Markhaven, Indiana
Dunwich Class Nexus
| Settled | ~1954 |
|---|---|
| Incorporated | 1976 |
| Foundation Discovery | 1977 |
| Threat Level | Medium |
| Government | Autocratic Dictatorship |
| Military | Markhaven Defence Force "Boys in Blue" |
| Mayor | Michael Ramis |
| Area | Approximately 1,300 Km2 |
| Residents | Approximately 2,500 |
| Affiliated Groups of Interest | |
| GoI-627 ("The Factory") | |
| Demonym | Markhavener |
| Languages | English (Other languages prohibited by law) |
| Currencies | Ronnie |
Prologue: 1884
The flesh of the goddess of memory was undercooked, but she ate it anyway. “How soon until…” she muttered.
O5-0 shrugged. “Apotheosis is a…confusing process. It could be seconds, it could be days.”
The two of them were alone in a room with no doors. The soft whispers of light from various candles filled this room, scratching glowing yellow on the walls of amber wood. In between them was a small table, with a plate in front of the woman and a glass of wine in front of 05-9.
“I don’t feel any different.”
“That’s to be expected. I think.”
“How was it for you?” the woman asked, attempting to bury her nervousness.
O5-0 chuckled. “It was both the worst and the best experience of my life. Worst, because of the pain, but afterwards…it was beautiful. You’ll love it. You’ve earned this.”
“I have?” In that moment, the delicate facade of the woman broke, and from underneath, a scared little girl peaked through, only to be shoved down.
“Of course.” O5-9 responded. He brought the cup of wine to his lips.
“Wha…” the woman stopped in the middle of speaking as her eyes went white. She began to choke on air, before falling onto the carpeted floor. Her skin melted as her body jerked about.
O5-9 simply drank. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The darkness of today is in service of the light of tomorrow. You can die in the dark and still live in the light.”
Part One: Chaos
The rusted chains of prison moons are shattered by the sun
I walk a road, horizons change
The tournament’s begun
The purple piper plays his tune, the choir softly sing
Three lullabies in an ancient tongue in the Court of The Crimson King
…
On March 15th, 2019, 682, The Hard To Destroy Reptile, randomly turned into a dragon and broke free from containment. Security camera footage shows it doubling in size, breaking the walls of its cell, and sprouting wings. 682 then proceeded to fly away from the site, hot fire billowing from its mouth.
In order to stop 682, 5514, also known as the Dragon Slayer, was deployed. This massive mech engaged in a fight with 682 in the city of Chicago.
The dragon was defeated, but the mech then proceeded to go haywire and stampede across the city. As it did, black ooze fell out of it, similar to 6217, Emergence. Readings from the people inside seemed to suggest that it had somehow infected them. The reason why the mech had been infected was a mystery.
When the shadow of a dragon appeared over Chicago, the towers began to tumble.
It was not a fantastic situation to be a school bus driver in, especially since it was 3:06 PM. A chorus of screaming elementary school children quickly became the soundtrack for Devin’s attempts to steer the vehicle through the thunderstorm of steel.
His mind rushed to find a place free from danger, but the situation was complicated by what looked like a large mech arriving from out of nowhere and swinging a massive glowing sword at the dragon. Devin could hear the metallic screeching of the mech’s limbs, and the shadow of the dragon's wings was splattered on the street. He was practically under the fight.
None of this situation made any sense, and all Devin’s mind could come up with was to get the bus as far away from the fight as possible.
Unfortunately, he found his path blocked by a massive mountain of concrete in the middle of the street. His hands wrenched the steering wheel to the side, attempting to turn the bus around. Then, there was a metallic shrieking. Something had hit the bus. Next thing Devin knew, the world did a catapult as the bus was sent into the air. The bus’s side slammed onto the asphalt with a scream of metal.
It took a moment for Devin to put himself back in reality. Images of his cat were tumbling through his mind. She definitely was not capable of dealing with an apocalyptic fight. It was a struggle for her to get out of a trash can. However, worrying about his cat would not help, his apartment was on the other side of the fight. Right now, he had to think about the dozen or so children on the bus.
“Is everyone okay?” Devin shouted as he managed to get himself onto his feet. Blood was pooling from his shoulder, and his arm appeared to be a tad bit too long.
The kid's response was to unleash an awful symphony of dissonant pain from their mouths.
One kid pointed to a cracked window. “Dragon!” He shouted.
Looking through the window, it became clear the impact had come from the dragon, whose bleeding form was now draped over the block.
Despite the fact that the dragon should have been dead, its wings continued to twitch slightly, smacking the puddle of green blood squirming out of its body. As interesting as this sight was, Devin felt that stopping children from dying was a bit more important than sightseeing.
However, something strange then happened.
The green blood was suddenly joined by an obsidian black raining down on the street. This dripped from the mech, which was still moving, stomping endlessly above the city.
The black goop it bled landed in splotches everywhere. When it hit the dragon, the twitching became more rapid, the puddle of blood vomiting splatters of itself in every direction.
Then, various black wires began to march out from the dragon's skin. The dragon’s convulsions increased exponentially. When its massive tail smacked into the bus, black droplets rained through the cracked windows.
“Everyone get out of the bus!” The words careened out of Devin’s mouth, but it was useless, and not just because the door was on the roof.
The interior of the bus had become abuzz with the seizure-like movement of children as wires began sprouting from their bodies. Devin couldn’t do anything but stare in horror as one of the children ran up to him. His last thought before the kid vomited black liquid onto his face was of his cat.
He could feel the iron in his blood start to grow. His veins began to harden, then bulge and bend like rubber. They shot out of his body, reaching for nothing. His skin began to grow soft, then melt like wax, his ionizing interior greedily gulping down the air.
Some sort of emotion should have pushed through his brain, but all that was there was emptiness. He was being hollowed out, and there was no real reason to care. All his memories dissolved into darkness, leaving behind only steel.
His cat would be okay, however.
The mech was eventually destroyed due to various self defense mechanisms. However, various pieces of the mech split off from the hole and began to move on their own. A majority of these pieces were not found.
About 35,000 civilians were killed or transformed.
Through what was once Chicago, hundreds of monsters marched in perfect synchronization, their many limbs dancing above the rubble in a steady beat. Above them, a dragon made of squirming black tendrils stamped a rumbling shadow onto the broken corpses of buildings.
At around this exact time, The Foundation became aware of an outbreak of 610, The Flesh That Hates. Apparently, an affected entity had managed to escape the quarantine zone and had travelled to a small Siberian town.
A Level 1 Broken Veil Scenario was immediately put in place, as thousands of videos of dragon and mech mayhem had already choked the internet. A quarantine zone was placed around the city of Chicago.
By March 19th, 2019 over a thousand instances of 6217 had been reported across the midwest. Attempts to contain it, as well as the infected 682, proved difficult.
The SCP entered communications with the UIU and the GOC.
An investigation on how 5514 had been infected proved fruitless.
On March 21st, 2019, 610 was successfully contained. However, the quarantine area had quadrupled, and it was predicted that about 40,000 people had been infected.
The Foundation and the US government attempted to terminate 682 through the use of a nuclear bomb dropped on Iowa. This attempt was, somehow, successful. It was unclear if 682 had died, or merely still lived within a few spare carbon atoms.
However, there were still various infected individuals roaming throughout the Midwest.
On March 27th, 2019, a majority of captive octopi all over the world began acting violently, with many escaping captivity. Most of these died due to asphyxiation, but some managed to find a body of water.
There were many instances of people entering a trance-like state, grabbing an octopi and then attaching it to their faces. The octopi would then proceed to control the person's movements, forcing them to jump into the water. Approximately 18,000 people faced this fate.
Monterey Bay Aquarium cast a quivering shadow over the pacific ocean.
The wheels of the baby stroller sailed across the aquarium floor. “This is an octopus.” Irene Penn informed her 6-month-old. She had been told that talking to her child was important, even if he didn’t understand what she was saying.
She had begun to push her son further, towards the jellyfish tank, when there was a crash.
When she turned around, she was greeted with the sight of water spewing from a hole in an aquarium tank. Various octopi were worming through the hole and making a plopping sound as they landed on the floor. Purple blood from the glass cracks was beginning to mix with the water puddling around various pieces of glass and a large rock.
A loud cry erupted from her child, but Irene’s eyes were locked on one octopus. She reached down, grabbed it, then placed it on her face. The tentacles made a soft sucking noise as they attached to her skin.
Her baby continued to cry as she walked from the stroller, only to then stop. She turned around to face him. Through gaps between tentacles, she could see him, a defenseless little thing.
The hardness on the stroller was undone with a few snaps. With her baby perched in her arm, she grabbed an octopus from off the floor. She then placed the writhing creature on his head, then ran out of the aquarium and onto a ledge.
The blue water met her and her child with open arms.
Meanwhile, large amounts of octopi in the wild suddenly began to move to various locations, all of these instances of 4246-2.
Footage of these places showed various persons being controlled by octopus. These persons were heavily modified, sporting tentacles and gills.
Various psychics working for the foundation picked up a message. The wording of this message varied from psychic to psychic, but it generally stated this: “Greetings. This is a message for humanity. The four beasts are awakening. The war will begin soon. We wish you no harm. We apologize for taking many of your kind. As a reward for their surface, they were given the gift of becoming like us. We have no intention of continuing to give this gift. Do not attack us. Do not message us.”
The 05 council ruled in a 7-5 vote to give in to these demands.
Unfortunately, the GOC did not. Thousands of troops were deployed to kill all octopi still in captivity. However, all dispatched soldiers ended up falling under the spell and heading into the water. In total, about 2,000 soldiers were lost.
Irene could vaguely remember a time when she had hands.
Currently, she was using her tentacles to work on building some sort of machine. One of her eyes wandered to her reflection in an oily black stone stuck between coral. The reflection was of a massive, whale-like creature, with a multitude of tentacles coming from its head. A large quantity of octopi covered its wrinkled green skin.
She could feel them, thinking for her.
There was a longing in her mind for something, but what it was remained uncertain. “Soon he’ll be old enough to work. Then you will see him again.” The thought had come from the octopi, but it didn’t make any sense. Nevertheless, it seemed to do just the trick to inspire a sense of comfort inside her.
The coral machine she was building was much like the one in the first battle, a beast built for war. When the final battle came, its roar would join the glorious storm of battle.
On March 28th, 2019, a Level 2 Broken Veil class scenario was announced. The Foundation revealed its presence to the world, but on and began to work with the UN and the GOC on Project Savior. Its mission was to figure out what was occurring and save the world.
On March 30th, 2019, a quarantine zone was placed in the US. Midwest, covering much of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Iowa. At this point, about a dozen million people had been infected with 6217.
On April 3rd, 2019, various Bigfoots rampaged through the city of Portland, all screaming a single word, “Revenge!” Over 600 casualties occurred before the foundation eliminated all of the attackers.
Similar events would occur until abruptly stopping a few weeks later. The Foundation would later learn that the Bigfoot had all made a mass exodus to Alagada, as well as the elves dwelling in 4000. This information was gleaned from a captured Serpent’s Hand operative and the use of 645- The Mouth of Truth.
On April 11th, 2019, another breach of containment with 610 occurred. Again, a wayward entity had slipped through the cracks in the quarantine. This one made its way to the city of Kokshetau in Kazakhstan.
On April 22cnd, 2019, 1179, also known as The Centralian Fire Demon broke free from its containment underneath Centralia, Pennsylvania. It immediately headed for Allentown. All of the foundation’s attempts to kill it proved useless until senior researcher Dr. Anthalt had the idea of air-dropping various fire retardant chemicals onto it. Somehow, this worked, reducing the entity to nothing.
Unfortunately, where the demon went, fire followed, and a massive wildfire began to tear through Pennsylvania, spreading at anomalous speeds.
Despite the fact the wildfire appeared to be non-anomalous, there were multiple reports of people on fire still surviving.
//Luma Barron knew what to do about fires, as she had come from a long line of park rangers. In fact, the inheriting of the ranger badge was her family's claim to fame. Everyday she would wake up and see the cut out Time Magazine article hanging on the wall: “Protectors of Sproul State Forest.” Of course, being a park ranger generally meant you just had to handle drunk people, give tours to kindergarteners, and hand out fines for littering.
None of that prepared her for when she suddenly smelled smoke, and then, three seconds later, she saw a massive laughing wall of flame scuttling towards her. This was strange. She had heard about the wildfires in Southern Pennsylvania, but this was miles away. However, she didn’t have time to think before the flames engulfed her.
Two new strange events occurred. She was not dead. There was pain obviously, but she was still mobile. Her skin was peeling and her flesh was dripping, but she had the feeling that it didn’t matter. It would come back, just to be destroyed all over again.
The last strange thing was that she didn’t mind any of this. The pain was pleasurable because it was a sensation, and isn’t feeling something better than not feeling anything at all? It occurred to her she should feel as much pain as possible, and she had wasted her life avoiding it. However, there was a way to redeem herself. She just needed to spread the pain. This was a holy duty, far more important than giving people tickets for fishing without a license. Destruction was a gift that demanded to be shared.
So, with glee in her eyes, she ran with the flames.//
___
On April 23rd, 2019, the breach of 610 was stopped. The quarantine zone was spread once again, with a large portion of Russia being overtaken, as well as parts of Kazakhstan, China, and Mongolia. About 28 million people had once lived in this zone.
