message," said SCP-2785, "but I'm getting 
more air-information! This time, there's a lot of dots." 


"How many dots?" questioned Keshrayuth. 


"Well, one, two, three..." replied SCP-2785, eventually fading into a 
murmur. "Uh, what number is higher than eighty-six?" 


Hoygull squawked with considerable distress. 


"Dots? Make yourself more clear, you hunk of junk," demanded 
Quinn. 


"Robot is connected to the AEDS—Advance Enemy Detection 
System, " replied Duck, "there are statues outside of the base." 


"AEDS... oh, you mean the AESD!" replied Quinn, "the Advance 
Enemy Selachian Detector!" 


"We cannot fight all of them," said Keshrayuth. "It's nine against 
eighty-seven." 


"Oh, | know! Why don’t we take the site’s emergency submarine?" 
Jaedan asked. 


"That's... what? We don't have that," replied Crowl, purposely 
avoiding the massive amount of effort that would be required to get 
the damned translator to understand the concept of a submarine. 
"We do have train rail going from here to Site-17. It is next to 
Vegas." 


"But it's lacking an energy source," said Quibba, "Bird-brains took it 
down. I'm surprised they didn't nuke themselves to hell. If we get the 
power working, we can leave. Can anybody fix it? 


"I'll... be a bit preoccupied," replied Haruki. She failed to mention 
Operation: DIVINE RUSE; if Hoygull told Eta-4 they'd have 
protested. "Sorry." 


"Oh, me, me, me, me, me!" replied SCP-2785. 


"Okay," replied Quibba. "There's a mounted grenade launcher on 
the next floor. I'll use that. Hoygull, can you help him?" He really 
wanted Hoygull to make sure 2785 didn't mess anything up; the 
soda fountain incident still burned fresh into Quibba's mind. He 
jumped down from his perch. "The rest of us'll battle the statues. 
Here, the armoury's this way." He led the others towards a second 
door on the right, which opened to a stairwell. 


Hoygull turned to Haruki and Jaedan, who were staying behind to 
enact Operation: DIVINE RUSE. "You sure you know what you're 
doing?" 


"Come on, bird-man. You can trust us," said Jaedan as he 
carelessly jumped into his powered armour. Hoygull left before 
another word could be said. 


Hoygull let himself taste the dry, dusty air of the battlefield. In front of 
him, the remaining fifty birds left in the Avian Division held their 
ground with various types of tripod-mounted grenade launchers, 
modified to make them easier to use with wings instead of hands. 
Up at the top of the spire that marked the location of Site-18, he saw 
Quibba piloting a larger, more powerful grenade launcher to clear 
out large crowds of statues. Hoygull himself had a modified combat 
shotgun loaded with slugs for protection, although he suspected that 
they’d be useless against the onslaught of the statues. 


The statues continued on, their onslaught slow, but unyielding. 
They'd be indistinguishable from the normal statues that littered the 
world; some even still wore the fake metal clothes and hats of their 
former forms. However, they had bird heads, bird wings, and the 


(a) All dogs had been euthanized. 

(6) Cats were roaming the facility freely. 

(c) The Center was $ over budget for cat care and supplies. 
(d) Three Center staff were missing and presumed victims of 
SCP-795. 


The cats were contained by use of tranquilizing gas. 


Initially, all of the cats in the Center exhibited the abilities of 
SCP-795, but lost their anomalous powers within three hours of 
being contained and separated. 


« SCP-794 | SCP-795 | SCP-796 » 


desire to kill. 


Judging from the reports he’d gotten back of the scout patrols that’d 
gotten ambushed by the statues, they relied on brute force and not 
much else. Hoygull didn’t want to find out anything more. 


After the statues marched into the range of the grenade launcher, 
Quibba fired a grenade. The explosion left a crater in the ground and 
ten or so statues dead. As if on cue, the remainder of the Avian 
Division began to fire their grenades into the crowd. The explosions 
of the shells made a sound equivalent to a thousand jet engines. 
Hoygull was glad that he had given all of his troops earmuffs. 


After witnessing the initial barrage, Hoygull turned and went back 
into the site. He needed to make sure he had a ride out of here. 


"You see, if you want the generator to work," repeated Hoygull, "you 
have to make sure all the wires are connected." 


SCP-2785 looked at him with those eyes that seemed to convey the 
opposite of understanding. "Why?" he postulated. 


"You know how | told you about electricity? Well, you need the wires 
to carry it, like how pipes carry water around. You know how pipes 
work, right?" 


SCP-2785 nodded. "But then, how does air-information work?" 


Hoygull sighed. "You know how mist is like water, but in the air? 
That’s air-information, but with electricity." 


"Oh," replied SCP-2785. He continued to use one of the tools in his 
hands to weld together wires. After a minute or two, he chimed and 
pressed the button on the generator. It sputtered a little before 
coming to life, lighting up the monorail tunnel. 


"Let’s tell everybody to get down here, ASAP" said Hoygull, turning 
to fly up the stairs. However, he ran into Quinn and the other three 
shark punchers in the hallway. 


"What are you doing here?" asked Hoygull, "you are supposed to be 


"There’s too much noise out there, sir," replied Quinn, "we can’t 
work our magic with that." 


"Well, we have got—" Hoygull was interrupted by the beeping of his 
radio, which he picked up and squawked into. 


"This is Sergeant Gullivan,"” said the voice on the radio, "we're being 
overrun. For Medila’s sake, get out of here before—" Gullivan was 
cut short by a crunching noise. 


"Medila help us," Hoygull whispered before turning back to the shark 
punchers. "Listen, Quibbs is still at the top of the spire. We need to 
get him down from there. Please come with me." 


The shark punchers nodded. Hoygull flew up the stairs of Site-18. 
On his way, he passed by the armoury and swapped out his combat 
shotgun for a more effective handheld grenade launcher. 


Hoygull and the shark punchers eventually arrived at the top of the 
spire. Quibba sat at the grenade launcher. He wasn’t firing. 


"Sorry, boss," he said, "but | can not fire the bomb launcher. 
Explosion will going to hurt other bird division members as well." 


Hoygull looked over the railing. The front line of the Avian Division 
was Clearly compromised, and the remaining lines were struggling to 
prevent the onslaught of statues from pouring into the site. 


"Kesh, Crowl, and Duck are already retreating," Quibba continued, 
"if train rail is ready, we need to retreat as well."