On May 1st, 2019, the forest fire was finally stopped through the use of various weather altering SCPs such as 1948, 1149, and 853.
_
The groundwater carried the ashes into the river, and they mixed with each other till one couldn’t tell what had once been a human and what had once been a tree.
On May 27th, 2019, 354, also known as The Red Pool, began to flood, washing away the site built around it and eventually overtaking the entire valley it was in. Thankfully, the pool was located in a sparsely lit area. About 200 foundation agents were killed, but only 400 civilian casualties occurred.
Meanwhile, large floods (of water) began to occur all over the world. The Foundation suspected the octopi were responsible, but all attempts to communicate were met with silence.
___
//A bearded man knocked on a door.
“Come in.”
The door creaked opened to reveal Dr. Anthalt’s office, a hurricane of coffee cups and crumpled paper. The eye of the storm was Dr. Anthalt himself, a man with messy hair and tired eyes. His cigarette smoke drifted through the open window.
“Hey.” Dr. Kyrokon said, closing the door behind him.
“Hey.” Dr. Anthalt responded.
“Yeah. How many have you had today?”
“The world’s ending, no one gives a shit.”
Dr. Kyrokon sighed. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“This is my first.” Dr. Anthalt lied.
“So, I guess four years off it means nothing to you?”
“As I said, the world is ending.”
“And I guess, I don’t know, getting a promotion, all you ever talk about…that also means nothing to you?” Dr. Kyrokon said.
“I talk about other things.”
There was a pause as Dr. Anthalt did a brief spin of his swivel chair. He was always moving, much to Dr. Kyrokon’s annoyance.
Dr. Kyrokon cleared his throat. “What d-”
“How’s your son?” Dr. Anthalt asked, stopping his spinning.
“Good.”
“He still play guitar?”
“Yeah. Look, why do you think this is all happening, all at once?”
Dr. Anthalt extinguished his cigarette with a sigh. “Do you want the scientist answer, the philosophical answer, or the four years of catholic boarding school answer?”
Dr. Kyrokon sighed. “I want to hear your answer.”
Dr. Anthalt shrugged. “Who knows. Even if there’s an answer, it’s probably beyond our clearance.”
There was another pause.
Dr. Kyrokon eventually spoke.“Look, uhh, about my son, I’m writing my will.”
“That’s nice.”
“This is serious. Look…if I die…I want you to take care of him.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Dr. Anthalt snorted.
“You’re the only one I trust.
Dr. Anthalt ran his fingers over his stubble soaked chin. “I…really…me? Me? The only one?”
Dr. Kyrokon shrugged. “As you said, the world is ending.”//
___
On June 27th, 2019 an instance of 993, Bobby the Clown, was broadcasted on all major TV stations in the United States. However, instead of telling children how to do violent things (his usual favorite activity), Bobby the Clown chanted “The battle is coming.” repeatedly until the foundation managed to stop the broadcast. Absolutely no fatalities were reported.
The foundation ordered all television stations to stop broadcasting, but would repeal this four months later.
Also on this day, a break out occurred in Site 7 as various anomalies suddenly went through different modifications.
_
//In a cell in Site-19, a woman lay. She was nine feet tall, with massive red veins running through her bone white skin, leading to pure red eyes.
A little over a year ago, she looked like an average person. Unfortunately, she just so happened to be at a 7-11 when someone broke in and shot the owner. Despite all the evidence on her side, the jury still voted guilty.
A few months after that, people in black armor shoved her in an unmarked white van.
During her time spent in the prison of bizarreness, someone had injected what they said was an “antidote to Red Ice” into her arm, whatever that meant. That was probably about four months ago or so.
Right now, she was staring up at the ceiling thinking up a modern day reimagining of Macbeth in her head. Instead of becoming king, Macbeth could be trying to become head of an Italian mob family. That would be interesting. Her creative writing teacher at the community college she went to said she had a “creative mind” but she suspected they were just being nice.
Suddenly, the silent air was punched to pieces by an explosion. She sat up and looked around her. Equally confused faces were perched in cells all around her. However, there was no evidence of structural damage everywhere. So, she leaned back down. It was probably some experiment gone wrong.
Then, the entire universe screamed and a wave of dust flew into her face. When she came to, half of the wall was gone. Her cell door had fallen off its hinges, with nothing but a gaping hole left.
Her tree-trunk legs thought for her.
When she entered the hall, she found various others also looking around them, freedom's siren song soaking their ears. Some did not have the same luck, their cell doors still up. However, they were not her problem.
Various people were starting to head for the main exit. “Wait!” she yelled. “There’s gonna be guards all over there.”
“So?”
“There’s gotta be a fire escape! The back of the buildings that way, it would make sense for it to be that way!” She pointed in the opposite direction.
“Whatever.” someone groaned, opening the door and immediately getting shot in the head.
Those that could followed her in the opposite direction, eventually finding a door marked ‘Fire Escape’.
“Do you hear ticking?” someone with a face full of tattoos said.
“I hear a lot of things.” someone else replied.
“Holy shit!” someone else yelled. Coming from the door at the hall's other side was a pogo stick with a head on it, jumping towards them with lightning quick speed.
The group did not wait to open the door and storm through. She stayed put as they rushed in. The pogo creature was getting closer and closer. Then, the last person crossed the doorway. She followed suit. The pogo suit was about an inch away when she slammed the door.
They stormed down the fire escape, passing a door marked ‘4’, then one marked ‘3’, then one marked ‘2’, which was right next to a pile of rubble. “Great idea!” one person screamed at her.
Meanwhile, the sound of metal striking metal tumbled from above. When the group looked up, they saw the pogo stick bouncing down the steps.
Everyone rushed through the door marked ‘2’, slamming it right in front of the pogo stick.
“I still hear that ticking.” the tattooed person said.
“Shut up!” she yelled.
The hallway they were in appeared devoid of all life. They hurriedly stepped over various corpses lying on the ground as the sound of metal knocking came from behind them. Then, the wall exploded open. A large bird-like creature made out of clockwork flew through the hole, sinking its beak right into the forehead of the tattooed man.
Using its beak like a fork, the creature tore the man's head off, threw it into the air, and caught it in its beak. Meanwhile, behind the group, the door was bulging as something knocked into it.
The woman with the red eyes reached forward, grabbed the creature by the beak, and smashed it against the wall. Then, she turned towards the door and tossed the creature, right as the door fell open. The creature slammed into the pogo stick.
“Run!” she screamed. Everyone followed her instructions.
They made their way to a fork in their path. One person went right, only to stop when they saw a door right in front of them open. Unfortunately, they had too much momentum, leading to them tipping forward, landing right on a snail. The second they did, there was a sizzling sound and red steam floated in the air.
The group headed left, only to find another fork. “Stairs!” someone said, pointing at a sign with an arrow leading to the right. They made their way to the stairs and then down the stairs, their feet creating a storm of stomps.
The storm carried them down a hall and into a garage. It was there they stopped, shedding heavy, gasping breaths.
Surrounding them were various armored vehicles. Perfect.
“Does anyone here know how to break into a car?” she asked.//
__
The breakout at Site 7 led to 37 personal fatalities. About 37 different anomalies and 8 D-Class personnel break free from containment.
On August 28th, 2019, SCP 407, The Song of Genesis began playing on various AM and FM radio stations. Approximately 800,000 people were affected. The fact the song was supposed to be destroyed was inconsequential.
The foundation immediately ordered all radio stations to cease all programming.
On September 2cnd, 2019, SCP 239, The Witch Child, was spotted in the middle of downtown London, despite having previously died. She was quickly brought into foundation custody, and when questioned, she claimed that she had been “sent back by The Dreaming Spirit” to take part in “the final battle”. She then proceeded to burst into a storm of laughter and then disappear in a puff of smoke.
On September 8th, 2019, about 2,000 cases of 217,The Clockwork Virus, were reported in Zurich, Switzerland.
Other instances would be reported at a steady rate for the proceeding couple of months. The main headquarters of the UN were moved from Geneva to Paris.
On September 9th, 2019, SCP 200, The Cocoon, opened, with the boy emerging as a large insectoid creature. Security camera footage shows 239 appearing and saying something inaudible to him. They then both disappeared in a puff of smoke.
On September 14th, 2019 another instance of 993 was reported on all TVs worldwide. Bobby The Clown was conducting a full orchestra made up of unidentified humans. After a raise from Bobby’s baton, the sounds of the Song of Genesis blared from every instrument of the orchestra. About 14 million were affected before all broadcasts were stopped. The foundation immediately ordered all television networks to stop broadcasting.
The fatalities of this event included the head of the GOC.
On September 16th, 2019, 106, The Old Man disappeared from captivity and reappeared in New York Times square.
He killed 20 civilians before being attacked by 239 riding on the back of 200.
_
//The Old Man smashed into the pavement. The egg white sun was blocked by a head capped in a witches hat, zooming towards him. The head of The Witch stopped right next to his own. His body moved to attack, only for his right ear to be pummeled by a delicate whisper. “Somnium est super. Your sleeping mind has been seen by the Dreaming Hand, Robert Scranton. May it now be reawakened.”
The city faded away as the abyss returned.//
__
On September 18th, 2019 the octopi sent another message to the foundation. This was the first time the foundation head heard from them after months of sending them messages.
The wording of this message from the octopi also varied, but it generally said: “All shall come to an end. Our fall will be a glorious one. We do not have the cowardice of our ancestors. We do not need your help, jailers. Your kind are not with The Dreaming.”
__
“Guess who’s going to Siberia?” Dr. Anthalt said as he plopped himself down at a table.
“You?” Dr. Kyrokon looked up from his salad.
“No. Someone completely unrelated to the both of us. Of course it’s me. This guy got himself a promotion. And it’s all thanks to our good buddy the fire demon.”
“The fire demon that killed thousands of people.”
“Yeah…yeah…of course,” Dr. Anthalts smile immediately faded. “It’s very sad. You know what I meant. Aren’t you excited?”
“Yeah, I’m very excited. Good for you.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Anthalt beamed. “I volunteered myself…and you wouldn’t guess who I volunteered to…I mean, spoke to when I volunteered, whatever. You won’t guess who.”
“The Pope?
“No, O fucking 5 fucking 9.”
Dr. Kyrokon blinked in surprise. “Wow…that’s…that’s crazy.”
“Yep.” Dr. Anthalt jumped up. “Well, I got more work to do.”
“You’re not gonna eat lunch?” Dr. Kyrokon asked.
“I don’t need lunch,” Dr. Anthalt said. “I’m too important.”
“Yes you do. And no you are not.” Dr. Kyrokon said as Dr. Anthalt walked away.
__
On September 19th, 2019
Approximately 2,000 instances of creatures similar to 1003, The Tapeworm Child, were reported in central Africa (mainly The Central African Republic, South Sudan, Chad, and Cameroon). Similarly to 1003, these creatures were tapeworms that lay eggs in a human’s gastrointestinal tract, and these eggs turned into human embryos which turned into sharp toothed babies which ate their way out of their host. Differing from 1003, these creatures developed much quicker, going from eggs to infancy in about 2 hours. Not only that, but the infants had an abrupt growth rate, becoming adults in less than a day. They were also unusually tall, with an extra set of arms and glowing red eyes.
Many of them were taken into foundation containment, but not all. Those that did appeared to have full intelligence. It should be noted that they called the foundation “jailers” and “disgusting”, and also mentioned Biphi, the Daevite goddess of sacrifice.
Instances would be reported around central Africa at a steady rate for the next couple of months.
The beginning of a major environmental catastrophe would begin on this day. 1001, Ya Te Veo, began overtaking the Amazon Rainforest, as well as 1013, Cockatrice.
Their rapid expansion would continue in the upcoming months. Other heavily vegetated areas found themselves covered in 697, Toxic Terraforming.
On September 20th, 2019
Multiple anomalies disappeared from foundation containment. These included 048, The Plague Doctor, as well as 847, the Mannequin.
Also on that day, a green cloud randomly appeared above a spot in Tennessee and began to rain 1100, Gaia’s Blood. By the time the foundation was notified of this, the cloud was gone. It was theorized that the cloud was made up of Gaia’s Blood in a gaseous state. Once the gas had all been turned into liquid, there was no more cloud. About 6,000 people were transformed.
On September 22cnd, 2019
Able went missing. He had been dispatched to deal with 610, as he was immune. However, the tracker put into him suddenly went dark, and foundation officials couldn’t find him.
On September 24th, 2019
A massive cloud of cobwebs, believed to be 1506, appeared above Washington state. Approximately 30,000 people were pulled in and presumably eaten alive by spiders. Many of those not pulled in reported feeling headaches and the need to “experience sulfur and the stench of rotting eggs”.
On September 25th, 2019
The plague doctor was found dead in a hospital in France. Footage showed him working on various patients when the witch and Able teleported into the room. Able proceeded to kill him as well as the patients he had infected. The witch then grabbed his arm, and they both disappeared.
A quarantine zone for 217 was placed around the entirety of Switzerland, as well as various parts of Germany, Italy, and Austria.
It was also on this day that the UN gave the foundation emergency power over all countries with dead leadership such as Russia, Canada, Italy, and the United States. The foundation was also given the power to violate all human rights laws and decrees.
__
//“It’s tyranny, tyranny!” Dr. Kyrokon bellowed.
“Yeah…yeah sure whatever.” Dr. Anthalt said.
From Dr. Anthalt’s view, Dr. Kyrokon was just a bearded head on a computer screen, with the impeccable cleanliness of his house behind him. There was also the sound of guitar playing in the background, which Dr. Anthalt thought might have been Freebird.
“I can’t believe this,” Dr. Kyroken roared. “Whatever happened to mister rebel? Mister I’ll smoke if I want to?”
“The only person smoking endangers is me. Listen, we’ve got a heart the size of a blue whale in Mexico City, a massive mechanical boar in Canada, and uhh…uhhh…you know, other stuff.” Dr. Anthalt could not think of a third thing.
“What does that have to do with giving us the ability to commit human rights violations?”
“Look, man, I don’t want to argue with you.” Dr. Anthalt fiddled with a rubber band, his way of saying that he wished to stop conversing.
“I’m just asking you a question.” Dr. Kyrokon lowered his voice. Dr. Anthalt had seen him use that same technique with his son.
“You know! Free speech gets in the way of stopping memetic hazards, policies against killing civilians get in the way of stopping diseases. All that stuff.” Once again, Dr. Anthalt wished he could have thought of a third thing. A rhetoric class he took in college had taught him the importance of the rule of threes. However, he never seemed to be able to get past two.
“You’re being selfish.”
“How am I being selfish?” Dr. Anthalt asked.
“Because getting ahead is more important to you than what’s right!”
“Or maybe, maybe, if you’ll consider this, maybe someone disagrees with you. I know, I know, it’s impossible to conceive.”
Dr. Kyrokon sighed. “We’re not gods, Mickey.” The use of a nickname was another common tactic of Dr. Kyrokon. It was taking all of Dr. Anthalt’s strength not to scream “I’m not a child!”, as that would have proved his guilt.
“The 05 council might be. I’m not sure about that one. By the way, is that Freebird?”
Dr.Kyrokon sighed. “Yeah. How is Siberia?”
“Cold. And buggy. Like everything about Poland, but worse. He’s good. I once tried to learn guitar but uhhh…”
There was a pause. Dr. Anthalt moved from fiddling with a rubber band to fiddling with a cigarette.
“The world isn’t ending,” Dr. Kyrokon murmured. “It’s going to be alright, right? Everything’s going to calm down. I’m sure once everything is over they’ll stop with the whole fascist thing. Right?”
“Of course.” Dr. Anthalt lied.
Dr. Anthalt realized he should have mentioned the instances of 1461-1, but it was too late now.//
_
On September 26th, 2019, 1483, The Third Antarctic Empire, opened and various Homo Antarcticus came out. Multiple casualties were reported before foundation troops drove them back.
At this same time, a case of 6217 was reported in Kansas, and 610 escaped containment once again.
On that night, all communications with the city of Las Vegas abruptly stopped. An MTF squad was sent.
_
“Yes?” Dr. Kyrokon picked up the phone.
“Do you want to lead an MTF mission, from here, obviously?” The voice on the other side was the head researcher of Site 21.
“Oh, wow, thank you. I’ve never done that before. Uh…when?”
“Now.”
_
//It was clear that something was wrong even before the helicopter had landed. The kaleidoscope of lights which had defined Las Vegas were absent. When the helicopter landed, things grew even stranger.
Squad 47A crept through the strip, the only light reflecting on their full body armor being that of the full moon.
Surrounding them were what might have once been people. Their pitch white faces bobbled down the street. At the center of these faces were two black holes where their eyes had once been. Bumping against their sides were arms that ended in solid white stumps instead of hands. Their wandering was aimless and devoid of all intent.
To complete this strange sight was the amber-like liquid goo on the street. The squad members had been told to stay clear of it.
A voice came through their coms. It was Dr. Kyrokon, who was using their camera feeds to watch them from Carson City. “It’s hard to make out, the people, are they women?”
“Why is that important?” squad commander Ayja Gonzalez responded.
“Just tell me, are they women?”
“Hard to tell. They all have long hair.” she said.
“Interesting. How does everything smell?”
“How does everything smell?” squad commander Ayja Gonzalez responded.
“Yes, how is it smelling?”
“We’re wearing helmets.” Ayja had to put in effort from ending the sentence with the word “dummy” or one of its many synonyms.
“Shoot.” Dr. Kyrokon never swore.
“Why did you want to know?” The word “dummy” once again had to be caged inside Ayja’s mouth.
“Oh…uhhh…hold on a second. I’m gonna give you directions to a warehouse. Okay, are you listening?”
It was easy to spot their destination, as it was absolutely covered in the amber-like goo. Surrounding it were a crowd of people that ignored the squad as they shoved past them.
“They probably can’t tell what gender you are. That’s good.”
“What does that mean?” Ayja asked.
Ayja could hear Kyrokon sigh through the com. His mouth was too close to the mic, but she didn’t want to say anything. “Okay, it’s gonna take a while to explain, but there was a mannequin that we had in containment. It has a habit of turning what it sees as women into other mannequins and what it sees as men into uhhh…corpses. It kills them, I mean. However, all of this is…well, it’s new.”
“Where are the men?” It was another member of the squad, who was not supposed to talk.
“Barbara, I’m the only one who’s supposed to talk.” Ayja said.
“That rule doesn’t make any sense,” Barbara responded. “W-”
“Excuse me-” Dr. Kyrokon cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know where the men are, or what the mannequin thinks is a man, however one thing I do know is that the mannequin was found in a warehouse that you are currently staring at. So, I need you to get a stick and touch the liquid.”
There was the faint sound of Barbara whispering a soft sorry, and the faint sound of Ayja saying it was okay followed by a sigh.
A stick was quickly fetched and applied to the goo. Nothing occurred. “Okay,” Dr. Kyrokon said. “It seems alright.” Usually, the foundation would be using scanners or some other fantastical technology. However, their resources were rather stretched.
The first person to enter the squad was Ayja, who immediately stopped. “Uhhh…I think there’s something in here.”
She did not wait for permission before yanking that something out of the goo, revealing it as a pair of jeans with a belt around it.
“Holy shit,” it was Barbara. “Oh sorry. I’m not s-”
“It’s fine, Barb.” Ajya sighed.
Multiple other pieces of clothing were found in the goo, until Dr. Kyrokon spoke. “We don’t have time for this. Just go through the goo until you hit a wall and then uhhh…”
“How about we use explosives instead?”
“Oh…yeah…that’s a much better idea. We should have done that to begin with. Frick.”
Less than half a minute later, and the C4 had been planted. The various mannequin people were shoved out of the blast radius.
There was a great bang, and globs of goo were raining down on the MTF squad’s black helmets. Once the swarm of dust cleared, a wall with a massive hole in it was revealed. However, no one was looking at what was inside the hole, because it was then when the various mannequin people around the building had all gone haywire.
The MTF found themselves being pushed to the ground. “Don’t shoot!” Ayja shouted.
Unfortunately, people are stupid, and someone had already pressed a trigger.
There was the sound of a bullet ricocheting off of the mannequin people, followed by a loud scream. The bullet had found its home in the lower jaw of Ayja, piercing through the place between the helmet.
Her coms were still working, allowing everyone’s ears to be blasted with a cacophony of awful sounds. Ayja ripped off her helmet, and the second her long hair was revealed, it was over for her.
The mannequins immediately began to descend on her. More shots were fired from the various other MTF members, but more ricocheting was all that occurred. None of the members were hit. Barbara jumped straight into the pile surrounding Ayja.
What happened next was a blur of white and black. This blur ended with the mob of mannequins dispersed, forming a circle around two figures. One was what was once Ayja. Now, her skin had turned a plaster white, and the space where her eyeballs had been was a black void. There were white stumps where hands once were. She was standing above Barbara, lying on the ground, with her helmet broken.
“Shit. Shit. Okay,” It was Dr. Kyrokon. “You all need to uhhh…”
Barbara raised her head, and half of her helmet fell off, revealing a face topped by short hair. The various mannequins stared at her. There was a moment of silence. Another member ran up to her. “Are you o-”
He was cut off by a great deal of screaming from the mannequins. This blasting of sound sent all members of the squad onto the ground. There was a screeching as the comms went off.
However, that was not the worst of it. Amber goo began to leak from Barbara’s mouth. The sound of choking eclipsed the speaking of a single word, “Ayja-”
Barbara fell back onto the ground as her skin began to take on the shape of liquid. In less then a few seconds, there was nothing left but a pile of goo and some body armor.
There was a moment of calm. The various mannequin people resumed their aimless wandering.
The rest of the MTF squad did not know what to do. There were six left. One of them had a cracked faceplate leaking red, but they wisely chose to keep it on.
Then, one of them noticed what was on the other side of the hole.
It was a mannequin, or more specifically The Mannequin.
Every member held their fire.
It was at that moment when they were able to witness a puff of smoke and various figures appearing behind the mannequin. When The Mannequin turned around, it found a sword going through its head. This did not seem to phase The Mannequin who simply ripped off its own head and punched its attacker, a large tattooed man.
Next to him was an insect-like creature and a girl wearing a witches outfit. Immediately, the mannequin people all began moving towards their leader.
The MTF members might have survived if it wasn’t for the fact that every mannequin in the city was stampeding towards the hole in the wall.
They were not able to see the fight full of flying pieces of plastic. By the time the witch let loose a massive fireball, their armor had already broken from the trampling of thousands of plastic feet, and their body was reduced to a red puddle.
When the dust settled, there was a strange sight. The Witch, the long haired man, and the insect creature were all inside a massive bubble of orange light. Outside the bubble, miles of rubble and immobile mannequins stretched forth.//
On September 27th, 2019, various nuclear weapons were used to beat back the spread of 610.
Instances of creatures similar to Major Alexei Belitrov were suddenly reported in the locations of bombardment. These soldiers did not appear to be soviets, but instead bore flags with an unknown symbol on them. They began firing on SCP troops.
At this same time, Major Alexei Belitrov appeared in the middle of Site 19. An interview of him by the foundation revealed that the insects coming in were from his dimension, and he had been brought back to life by “The hand of dreams.” He gave them various tactical information, then refused to say anything more.
It should also be noted the nuclear weapons did next to nothing to beat back the spread of 610.
__
//Dr. Kyrokon slammed the front door shut.
“Hey.” Niles Kyrokon, his son, said.
Dr. Kyrokon’s only response was a soft murmur as he marched past Niles towards his bedroom.
From the outside, Niles could hear his father crying.//
A few minutes later.
//“Hey, I’m Mikojay Anthalt. If you have this number, then you know too much. Leave a message at the beep.” the phone said.
Dr. Kyrokon lay against the bed.
“Hey, I…I was leading a…I was…I was commanding a…last night…I…oh god…I was leading a mission remotely, and they…well they all died, because I froze. Because I didn’t know what to do. Please call me. Please. I need to talk to someone. I told you you were the only one I trusted. Please.”
The call was ended and the phone tossed aside. The casual act of just throwing an important object was something that Kyrokon would normally never do. That sort of thing was Mickey’s usual forte.
Then, there was a knock at the door.“Dad, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Dr. Kyrokon responded.
“It sounded like…uhhh..it sounded like…” Niles trailed off.
“I’m fine. You should probably go to bed.”
“It’s 9 AM, Dad.”
There was a pause.
“Is it the spooky stuff?”
“Yeah… it’s the spooky stuff.”
There was another pause. “You know when I was 9, and I thought you worked for the government I told all the other kids that you worked for the F.B.I. I would make up stories about you shooting bad guys and stuff like that. It’s kind of funny, how like, the real shit- I mean the real stuff…it’s far more crazy than that.”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause.
“I love you.” Dr. Kyrokon said.
“I love you too.”
Dr. Kyrokon wiped his eyes before he got up and opened the door. “How’s Freebird coming along?”
“It’s hard.”
“Well, I’m sure that will just make it better when you…succeed…”
Niles did not roll his eyes, despite the fact that he obviously wanted to.
There was another pause. “The world’s not gonna end, is it?”
Dr. Kyrokon leaned down and grabbed his son’s shoulder. “No. No it is not. Because I will not let it. You are going to wake up one morning, and the news will just be the ordinary kind of depressing, and no one will be talking about monsters, and everything will be normal again.”
It was a lie.//
__
On September 29th, 2019, a video was uploaded to every social media platform and proceeded to get 34 million views. It showed Bobby the Clown leading the same orchestra as before in playing the song of genesis. All 60 million who saw it were infected.
The foundation immediately shut down all social media sites. It was this event that made Project Savior labeled a failure. The death of many world leaders in the previous couple days lead to the UN granting the Foundation emergency powers for an indefinite amount of time.
It was this that led to the creation of the A.F.F (the anti-federation front). This was an anarchist group with many former members of the Chaos Initiative, GOC, and even some former members of “Are We Cool Yet?”.
_
//The subway floor shuttered beneath Dr. Kyrokon’s feet. Next to him, someone was listening to a video without headphones. Annoying.
Suddenly, he felt an itch in his neck.
Then, another itch appeared, this one on his back.
The phone of the annoying person had fallen to the ground, but the music was still playing. He was itching too, and so was everyone else on the train.
Then, the metal box was filled with the sound of flesh ripping and stretching.
Dr. Kyrokon’s last thought was of his son.
_
As the helicopter flew above what was once the Russia-Kazakhstan border, Dr. Anthalt tried to think of something witty to say.
He had specifically volunteered to go here, to this cold and dangerous place, and he needed everything to not just go right, but for everybody to be absolutely pleased with their interactions with him.
His thinking was interrupted by the crackling of his earpiece. “Hey,” It was the MTF leader back at the base. “Have you planted the drone?”
“Yeah, we’re flying back now.”
“Something’s happened.”//
On September 31st, 2019, there should not have been a September 31st, 2019. However, every calendar suddenly had a September 31, and every machine that displays dates said it was September 31st.
It was on this day that 50% of the anomalies contained in Site 19 disappeared. These included Major Alexei Belitrov, as well as Lord Blackwood.
Meanwhile, the air above Johannesburg was filled with millions of human nervous systems. No living human beings remained.
_
Dr. Anthalt played the message over and over again. The last thing he had said to Dr. Kyrokon had been a lie.
__
//The bus coughed along the road. Various other employees and their families sat on the bus. “Are we gonna have a funeral?” Those were the first words that Niles had spoken to Dr. Anthalt since it happened.
“I…I don’t know. Do you…do you…”
“No. Not really.”
There was another pause. The two of them simply sat and sweated. There was no air conditioning on the bus. Why was there no air conditioning? They were the most powerful organization in the world.
“You don’t have to, you know…I don’t need…I don’t need to be taken care of…”
There was a pause. What Dr. Anthalt wanted to say was “Yes you do, idiot.” However, he simply nodded his head.
A couple hours later, and the two of them were in an apartment in San Salvador. You could tell that it had once belonged to a family, despite the foundation’s efforts. There were plastic stars on the ceiling of one room, but they had been painted over. Why were they painted over? The foundation couldn’t put air conditioning in a bus, but they had the time to completely renovate a room?
Niles was unpacking, and Dr. Anthalt was staring at the ceiling, thinking about plastic stars. “Is there something you uhhh…want to say?” Niles asked.
“Uhhh…well, I guess not.” Getting the hint, Dr. Anthalt left the room to go unpack.
His room had formerly been the room of the parents of the family. He could tell that because there was a night stand on each side of the bed. One had a water stain on it. As Dr. Anthalt unpacked his suitcase and delicately placed his clothes on the bed, he pictured a scene in the life of the couple
“Use a coaster.” one would say.
“Mmmhmmm.” the other would say, not listening. This one probably liked drinking a glass of water before he went to sleep.
The other one would sigh, having given up.
Dr. Anthalt was pushed out of his fantasy by the words of Niles, appearing in the door frame.
“My Dad always says you’re messy.”
“What?” He turned around to see Niles, standing at the door frame.
“I…I mean…you’re uhhh…I don’t know, he just…that’s very neat.”
Dr. Anthalt studied his clothes, all folded nicely on the bed. His former headmistress at this childhood school would have been proud of him. “We’ll make a proper catholic woman of you just yet, Agata.” She would have said.
“Well…I…uhhh…Well,” Dr. Anthalt stuttered in the non hypothetical present. “I guess…we all got to change sometimes…you know…life and stuff.”
Niles snorted.
“So,” Dr. Anthalt muttered. “He talked about me?”
“Yeah, he talks about you, all the time.”
“Talked.” The word flung out of Dr. Anthalt without him thinking about it.
“Yeah, he talked about you. He says, I mean he said, your office was like a…a… a landfill…and…”
Niles began to cry.
“Hey…hey…” Dr. Anthalt said, rising.
Niles continued to cry. “Uhhh…hey…uhhh…it’s uhhh…sad, but you don’t have to…no…you should it’s…I…how…how about I get you some water?”
Niles broke out into laughter. “Water? Water? Why would you offer that?”
“I…I don’t know. Crying…dehydrates you.”
Niles wiped away his tears. “He also said you’re an idiot.”
“You can say ‘says’ if you want to.”
A few minutes later, Niles was staring at the bottom of a glass of water. They were in the main room of the apartment. On the wall hung two pairs of gas masks.
“So…the thing with the will…did you like, officially adopt me or whatever?”
“I don’t know…actually…but…the world is en-I meant the world is…” Dr. Anthalt trailed off.
“It’s ending.”
Dr. Anthalt fiddled with his hands. “Well, every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end.”
“Closing Time.” Niles said.
“Yeah. You know about that song?”
“Of course I do. I’ve listened to the album it’s on. It’s really good. They’re kind of a one hit wonder but uhhh…their other stuff is good too…”
“Oh…well…I’ll have to check it out.”
There was silence. Eventually, Dr. Anthalt spoke.
“Do you not want me to…I don’t know…I can like…there’s an orphanage as part of the camp. If you don’t…”
“Do you want me to be here?” Niles blurted.
“Your Dad wanted me to take care of you.”
“But what do you want? Please, I need…”
Dr. Anthalt nervously fiddled with his fingers.
“You seem…chill. And, well…if we want humanity to survive then…we need to take care of each other. But if you don’t…”
“I want to stay. With you. I think if I don’t I’ll go crazy.”
__//
On October 1st, 2019
There was another containment breach, as all of the 1003 entities in containment staged a successful breakout. Not only that, but at that exact time, 1483 opened again, with many more Homo Antarcticus coming out. They were driven back by SCP personnel, as well as The Witch, who placed a giant magic wall in front of it. She then loudly yelled “Screw you!” And disappeared in a puff of smoke. It was unclear if she was shouting it at the SCP personnel, or the Homo Antarcticus.
The place where she went is known, since at that same time, 1770, the Maker of Chains, was wreaking havoc in Paris. 035, The Possessive Mask, adorned its metal head, despite that being seemingly impossible due to what we know about the two entities.
One thing we do know is that Able, Major Alexei Belitrov, The Witch, the creature from 200, and Lord Blackwood (who was somehow dozens of feet tall) appeared and collectively destroyed 1770 and ripped The Mask off its head. This also should have been impossible. The Witch then reportedly said something along the lines of, “Black lord, you have committed treason.” and then turned 035 into a pile of sludge, which she then absorbed.
It should also be noted that The Witch was the only one who actually fought 1770 and 035. It was hypothesized that the others were just there for show.
Furthermore, it should be noted that Lord Blackwood was wearing a large hat.
Also on this day, the entirety of North Korea was lost. Observations showed it having been entirely consumed by a blob believed to be 031.
Lastly, this was the day in which the foundation ordered the termination of all anomalies currently in containment, including the safe ones. No exceptions were to be made. Approximately 5% of anomalies in containment were eventually deemed impossible to kill after various attempts failed. These anomalies included 053, 999, and 173.
//“Well, before I allowed it, I wanted to talk with you, about reconsidering this.” Dr. Anthalt said on the phone, making sure to be quiet.
“You’ve already terminated 15 of the anomalies in your section.” The voice of the woman on the other was calm.
“Yes, but…those were all objects. This…this is…a child.”
“A murderous child with black eyes.” The voice was starting to grow angry.
“Yes…but…isn’t this wrong? Isn’t it…illegal?”
The other side of the phone was silent.
“Well, I mean, obviously, that’s not relevant…but it goes against…well I guess there’s no one to tell us we can’t do it but, we…we…”
“Listen, Dr. Anthalt, that anomaly will die. It doesn’t matter what you do about it. The foundation wants strong people, people willing to make sacrifices. Whether or not you succeed is a matter of choice.”
Dr. Anthalt breathed in. It was like she had read his mind at some point. “Okay…I…after this…I want to be transferred out of containment.”
“You specifically asked to be transferred to containment because you didn’t want to do field missions.” The voice was sharp, every word puncturing like a white hot needle.
“Okay, well…I changed my mind!”
The voice sighed. “You must have been a truly unpleasant child, Mr. Anthalt.”
//
On October 2cnd, 2019
The AFF attacked a foundation encampment in Turkey, but were successfully beaten back.
On October 4th, 2019
Every screen in the world suddenly showed a message of Bobby the Clown and the symphony. They began to play The Song of Genesis, but were stopped when Lord Blackwood, now three times as tall and with the others on his back, crashed through a wallback. He screamed “You’re not getting away with this one, you stupid bloody clown!”
The rest of the group proceeded to murder the clown and the orchestra. Halfway through the carnage, the broadcast ended abruptly.
It was during this broadcast that the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded.
The soldiers from the other dimension had gotten ahold of The Dead Hand and used it to launch a nuke at Yellowstone National Park. The nuke should not have caused the volcano to explode. That did not change the result.
It was at this point that the foundation began the preparation of various ships containing the human genome to be sent into space. Their destination was to be the exoplanet of Kepler 22-B
October 5th, 2019
2028, The Nightmare Snowglobe, exploded and sent a variety of nightmares all over Site 23. One of these was seen by 2006, who proceeded to turn into a massive eldritch monstrosity. It went on a rampage through most of Canada before being stopped by The Witch, who launched it into the red lake.
_
//Unfortunately, Dr. Anthalt was back in Russia. Even worse, it had grown cold.
“Have you been…uhhh…eating well?” He spoke into the phone.
“I had a blueberry muffin for breakfast.” Niles responded.
“Okay…I think that’s good. Was it organic?”
“Probably.”
An MTF was striding up to him.
“Great! Well, I have to go. Remember to uh, brush your teeth and all that stuff. And floss, I guess!”//
A few minutes later.
//This time, he was not in the helicopter, but was instead viewing it through the MTF’s camera feeds.
Inside the helicopter were three MTF members, one thaumaturgist, and two live goats.
Down below, a group of soviet soldiers rode on the backs of strange creatures.
“Are those…” he asked.
“939 beings? Yep. No clue how they got them.” One of the members in the helicopter said.
“And are you sure they can’t see you?”
“If they were, then they would have fired on us.”
The helicopter had been soaked with liquid nitrogen, and as such, was merely a blip on the soldier’s heat vision goggles.
As the camera traveled on, they passed by various buildings and encampments.
“Okay,” the thaumaturgist said. “When this portal is destroyed, then so will the magical force field. And when that happens…” the thaumaturgist began to laugh maniacally. Dr. Anthalt was not sure if this was how thaumaturgists usually acted, or if it was just this one.
The soldier’s territory was a patch of brown earth amidst many mountains of red flesh. At the edge of the territory, various soldier thaumaturgists worked, beating back the flesh with white light.
At the center was a massive glowing white sphere.
It wasn’t very dramatic. The goats were sacrificed, the thaumaturgist did a spell, and the helicopter flew away as the white lights faded. Dr. Anthalt just stared at the video feed as the sea of red consumed the entirety of the territory.
He could make out specks of green running around, before being consumed. Some tried to enter helicopters, but the wave of flesh was too quick. One by one, every single bite of green was devoured. Sacrifices for his promotion.
The glowing white sphere blinked out of existence.//
_
It was around this same time that The Foundation managed to find the source of the Soviet soldiers, a portal in Russia. The destruction of the portal and a forcefield lead to the remaining soldiers being consumed by 610.
Meanwhile, the exploding of Yellowstone lead to casualties in the dozens of millions.
In addition to all of this, 6217, 610, and 217 all continued to spread. In total, they had claimed over 800 million victims.
The foundation used Protocol Sharp to dissolve all world governments, placing themselves as the only rulers of earth. This power was used to order the destruction of all devices with speakers (obviously, excluding various sanctioned devices that the foundation used). This was because, despite the apparent death of Bobby The Clown, the Song of Genesis would still occasionally play from random speakers. Thankfully, the thaumaturgical spells placed on scp devices seemed to keep it back.
Meanwhile, the amount of flooding had quadrupled.
“I don’t think this is right.”
“You mean, I don’t think this is right, ma’am.”
05-9 stared at Doctor Anthalt through her thick, horn rimmed glasses. She reminded him profusely of the head mistress at his school back in Poland.
Dr. Anthalt sighed “I don’t think this is right, ma’am.”
“That’s very nice. Do you have anything else to say?”
There was a pause.
“Well, I suppose I do,” Dr. Anthalt said. “I…I helped you…kill about 2,000 people, including…well. I have…turned a blind eye to…”
05-9 sighed. “Mr. Anthalt, if you have a problem with ethics, then we have a c-”
“Dr. Anthalt.”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry ma’am.”
Dr. Anthalt sighed. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“Listen…after Russia, I vouched for your promotion. Others didn’t. 05-7 is a particularly old fashioned man, and he was not happy with your gender identity, shall we say…needless to say, you are currently one of our top researchers. You made the right decision in Russia and with the girl. You were rewarded for both. If you keep on making the right decisions, then you will continue to be rewarded. And…a spot on the 05 council may be opening up.”
October 7th, 2019
Meanwhile, various instances of 2256 began appearing on various islands in Polynesia, despite all of them having died. These instances appeared to be hostile, leading casualties in the hundreds.
It was at this point when anomalous devices were beginning to be used on foundation agents so they didn’t need to sleep.
The A.F.F. attacked a federation encampment in Argentina and successfully captured it, killing all federation officials inside. Not wanting them to have the various anomalies contained inside, the foundation’s response was to bomb the encampment, killing the 120 A.F.F troops and the 300 civilians inside.
October 8th, 2019
SCP 2300,The Periodic Golems appeared in Sweden, attacking a seemingly random building in Oslo. It was later learned that this building was the location of [redacted], a former Sarkite. He was killed when the golems, who were ten times as tall as they were before, attacked him.
___
//Dr. Anthalt had not gotten any sleep in a week.
Currently, he was paying attention to two things. One of those was a TV screen which showed a group of MTF soldiers destroying a group of golems with flamethrowers. Another was a wrinkled paper with a to-do list scribbled on it.
“Ask Niles if he ate. Deal with that fucking painting of an owl. Meet with Anderson Robotics representative. Wash the dishes.”
Also on the note was a number: 2,430. It was the number of deaths he had caused.
His mind fiddles with the idea of asking to be transferred back to containment. Niles was probably getting lonely with him gone so much.//
_
October 9th, 2019
2343, the Egyptian god of creation known as Ptah, escaped from his containment. He proceeded to then head northwards to the middle east “to save humanity from themselves ”. He was stopped after a massive battle with 343, Methuselah, ended up destroying both entities. This battle ended up taking the lives of roughly 20,000 civilians.
..|…..|..|. was discovered hovering above various instances of 4246-2. Its motives were unknown. Obviously, the octopi still refused to communicate, and all attempts to spy on them had failed. It was believed that they were still kidnapping people and mutating them, and many hypothesized that was the reason why the floods were happening.
A town full of instances of 2785-1 were discovered in Mexico. All were terminated.
Meanwhile, the entirety of Site-29 was converted into marble due to 2860, Made of Stone. This monolith of marble continued to grow, consuming both organic and inorganic material, only stopped by any matter that was liquid.
The entire area was bombed, which stopped the spread. Amid the bombed region, the corpse of Dr. Harold Thompson, aka 2860, was found in a puddle of an unidentified liquid, seemingly not affected by the blast. The corpse still demonstrated the same anomalous effect, but was taken into containment for possible use as a weapon.
_
//“Cool huh?” Dr. Anthalt pointed to the various lego dinosaurs behind the glass wall.
“Yeah…I guess…should I be here?” Niles looked around as he spoke, as if afraid that the walls would shout at him.
“Oh come on, where’s your…rebellious spirit.”
“I…well…it is very impressive. I am 14 by the way.”
“Oh…okay…well…do you wanna see them being destroyed by flamethrowers or…”
Niles' eyes grew wide. “Oh…I…sure. I…I…sure.”
Dr. Anthalt smiled slightly as he brought a walkie talkie to his mouth. “Light ‘em up boys.”//
October 12th, 2019- October 14th, 2019
2845, THE DEER, broke containment, and immediately went on an unstoppable war path, converting about 24 million people in the span of three days. The deer eventually made its way to the red lake, at which point it jumped in. After that, the foundation had no clue what happened to it.
_
//They had just cooked the baby. The only problem was, it hadn’t been a baby all along. None of them realized this fact until they each bit down on a slab of rock. As to how they did not notice the baby had been replaced by a rock was unclear, as well as to how they had cut a rock into pieces. It was also unclear how the rock was replaced.
However, none of that mattered. A few seconds after their teeth cracked and blood began to pour down their forehead, there was the sudden sound of music from nowhere, and every-single one of the ritual performers found themselves turning into rubbery green pillars. At that exact moment, The Deer sprung into movement, crashing through a wall and running down the hall.
The other members inside the site did not have any time to activate the nuke before they were all turned into pillars as well. Thankfully, alarms had immediately been activated anyway, and the nuke had been armed. Unfortunately, half of the nuke melted the second The Deer broke through the wall.
ALL YOUR RITUALS ARE NOW MEANINGLESS. THE MEMORY OF BELIEF IS FAILING.//
__
Another outbreak of 610 occurred, leading to the entirety of Russia and the Central Asian region being quarantined.
Both an outbreak of 1121, The Skinning Disease occurred in Cyprus. The Foundation immediately quarantined the place, and then airdropped parts of the body of 2860 onto the island. These pieces took over the entirety of the island, only stopping when reaching the ocean. This successfully stopped the spread of the disease.
___
//Dr. Anthalt looked into the water ring on the wooden table as he spoke into a phone. “Sorry, uh…ma’am… I sent a message, but it all happened so quickly. I…”
He could hear 05-9 chuckling on the other side of the phone.
“I see you took what I said about right decisions to heart. The other 05s are pleased with your action. We’ll make a proper head researcher out of you yet.”
“I…I…” Dr. Anthalt didn’t know how to respond to that. Was an 05 actually giving him a compliment?
05-9 continued. “If y-w…is…is that some sort of anomalous monster?”
“Oh, uh, no it’s my…it’s a…it’s…my roommate…I guess…I think he’s playing what’s known as ‘Shoegaze’.” Dr. Anthalt looked at his wall, which muffled the sound of a wailing guitar on the other side. Since Niles' old amp had to be left at home, he had been quick to use the one Dr. Anthalt got/stole.
“It sounds atrocious.” 05-9 said.
“Well…he…his father…it’s…he’s 13…and going through a lot…you know how it is…ma’am.”
“When I was 13, I was working in a textile factory.”
“What?”
“It’s not important. However, about your proposal…the foundation currently has enough on our hands. We don’t have the time for naming science wings or camps.”
There was a pause.
“I…okay…ma’am.”
“I’m glad you agree. And if you wish to become an 05, I would suggest using the more formal ‘alright’ as opposed to ‘okay’. Goodbye.” With that, she hung up.
Dr. Anthalt tossed his phone aside. It landed right underneath the smoke detector with the bug in it.
After he discovered the bugs a week ao, he had told Niles about it through a note. Niles had responded with a note saying “05 council sucks”. The two of them had proceeded to share similar notes. For some reason, Dr. Anthalt had begun keeping the notes Niles gave him beneath his bed.
_
“I talked with 05-9 today.”
Dr. Anthalt and Niles sat at their usual space in the cafeteria, eating stale meatloaf.
“That’s…one of the leading people, right?” Niles responded.
“Yeah. She overheard you playing. Said your music was good.”
“Really?” Niles asked.
“Yeah, and she doesn’t usually give compliments.”
Dr. Anthalt wasn’t sure, but it looked like Niles was blushing a little bit.
“Maybe you could be the official rock star of the foundation.” Dr. Anthalt continued, then immediately regretted it. For some reason, the idea of Niles working for the foundation put a sour taste in his mouth.
He decided to change the subject. “So…uh…how was school?”
“As usual. It’s kind of impossible to teach both 5 year olds and 15 year olds at the same time.” Niles responded.//
__
The witch and her team, which had now grown to include 2970, confronted ..|…..|..|. in the Falkland islands.
Meanwhile, 2972 suddenly disappeared from its usual spot in Sebastopol, Crimea and moved to Sebastopol, California.
Due to various different bathtubs randomly developing the properties of 729, Marble Bath, The Foundation ordered the removal of all bathtubs from foundation facilities.
Flooding continued.
October 15th, 2019
In the center of the Indian ocean, water churned. In the great blue abyss below, a shadow lurked. This shadow grew and grew till it broke the surface. Miles and miles of skin touched air for the first time in millennia. Then, an eye popped out of the water, followed by another eye.
Swimming in these eyes was an infinite net of memories, all contained in the vast fractal of humanity.
Then, the eyes dipped back beneath the pulsing waves, only to then reappear a few feet ahead. Anantashesha was on the move.
//In Sri Lanka, a crowd of people stood on a cliff. They formed two squares, with a path in between. Through this path walked four people, each holding a massive sack of ashes. Most people had given up on funerals, but not here, in the town of Kalametiya. They simply made them more efficient.
The two monks who had lived in the town were currently in two of the sacks, and the ones in neighboring towns were busy. As a result, one of the town members had printed a piece of paper off of the internet. She had done it about a week beforehand, thankfully, as the internet had shut down a few days ago, and the power had gone off the day after that. Apparently, the power had gone off for a majority of the world.
In the back of the crowd, Sriansh stood, his crutches sinking into the mud.
One by one, the bags were emptied into the sea. As they were, a chant was read.
One of the children noticed it first, and pointed. When the others looked, they all gasped.
On the horizon lay a massive scowl that was slowly growing into the face of an eel. In the front of it was a massive blue wave, heading straight for the cliff.
Some ran.
Others, including Sriansh, were simply tired.
One of the bags had not been emptied into the ocean.
“Quick,” one of the town members shouted in Sindhala. “Say the prayer before it comes!”
The bag was emptied, and the prayer quickly said. Then, and only then, did the last few stragglers begin to run.
Sriansh knew he would not make it. His breathing had already become ragged and heavy. Then, someone grabbed him. He was being carried, away from the shore.
Unfortunately, none of this mattered when the eel opened its mouth, and a cry like steel scraping against iron rang out.
Skin and bones melted. Red blood turned to black. Tendons unwound. His mind fell through the spiral, into the grey eyes of Anantashesha. He saw eons stretching before him. Amid the billions of fractals of light, an image from the view of an angel with a flaming sword, the messenger of Anatanesha, briefly flashed. However, it, like all light, passed him by, till there was only silence.
All was darkness, but it didn’t matter. Everything was gone, ghosts were all that was left.//
_
Anatanesha showed the newfound ability to send pulses through its mouth that turned about 500 million people into massive piles of black goo which bore resemblance to amnestic material. This goo appeared to contain some form of consciousness, as it reacted to stimuli.
Anantanesha was then attacked by The Witch and her team, which now included two new members. One of these members was a massive ball of energy believed to have once been the girl that was the source of 3002. The other one was Murphy Law.
When the dust settled, a massive eel corpse drifted against the Indian Subcontinent.
On this same day, all Ikeas all over the world exploded.
Hard candies were found littering the ground all over Saudi Arabia.
It was also discovered that the heads of The Chaos Insurgency were all killed by 3033s, cybernetically modified humans.
Multiple reports of creatures similar to 2636 were reported in Cuba. They were all terminated in a manner similar to the situation with Cyprus.
___
//Dr. Anthalt was awakened by the sound of a phone ringing. The computer keyboard had left a mark on his skin, and the screen read “y6777777776y7777777777777777777y6667777777777u666666666666666666”.
He picked up his phone. “Hello?” he asked.
“I have good news.” It was 05-9
“Oh, what? Uhh…I mean, what is it, ma;am?”
“You’re going to be on the 05 council.”
“I…really? Because of 05-7?”
“No,” 05-9 said. “Dr. Clef has filled that spot. But a new one is about to open.”
“Why?”
“Because,” 05-9s voice was devoid of emotion. “I’m going to kill 05-11.”
“What?”
“That shrew is always out to get me. She actually wanted to promote Dr. Bright to 05 status. Listen, me and 05-3 have a little alliance. 05-4, 05-6, and 05-10 are also part of this alliance, and now 05-7 is. If I get you on my side then our alliance will have 7 members. That means we will have a majority of the council, because there are 13 members. Do you understand?”
Dr. Anthalt was torn between shouting “I know how math works!” and just staring ahead and nervously fiddling with his pencil.
He chose the second one.
“Do you understand?” 05-9 repeated.
“You can’t…this connection isn’t…” That was all Dr. Anthalt could think of to say.
“It’s secure, don’t worry. Look, I have other options, okay? I chose you, and specifically you.”
“Murder?”
“You have committed murder. So have I. So have all of us. We have the words ‘cold not cruel’ inscribed onto plaques. This is for the greater good of humanity. And, you will become an 05. The perks of that are endless, both for you and your ‘roomate’.” She pronounced the word ‘plaques’ with a strange accent that Dr. Anthalt had never heard of.
“Uhhh…can I get back to you? Back to you…ma’am?”
“You have two days to make your decision.” With that, the call ended.
Dr. Anthalt sighed. He needed to take more of the anti-sleeping pills.
His eyes gazed at the fluorescent tube on the ceiling. He had stopped keeping track of the people he had killed a long time ago. There were just grains of blood red sand, slowly piling up. But, he was saving one life, wasn’t he?//
___
October 16th, 2019
Meanwhile, 3069, To Force the Hand of God, began to emerge from the North Atlantic Ocean, secreting vast amounts of an unidentified red liquid.
Meanwhile, accounts of people suffering strange symptoms after reading books including “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “Animal Farm” ,“Things Fall Apart” , and “Persuasion”. A few days after this, the foundation would realize that the titles of all of these books had an amount of letters divisible by 5. The symptoms were the same as those suffering from 3125.
As a result, all books whose titles had an amount of letters divisible by 5 were banned.
By the time this occurred, there were already hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Even with Anantashesha dead, flooding continued.
__
//It was another hot day in San Salvador.
Niles lay in his room and stared up at the ceiling. Through a thick layer of paint, he could make out the imprints of plastic stars. They were probably painted over before the foundation repurposed the apartment. After all, it would make no sense for the foundation to feel the need to paint over the stars themselves.
He should have been at the camp’s school by now, but it didn’t matter. It was very easy to lie to Dr. Anthalt. Some people might have been sending him messages about Niles' truancy, but reading messages seemed to be another weakness of Dr. Anthalt.
Dr. Anthalt wasn’t a very good liar himself. He would always tap his foot when he did so.
As Niles continued to stare at the buried fake stars, something in him snapped. He jumped up onto his bed and reached his hand out, his fingers making contact with the ceiling. Then, he began scraping, tiny scraps of paint falling away.//
___
//When Dr. Anthalt got back to his apartment, he immediately plopped down into the uncomfortable kitchen chair. He had tried to improve it with a pillow, but that just made it so his back had to be in a strange position. Overall, his back was hurting far more than it ever had previously. Perhaps it was because he had suddenly gone off T, or perhaps it was because he did not have anyone to tell him to sit up straight.
He got out his computer. Recently, he had switched to being completely digital. However, he was interrupted when he finally noticed a sound. It was sobbing, coming from behind a closed door. He went up to it and knocked. “Hello?”
His only response was soft sobbing coming from the other side of the door.
“Hello? Niles? Do you want me to come in?” No response.
Dr. Anthalt sighed before opening the door.
Inside was Niles, his face covered with tears. He was lying on the floor, surrounded by flecks of paint and fingernails. The tips of his fingers were bleeding. The ceiling was a mess of ruptured paint and blood, with fake plastic stars finally breathing.
“Oh…” was all Dr. Anthalt could say.
He moved towards Niles like he was a dangerous anomaly.
“Hey…uhhh…uhhh…are you okay?”
“What do you think?”
“I…uhhh…band-aids…do…”
“Not gonna offer me water?” Niles asked in a choking laugh.
“Uhhh…if you want some.”
“I don’t want fucking water!” Niles barked. He turned his back to Dr. Anthalt.
A moment passed, then Dr. Anthalt spoke. He lowered his voice, just like he’d seen Dr. Kyrokon do.
“Uhhh…you’re Dad. Before he died, we got into a fight and he, well he was right. I see that now…but…uh…he…oh god…I don’t know…and…I mean it doesn’t matter now…I have no other choice…but…before he died he left me a message…on his phone…and I…I fu…I didn’t hear it. He was…he was asking me for help. And I…I never got back to him. If only I had stopped what I was doing for a second and looked at my phone. Well then, I…I don’t know.”
Niles didn’t move. “You don’t need to do this.”
“That couldn’t be more untrue.”
There was a pause.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You already did.”
Niles turned around to stare at Dr. Anthalt.
“Sorry. Yeah. You can.” Dr. Anthalt stammered.
“Do you have parents?”
Dr. Anthalt chuckled. “My Dad was a drunk who died when I was 11. A little after that, my Mom sent me off to a boarding school. Neither of them were really interested in raising me, I guess.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Dr. Anthalt shrugged. “That’s life. Now, I think maybe we should get you some bandages.”
“Listen,” Niles sniffed. “I’m not a baby. I don’t need to be swaddled, and I don’t need to be lied to.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
“And you don’t have to be a replacement dad.”
“Okay, sure, I’ll be your older, more maturer adult friend.”
The two staired uncomfortably at each other for a few seconds. “You know,” Dr. Anthalt. “I think I could manage to find some ice cream…would that be nice? I’m asking as a friend. I also want some too…”//
__
October 17th, 2019
The tapeworm people had started what they called the “Neo-Daevite Empire” scanning a large part of central and eastern Africa. It should be noted this was nowhere where the Daevite empire was.
Numerous instances of 3199, Humans Refuted, appeared all over the world, leading to a death toll in the millions.
Meanwhile, a large obelisk appeared above Brazil and started playing The Song of Genesis until the foundation shot it down. The obelisk appeared to be made out of normal non-anomalous cardboard.
About 800,000 civilians were affected by the obelisk.
__
//“No.” Dr. Anthalt said.
“No?” 05-9s eyes grew from behind her horned rimmed glasses.
“Sorry…ma’am…but, I don’t think I’m the right man for the job.”
She sighed. “I don’t have time for this. What do you want?”
“Nothing. I don’t want anything…ma’am. Well, actually, no, there’s a bunch of openings in the science positions. I could just do some research stuff…not kill anyone…that would be nice.”
05-9 didn’t say anything. Instead, she simply took off her glasses. As she did, there was a snapping of electricity. She closed her eyes and opened them again, revealing gray spheres.
“Don’t fuck with me.” she snarled.
No words emerged from Dr. Anthalt’s open mouth.
“I don’t want to play games.” 05-9 grumbled.
“What…what?”
“Your pea-sized brain can not even begin to comprehend what I have done to people far greater than you. So, I will ask you once again, what do you want?”
“I told you what I want. I want to have a nice, simple, research job and…I want my son to be safe. I mean not son…I meant…I…”
05-9 laughed, then put her glasses back on. There was the sound of electricity as her eyes changed back to normal. “You know, not many people say no to me.”
“So…uhh…”
“Sure, you will get exactly what you want.”
“Are you…mad at me?” Dr. Anthalt asked.
“Of course I am. However, saying no to me guarantees its own punishment. However, worrying is a waste of brain cells, and you’re in rather low supply.”
05-9 went to the wall, where she got out a small box. From it, she took out a small grey bag, small enough to fit into a pocket.
“If you ever change your mind, open this.”
_
Niles was practicing in his room when he heard a knock at the door. “Yes?” It was opened by Dr. Anthalt.
“Hey.” He said, holding up a small grey bag. “Want to have a cold coin?”
“Uhhh…sure?”
“Cool, here you go. Is that Bela Lugosi’s Dead?” Dr. Anthalt tossed the bag to Niles.
“Yeah.”
“Sounds cool. Very gothic.”
Dr. Anthalt then closed the door. When Niles opened the bag, it was not a gold coin he found, but a guitar pick. If it was some sort of joke then it wasn’t funny. Still, he hadn’t bought a guitar pick with him.//
_
October 18th, 2019- October 23rd, 2019
The Witch and her team, which now included the 3033s and Able, confronted ..|…..|..|. on top of 3096.
It should be noted that Lord Blackwood was twice the size of a large commercial airplane at this point, with massive wings that allowed him to fly.
The ensuing fight lasted until the 23rd, when ..|…..|..|. disappeared
Meanwhile, large amounts of various types of 3287, Anti-Baby Gas, began wafting like fog over various populated areas. These had the effects of not just sterilizing people, but also animals. This hurt the already damaged ecosystem. At that point
October 26th, 2019
Various bizarre weather patterns were attributed to 3310, which had quadrupled in size.
A large number of cases of 3368 were reported.
//The fan on the ceiling of the A.F.F. command center was far too loud. All eyes were turned towards the front of the room, where Commander-3 was pointing at a screen.
“San Salvador,” she said. “Approximately 4,000 foundation officials are there, including 05-9. And, we’re gonna fuck it up.”
Commander-3 was nine feet tall, with massive red veins running through her skin, leading to pure red eyes.
It had been 5 months since she and the others had stolen the armored vehicle. During that time, she had been extremely busy and very lucky. Thoughts of modern day interpretations of Shakespeare plays had barely even crossed her mind.
She continued to speak. The entire mission plan had already been spelled out in detail. Now, she was just summarizing. It was a good tactic for speech giving she had learned at a rhetoric class. A button on the projector was clicked, and an image of a green liquid appeared on the screen. Unfortunately, Powerpoint was not available.
“This is a much more dangerous kind of 1100, also known as Gaia’s Blood. The ordinary version simply has the ability to contort life, but this version has been augmented to produce a very specific effect. On Halloween, we will not just make it rain fire down on the oppressors. We will give them a taste of their own medicine. Now, they will know what it is like to be monsters.”
Everyone in the room cheered, but it was impossible to tell if they truly enjoyed her presentation, or were simply trying to please their boss. It was one of the many annoyances of leadership.//
_
October 28th-October 30th, 2019
3396 started growing, absorbing multiple beings in the Mojave Desert. However, its rate of growth was not fast enough for the foundation to place it as a high priority.
On tarmacs all over the world, fire bloomed, and rocket ships launched into the air. Inside them was hope in the form of the human genome.
Communication with the A.I.s on these rocket ships would continue for multiple months.
October 31st, 2019
Halloween. An infection of 439, Bone Hive, began. It would claim about 60,000 lives in the upcoming weeks.
___
//“Velcome to my castle!” Dr. Anthalt hooted. He had draped a black sheet over his back.
“What are you doing?” Niles asked. He was sitting on his bed, guitar and pick in hand.
“I am Count Dracula! It’s Halloween. Yes, the victims have been bled…ooohhh.” It was easy for Dr. Anthalt to do a Dracula voice, as he merely needed to bring his natural accent back.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
Dr Anthalt dropped the accent. “Nah. I finished it early. I’ve gotten less stuff lately. But now is not the time for work, it’s the time for spooks and haunts!”
“You do realize the ridiculousness of what you’re saying?”
Dr. Anthalt’s smile struggled to hold itself. “C’mon…you know…they have this thing over at the cafeteria. There’s bobbing for ears of corn, because they ran out of apples, and some candy too, I think…It’s not amazing or anything, but it’s something. I’m sure we can throw together a costume for you. Maybe you could be an undead rockstar…or something.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“It’s Halloween!”
Niles sighed. “Please get out of my room.”
“Fine,” Dr. Anthalt huffed. “Maybe I’ll go to the super cool party all by myself. Farewell, darlink!”
With a dramatic turn of his cape, he stomped off. His steps took him through the main room, past the two gas masks hanging on the wall.
The second the door to the apartment closed, Dr. Anthalt fell against the wall and sighed. He grabbed the sheet and threw it to the floor. “Oh, god I’m an idiot.”
He looked up at the ceiling. “How did you do it, huh? How does anyone do it?”
His head rubbed against the back of the wall. “You know what? He wants to be alone. That’s fine. Whatever. He’s had enough Dadding for his life. I had 11 years of a Dad and that was enough for me! Why should I even give a shit about him? You know, I don’t give a shit! I’m just guilty or some psychological shit or whatever. He could die and I w-”
He was interrupted by an explosion and a great shaking.
“Shit!” his voice ran like a hammer against an anvil. The sheet, still in his hand, did a black dance as he dashed back into the room.
The wall had fallen off. At the edge of the floorboard was a 30 meter drop to the ground. Screeches of smoke flooded through the room.
“Niles! Niles!”
Dr. Anthat’s legs were lightning as he stormed above the screaming floor. The door to Niles' room fell to wooden scraps as he opened it.
Niles was inside, his eyes large as dinner plates, huddled on his bed. His guitar was on the floor, and a pick was in his hand.
“Are you hurt?” Dr. Anthalt screamed.
Niles shook his head.
“We need to get out!” Dr. Anthalt screeched.
Niles followed these instructions by jumping onto the floor, landing on the crack between two floorboards, and crashing through. His head plummeted out of sight beneath the floor.
Dr. Anthalt shrieked. When he looked through the hole, he found Niles, two stories below, howling on a floor. Red dripped from his knee onto the hardwood floor.
“Stay right there!” Dr. Anthalt yelled below.
He ran, making sure not to step on the cracks on the floorboards. His eyes caught one of the gas masks, lying on the floor, and he quickly grabbed it before continuing to sprint.
When he got to the stairs, he found a large pile of rubble in his way. He turned around, heading for the fire escape. Thankfully, it had not been harmed. The sounds of explosions in the distance were joined by the sound of his shoes slapping against the steel stairs.
Once he had arrived at the correct story of the building, he had to find the correct room. He drew the building’s layout on his mind. Then, he realized that he would just need to follow the same path he used to get to the fire escape, but reversed.
Eventually, he found his way to a door. “Niles! Are you there?” he screamed.
A response came in the form of another scream.
He ran up and gave it a kick, trying to knock it open. The only thing he got was a cracking pain from his foot. His second try was met by a second failure. He was about to try for the third time when he realized that the door might not have been locked. This turned out to be true.
When the door opened, it revealed a crumbling precipice above an abyss of smoke and flame. On this precipice, Niles lay. The guitar had also fallen with him, and its smashed remains now lay next to him.
“Niles!” Dr. Anthalt screamed.
Niles gestured to the abyss. Within the grey smoke came another form of gas, this one green.
“Here!” Dr. Anthralt handed the gas mask to Niles then studied his leg. Through the puddle of red, an island of white stood. Thankfully, it seemed to be the biggest victim of the fall.
“Shit…I mean shoot.” he grumbled. He realized, for some reason, he was still holding onto the black sheet. He ripped off part of it and wrapped it around Niles’ leg.
“Can you walk?”
“I…I…”
“Well…we’ll have to try.”
The cloud of green gas was starting to expand. Through it and the smoke, Dr. Anthalt could make out human silhouettes being stretched and contorted.
“Grab my hand!” Dr. Anthalt yelled at Niles, who complied. He leaned against Dr. Anthalt.
“Okay, now, we’re gonna have to walk!”
The green gas was getting closer and closer.
The two of them stumbled out the door, back into the hallway of the apartment. “Shouldn’t you have a mask?” Niles asked.
“I only saw one. It doesn’t matter. We have to get out of this building.”
There was another explosion. Parts of the ceiling began to fall down.
Dr. Anthalt led Niles towards the fire escape, grabbing a fire extinguisher as he walked. “As a weapon.” he muttered.
The ceiling continued to shed as they found the fire escape. They began to step down, only for someone wearing red armor with a red gas mask to appear before him. Before the red figure could do anything, Dr. Anthalt chucked the fire extinguisher at them. It hit the person in the chest with a soft bonk, sending them tumbling down the stairs. When the armored person finished falling, there was a loud crack.
Niles and Dr. Anthalt continued to run hobble downwards. Eventually, they made their way to a door which opened to reveal a world of ash and turbulence. Screams and smoke filled the air, choking the world in a chaotic frenzy.
Helicopters could be seen, jumping between crumbling pillars of ash. What drew Dr. Anthalt’s and Nile’s eyes were the various black tree-like entities littered around the rubble. Thankfully, the green gas seemed to have gone away, leaving only a smoke soaked sky.
“We need to make it to the back road. There will be cars there, okay?”
Niles nodded.
They continued to hobble.
A mob of men in black armor ran past them. “Civilians on the back road!” one of them shouted.
“I’m not a civilian, and I was already going there.” Dr. Anthalt mumbled to himself as he continued to move forward.
Behind them, there was an explosion. When both of them turned to look, they saw a helicopter on fire, and the men in black armor burning with it.
“Shit, I mean shoot! Faster!” Dr. Anthalt said.
“I’m trying!” Niles shouted.
“Goddamnit! Hold on!” Dr. Anthalt then proceeded to grab Niles and lift him into the air.
He then proceeded to shamble forward, tripping over metal and bodies.
“Why are you so fucking heavy!” he yelled.
“I’m not heavy!”
When Dr. Anthalt looked behind him, he saw more men in red, emerging from behind the flaming helicopter. One of them threw an object at the ground, and green gas began to emerge.
“Shit!”
He picked up speed, almost bumping into one of the black trees.
Then in the distance, he spotted a group of cars.
It was at that point when another helicopter came down, right on top of the cars. The massive fireball caused Dr. Anthalt to lose his grip on Niles, who scrambled as he hit the ground.
“Shit! Sorry!” Dr. Anthalt looked ahead of him, where there was a churning sea of flame. Behind him, the cloud of green gas was expanding, getting dangerously close to him.
He looked to his left and right, and it was through the smoke that he saw flashing lights behind him.
Having no other choice, he picked up Niles and ran towards the light.
The green gas was catching up to him.
Eventually, the smoke cleared to reveal an armored car, placed on the side of the road.
The second Dr. Anthalt saw it was the second when he inhaled the gas. He continued to run, before his legs suddenly turned to wax, a few feet away from the front of the car.
Niles screamed from on the sidewalk.
“I…I,” Dr. Anthat attempted to get up, but gravity won the battle.
The car sped till it was right next to them.
The door briefly swung open, and Niles felt himself being yanked into the car.
“Go…go!” Dr. Anthalt yelled as his eyes turned white.
The door slammed shut.
“Wait!” Niles screamed from inside. The gas mask-hidden faces floating around him offered no solace.
As the car sped away, Dr. Anthalt lay on the ground, his body twitching like a dying snake. With the sound of flesh expanding, his tongue grew, forcing his mouth open as it widened. The long red tendril danced in the air before turning black and beginning to divide, turning into a structure similar to a tree. Dr. Anthalt’s skin began to snap as multiple hands began to burst out of his back. The fingers of these hands stretched out, reaching for nothing.
His jaw snapped in half as his tongue continued to expand. The growth of hands spread through his body, his legs and arms and neck all being overtaken. His head began to crinkle, forming a ring around the base of his tongue. The last thing he saw before his eyes were crushed between his tongue and his brain was the armored car, turned into a speck in the distance.
Then, darkness devoured all. In less than a minute, Dr. Anthalt had been replaced by a giant black tree with twisting roots made of fingers.
When the fingers of flames began to scratch through what was once his skin, he held no fear. The last image to enter his mind were two faces.//
Interlude: 1897
“I have that idiot wrapped around my finger.” The voice of O5-0 was distant and distorted through the device.
“That’s enough.” O5-9 said.
O5-1 paused the device. “So…you see?” He stood behind a mahogany desk in a grey room with no windows, but a painting depicting the storming of The Bastille where one could have gone.
“And this is all…for what?”
“I need you to understand. O5-0, his intentions may be good…but he got so obsessed with sacrifices for the greater good, he forgot about the greater good and just sacrificed.”
O5-9 sighed. “And, you’re better.”
“What he’s suggesting…the human consciousness. Wouldn’t that make…”
“It doesn’t matter. Normalcy, anomalies, who cares? We’re not gonna genocide the entire human race.”
“Even though the world is going to end in about a hundred years or so anyways.”
O5-1 shrugged. “Now I know you’re just playing devil's advocate.”
O5-9 sighed as she arranged her hands in an elegant posture of contemplation. “So…what do we do?”
O5-1 lifted a pointing finger towards the painting on the wall, where smoke poured from brick towers and revolutionaries ran amok.
Part Two: Order
…
Hero's hands drain stones of blood
To wet the scaling knife
Magi blend with vision’s light
Not death in dread of light
Their children kneel in Jesus’ till
They learn the price of nails
Whilst all around our mother earth
Waits balanced on the scales
…
__
__
//The burning wreckage was nothing but a speck in the distance. Niles stared into nothing.
“None of the gas made it in.”
“Good,” one of the grey gas-mask cloaked faces said. Then, their gas mask began to shift, morphing into a pair of glasses that sat upon a bearded face. “I’m not sure if the gas can affect me because I don’t really have lungs anymore, but better safe than sorry, you know?”
Niles didn’t say anything.
“Don’t worry,” the bearded man said. “We’re foundation.”
“What happened to him?” Was all Niles could say.
“Oh, those savage bastards used some sort of anomalous gas on him. Oh, the other O5s are going to have my ass for this.”
Niles did not respond.
The man seemed rather annoyed. “The OTHER O5’s are going to have my ass for this.” he repeated.
Tears began to flow from Nile’s cheeks. “I…I…is he…”
“He’s gone. Permanently.”
“Why did you…”
“It’s what he wanted. Of course, if he had said yes to my offer then he probably wouldn’t even have been here when the attack happened. But, saying no to me is its own punishment.”
Niles did not respond.
The man just sighed. “It’s gonna be a long drive.”
Niles looked down at his right hand, which had been clenched open. Inside was the guitar pick.
The man’s eyes grew wide when he saw.
“Did Dr. Anthalt give you that?”
“Uhhh…yeah.”
The figure chuckled. “Crazy bastard. Keep a hold of it, okay? It’s good luck.”//
___
___
Lima, Peru.
//Valentina had always been a light sleeper, slow to fall to slumber and quick to wake. Perhaps her problems with sleep came from her Mom, who regularly suffered from sleep paralysis. In contrast, the men in her family (her Dad and her brother) seemed to be spared from any afflictions regarding sleep.
Aside from sleep, the life of Valentina was fairly decent before the end of the world. She lived with her younger brother, Auqui, and her parents in an orange house overlooking the ocean. Every weekday, she and her brother would pass beneath the clothing line which stretched from her fence to the other side of the street on their way to school. On Saturdays, she would practice with her soccer team, the Red Lions. On Sunday, she would go to church. When she was young, her parents allowed her to bring a pad for doodling during the sermon. When she became a teenager, they said she was old enough to know how to pay attention.
After that, drawing would be contained to home and particularly dreary math classes. When she was 13, she had begun making a comic about an evil robot named El Sangre De Acero (the blood of steel), but quickly abandoned it. From 13 to 17, her interest in drawing waned and was eclipsed by the interested in soccer. She and her soccer team would often meet after practices and go do something rebellious like smoke or graffiti walls. In short, life was simple.
Even when the reports of armageddon began appearing on the news, it felt impossibly far away. Of course, everything at the store suddenly cost more, a quarter of the neighborhood was drafted into a war against a bunch of flesh zombies in Asia, and her church’s priest seemed to be unable to talk about anything outside of the book of revelations. However, it just seemed like more reasons on Valentina’s ever growing list of why the world sucked.
Then, a massive parrot with telekinesis attacked the city. It was on a Thursday, so she was at school when it happened. Her mind had been dragged out of a haze when someone pointed at the window and said “Look!”. In the distance, a large object was swooping above buildings, explosions following its path.
That day, a bunch of people on the TV said they were now in control of the government. The next few weeks felt vaguely dream-like. She and some of her friends would sneak off to go see the giant parrot corpse downtown, a massive hole in its chest where a missile had hit it.
Then, one day, her Dad came home from the wharf, his eyes bloodshot, saying he felt sick.
Since they couldn’t get a doctor, they tried looking his symptoms up on the internet, but found no result. In the proceeding couple of days, his skin began to bulge and stretch. Every morning, Valentina would wake up to an awful smell, like the rotting corpse of an octopi, flowing from his room. Obviously, they would have gone to the hospital, but everyone knew that anyone who went to a hospital in the days since the people took over never came back.
It was during that time when the flooding began.
It was a Sunday when everything reached its peak. The floor of the house was covered with rags, soaking up the thin layer of water. Outside the window, the ocean was only a few meters away. Her Mom and Dad both had that look on her face as they began talking.
“You’re going to move to a hotel.” her Dad had said in Spanish. At this point, he was barely recognizable, his head looking like an old tomato.
“You?” her brother had asked, also in Spanish.
“Yes…you.”
The words “Don’t ever return.” echoed throughout the taxi ride to the hotel. They hung above the unclean carpet of the hotel and in the corner of the room where Auqui was huddling. Of course, Valentina acted like they weren’t there.
That night, she snuck out of the hotel with a can of pepper spray, a knife, and a hoodie. Through streets lined with water and garbage bags she trudged, distant lights shining on her blue hat.
It took her about 20 minutes to make it to the orange house. In the few hours since they had left the house, the street had already been covered in a thick layer of water.
The door was slightly ajar, letting a soft stream of sea water flow inside. Valentina waded through her house. Then, she saw him.
His flesh looked like it was made of wax, and it was stretching out in various directions, moving and squirming as if it was trying to break free. Massive white growths sprouted from out of the quivering skin. His limbs were lost to his enfolding mass. Between the folds of flesh, she could make out a single brown eye. It was her father. She stared into the swirling pool until a wave of meat engulfed it, burying the last part of his humanity.
Her legs thought when she couldn’t, running out of the house and crashing onto the street. As she lay there, soaked in water, she saw as her house burst from the inside, a massive pillar of polyp-covered flesh emerging. For a moment, she simply stared up at it. Orange bricks floated in the water. The clotheslines bumped into her.
She got up and moved towards the creature. Her opened hand hovered close to its pulsing surface. She took one more step towards it, then found her legs flying into the air and her body slamming into the water. For a moment, the real world was lost to a universe of aquatic humming and blue hazes. Then, she brought her head back up, only inches away from the pulsing mass.
The clothesline had wrapped around her leg, somehow forming into a knot. Her fingers fiddled with the string, attempting to unspool it, but the water and the night made it a process of murmured swear words and grueling frustration. It was at that moment when the sound of adult voices came howling from within the dull night. She used her knife to cut the string, then tumbled into the rumbling field of shadows, making sure to grab her hat.
She eventually made it back to her hotel.
They would stay there for months.
During that time, her Mom’s sleep paralysis grew worse and worse. Valentina would be awoken in the middle of the night by her Mom’s pacing as she tried not to give in to her tiredness.
Then, one day, her eyes turned white, and she simply walked away.
Auqui and Valentina ran behind her, grabbing her arm. Auqui continued to beg long after Valentina stopped. As her Mom walked into the ocean, Valentina had to hold Auqui back.
“Let me go!” he screamed.
Valentina didn’t even say anything. She practically had to drag Auqui back to the hotel.
For the next few days, the ocean continued to encroach upon the city of Lima. The grocery stores were quickly stripped of all they had, so Valentina had to break into the pantries of restaurants. One time, she stabbed a full grown man in the hand over a pound of french fries. That was the day when the electricity went out.
The flooding would get worse, and Valentina and Auqui would have to move again.
They lived underneath a highway with a group of others and watched as the towers slowly melted into rubble. Every person there had a story, be it deadly fungus, a metal person with a sword, or half of a lion.
One early dawn, Valentina awoke to a shaking. Was it an earthquake? A quick ‘no’ was given in the form of a being silhouetted against the rising sun.
Valentina grabbed Auqui, shaking the sleep off him. About a hundred meters away from them was a massive teddy bear entirely made of moving bodies, all melted together. They both immediately broke into a run, leaving the shadow of the highway.
Valentina shouldn’t have looked back, because it’s then when she saw a man being grabbed by the paw of the bear and slammed onto its stomach, where his head and upper body melted into the other bodies, leaving only a torso and a pair of legs twitching madly. The creature continued to move forward, halving the gap between it and the two children. As luck would have it, that was the moment when her hat decided to fall.
She spun around, Auqui screaming as he screeched to a halt. The bear was only about 40 or so meters away. Her hand swooped down and snatched the hat. The bear was about 20 meters away.
She turned around and ran with Auqui. The stenching of melting flesh was right behind them. Their legs flew across the rubble.
“There!” Auqui pointed to a manhole cover.
The ground shook underneath them as they grasped the cover, trying to get it to budge.
“C’mon!” Valentina groaned as her arms strained. The stench was all around them now.
The cover came off with a scraping of metal.
The two dived in.
Above them, the earth quaked and shuddered.
Once the quaking stopped, the two of them climbed out. The highway had collapsed. In the distance, they could make out the
They eventually stumbled upon a group of refugees in an abandoned airport not far from the city, being watched by men in armor.
The second story of the airport was their new home for the next few days. The men in armor gave them water and extraordinarily confusing instructions on how to exit. “If someone attacks the front, you’re going to go past the overhang, then down the stairs at the back, in Section C. Under no circumstances should you go down the stairs at the overhang, as that will put you directly in the line of fire, okay?”
Auqui nicknamed them “Serio Confusa Pendejos” (Serious, Confusing Assholes) after the insignia on their armor. Their confusing behavior stretched to the placing of explosives around the place. “If all else fails,” One of them said to another. “23 can’t allow those gross bastards to reproduce.” The soldiers would often talk to themselves about leaving because, apparently, “It was only a matter of time.”
On the night of October 31st, both Valentina and Auqui fell asleep in sleeping bags next to the window. Auqui faced it, while Valentina faced the wall. They made sure never to turn, as that would force them to face each other.
Valentina’s blue hat remained on her head. It displayed the logo of Club Alianza Lima, Lima’s soccer team. The blue threads were frayed and worn from years of visits to the soccer field.
Her Dad was written on every seam and line, as he had always been, from the second he purchased it for 120 Sol, the kind of ridiculous price expected of a shop at a soccer stadium.
It was all that was left of him.//
_
By October 31st, about 1 billion humans were left. About 1.5 billion had been infected with 610, another 1.5 billion were infected with 6217, about 1 billion had died, about half a billion had been either kidnapped by the octopi or drowned, about half a billion were infected with The Song of Genesis, and about a billion were turned to various other beings.
On October 22nd,
An instance of 1861, The Crew of the HMS Winchester, was reported, despite it having been less than six months.
On October 32nd, there should not have been an October 32nd.
Another instance of 1861 occurred.
On October 26nd, The Tree of Life in the Mojave desert was killed by 6217. However, a larger version of the tree would then reappear in the Sahara desert on October 38th. Instead of leaking liquid, it emitted a pulse that turned everyone within a 240 thousand mile radius into large tree-like beings.
In the weeks following October 31st, various different foundation encampments, even the underground ones, found themselves under attack by anomalies.
__
//It was 1:15 AM on October 31st. The silent night was bludgeoned by a hammer of noise, an explosion which sent shrapnels of shadow all throughout the airplane.
Valentina opened her eyes and immediately turned around. Auqui was somehow still curled up. “Wake up!” Valentina shook him.
Auqui grumbled something as he rubbed his half-closed eyes, only for another explosion to yank them wide open.
Dust and debris were beginning to trickle from the ceiling. Auqui and Valentina rushed to their feet. The usual armored people were absent.
“We need to run!” Valentina hissed, not sure where, probably in the opposite direction of where the explosions came from. There!” Auqui yelled as he began running.
“Go past the overhang. Don’t take the stairs at the overhang…take the ones at the back.”
Their legs flew, eventually finding themselves near the overhang, amid various soldiers. “We need backup,” One was screaming into a walkie talkie. “Enter through the west entrance!”
As they ran on the overhang, Valentina’s head turned below, to a churning mass of smoke and bodies on the first floor. There were various creatures, looking like pale humans with white eyes and razor sharp teeth.
As she did this, her hat fell, blue descending into black and red.
“No!” She did not stop to think.
There were two paths: one lay in the stairs, only a few feet away, the other lay on the rapid river of people, heading past the overhang.
Her legs clamored down, into the swirling inferno.
“Val!” It was Auqui, who had already been absorbed into the mass of refugees.
“Go without me!” She screamed as she made it onto the first floor.
The blue hat was only a few meters away from her.
“Ma’am, you n-“ it was the voice of a soldier near her. Valentina did not look to see what had happened to him. She snatched the blue hat then turned around, only to come face to face with one of the creatures.
It raised its clawed paws and then rushed towards her. Valentina broke into a sprint. The back, she had to make it to the back.
She found herself racing down a hall, the sound of snarling close behind her. The blue hat was clutched in her hand.
Her shoes shrieked as she made a sudden turn towards the right. She passed by one of those stands of magazines and pushed it to the ground. When she looked back, she saw the creature, tripping on a copy of Time and landing on its face. Success.
She passed a sign reading “Seccion C”. She had made it. Her eyes darted over the tiled walls, then to a sign with an arrow pointing to the left, “Salida A Alfasto.” Exit to Tarmac.
The creature was still behind her, yelling wildly. She made a harsh left turn, then found herself next to a flight of stairs.
What happened next was uncertain. Auqui’s face floated in blinding darkness, behind a glass wall. He was amid a crowd of people, being pushed by a pack of soldiers. His hand reached out, turning into a pointing finger. Then, something hit her back and she was knocked into a window. Glass flew into her face.
She turned her head to see a mob of creatures behind her. Bullets were firing, and blinding white teeth were lunging towards her. It was like a soccer ball, screaming in an arrows path. Her leg stuck into the air and smashed into the teeth. The creature tumbled backwards, like a massive tree, and as it did, a bullet careened into its stomach.
Then, she was being pulled onto her feet, and the cold night air was shoving into her. She was amid a mob, running away. Behind her, a pile of dead creatures sat amid a sea of broken glass. Ahead, a pack of trucks sat waiting. Auqui was grabbing her arm, and everything was going to be okay.
Then, she grasped with her left hand. The blue hat was not there. When she looked back, she saw it there, amid the mass of bodies. Immediately, she turned around and sprinted. “Val!” it was Auqui, sprinting after her.
She grabbed the blue hat. Auqui was right behind her. “Val! You idiot,” he was yelling. “We need to go!” he pointed to the mob, who had continued without the two children, making it to the trucks.
As Val and Auqui watched, doors were opened, only for a mass of teeth and claws to spill out. Crimson blood and black armor sprayed everywhere.
Val and Auqui looked at each other. Behind them, the airport was swarmed with the creatures, and likely to explode soon. In front, more creatures waited.
“The west entrance!” Auqui shouted. Val did not know what that meant, but Auqui had already begun to dash to the right, so she followed, heading out of the tarmac and into a dark forest. The sound of gnashing teeth exploded behind them. Red was crowding her vision.
Then, a massive light pierced through the shadows. Her and Auqui fell onto a road as the sound of teeth grew closer. Speeding towards them was a truck. “SCP” it read.
“Help!” Auqui jumped up and screamed. The truck shuddered to an abrupt halt. Hot breath was right behind them.
The door opened and two gloved hands reached out from the truck. Val shoved Auqui into the waiting hands. It was at that moment when she felt teeth sinking into her arm. Her bones snapped.
A gunshot broke through the night, and red splattered onto Valentina’s head as she fell onto the ground. A hand was dragging her into the truck.
The door slammed shut with a metal laugh. Time began to stumble and trip over itself.
“Are there any others?!” It was a man, screaming at her.
“I, I don’t,” it was Auqui. “She needs…”
“Shit!”
In the distance, an explosion shook the world.
Valentina was lying in Auqui’s arms.
“We’re going to be okay…you’re going to be okay…” he whispered.
The hat was still on her head, probably turned more red than blue.//
_
//When Niles opened his eyes to meet a plain grey ceiling, it was all there. Immediately, a thrashing pain pulsed through him. His mind and body ached in sobs of bitter fire. The memories were staring down at him, like buzzards peering at a carcass. It was not all a dream, that was for certain.
His memories only went as far as sitting in the car, however. How he got into the bed was unknown.
He began to look around him. Underneath him was a dingy cot whose metal coils shrieked with every small movement. On the cot, right next to him, was placed the guitar pick.
His location appeared to be a massive warehouse, with beds full of people stretching as far as the eye could see. It was like a field of beds, where white cots grew within a square, grey world.
On the far end of the warehouse was a grey wall, with a sign containing text so large he could see it all the way from where he was, “IF YOU SENSE SUDDEN ABDOMINAL PAIN, SHORTNESS OF BREATH, AND BONE ACHES REPORT IT IMMEDIATELY.”
To the immediate right of Niles was a bed, with a girl a few years older than him on it. A ring of white gauze wrapped around her head, covering her eye. Sitting next to the girl was a boy about his age, holding a book in his hand.
The boy must have heard Niles moving around, as he turned to look at him.
“Oh, ey.” the boy said in a distinct accent that Niles could not place.
“Hey.”
There was an awkward pause.
“Where am I?” Niles asked.
“Uhhh…I don’t remember the name…it’s long, but like, it’s a bunker. Well, specifically you’re in a hospital in a bunker, and the bunker is underground, did I mention that?”
“Can you…” Niles lowered his hand.
“Oh, yeah…sorry.” the boy lowered his voice.
There was another pause before the boy spoke again. “My name’s Auqui, it’s Quecha for prince.”
“Oh…my name’s Niles, I guess. I don’t know what it means. I think I was named after a friend of Mom’s or something.”
“Nails?” Auqui asked.
“No, Niles.”
“Oh, sorry, Niles, yeah.”
Silence. Niles let his head fall onto his pillow and then turned away from Auqui.
“She’s my sister, Val, short for Valentina.” Aqui said, pointing to the sleeping girl.
Niles responded in the form of a soft grunt.
“Yeah, she got hurt by some weird insect creatures. Guys here saved us. They say she’s gonna be okay. She can leave here in about a week or so. There’s an orphanage section. I guess you’ll go there too…uh…yeah. What happened to you?”
There was a pause. “Everything.” Niles said, hoping that would get him to shut up.
“Oh.” was all Auqui said.
More silence passed. Niles curled himself into a ball and began to cry as silently as he could.
___
The attack was technically a success. That’s what Commander-3 had told Commander-2 from the hide-out in Panama City about 8 hours ago. This did not seem to please Commander-2, who had laughed when Commander-3 asked when reinforcements would arrive to pick them up.
She was one of the 29 troops who had made it out.
“You doing alright?” It was Steva, who she had to carry out. He had managed to break his back despite wearing armor. Currently, he was nestled in a cot, surprisingly cheery for someone newly paralyzed and breathing extraordinarily loudly. His rhythmic gasps flooded the somber bunker’s space.
“I’m fine.” She lied.
Her eyes returned to the screen, displaying various messages. A majority of Asia had been cleansed of humanity. North America wasn’t too far behind. That stupid Mekkanite plaque had already covered the entirety of the United States. Then, there was the volcano. Soon, it would be practically impossible for humans to survive above ground.
She tossed the device to the side, and it clanked against the metal floor.
“You need to stop doing that.” Steva remarked, still filling the hideout with the sound of his rasping breath.
“Shut up.”
“Don’t know why I try.” Steva mumbled.
“Then don’t.” Commander-3 responded, then immediately regretted. It was such an obvious comeback, more befitting of a teenage girl than a trained commander.
She closed her eyes and pictured herself back in New Orleans. The smells of french dips filled her nostrils, and the warm glow of the sun washed over her. The sound of laughter replaced the silence of the bunker. Wait, silence? Why had Steva stopped breathing?
This question was quickly answered once she opened her eyes. Steva had stopped breathing because he had been gutted. Behind him lay various other bodies, all in the same condition.
With a scream, she grabbed for her gun, but it was too late. A force slammed her against a wall and pinned her there.
The source of the force was someone she had not previously noticed, a bald man with sunglasses.
“Hello,” he said in a southern drawl.
“You…”
“Commander-3, I presume. You and your…cronies…fucked up by base.” the bald man said.
“What are you?”
“I am not a what. I am a who.”
“Piece of shit…” Commander-3 began thrashing about, attempting to find something to be used as a weapon, but her gun was on the floor.
“I suppose you’re worth more. Well then, I guess I can end this charade.”
The man took off his glasses, revealing gray. Then, the top of his head split open, and he dropped the glasses in. When his head shut, his face changed, as did the rest of their body, revealing something new entirely.
“I’m sorry I can not tell you my real name,” this being said. “But, I am a woman, I suppose. I was born in 1832. I became O5-9 in 1884. I hope you’re happy. I don’t do this for anyone. However, we have little time for pleasantries. The reason why I am here is because I need to find Commander-1. You stole our numbering system by the way.”
“How were you able to find me?” Commander-3 asked.
“Your hideout is pathetically hidden. Your whole operation is a disgrace. However, Commander-1 is very well hidden. But…I’m going to assume that you know. Now, if you tell me where Commander-1 is then I’ll let you live. If not, then I will kill you.”
“Fuck you.” Commander-3 said.
“How rude.”
“Let her go.” a voice from the shadows said.
Commander-3 found herself falling to the floor as O5-9 turned around.
“Why hello,” O5-9 said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Wh…who…who?” Commander-3 gasped.
“Nobody in particular.” Commander-1 responded.
05-9 was not impressed. “You really shouldn’t have come here, zero.” With a quick wrench of her hands, she broke the neck of Commander-3. O5-0’s expression did not change.
“Shall we fight?” O5-9 said.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Because I have things to do. Unlike you, I still have an organization.”
“If you have seen all I have, then you would not be in such a hurry.” O5-0 mused.
“Oh, fuck off,” O5-9’s voice rose to an angry pitch. “I’m tired of this bullshit!”
“I see you’re still mad.” O5-O said.
“Of course I’m still mad. I was…I was…human…I had a husband, family. Now I can’t even remember their names, their faces…I can’t even remember what it felt like.”
The strange creature known as O5-9 changed back to a humanoid appearance, a woman with graying hair and lines beginning to tug at her face. “This is what I looked like,” She said. “At least, I think it is. But honestly, I don’t even know.”
“You were always too emotional. No wonder O1 so easily swayed you.”
O5-9 reached out a hand and sent O5-O flying against the wall. He stood up in the form of a man wearing golden robes and a crown.
“Oh, you’re better than this.”
“I’m tired,” O5-9 said flatly. “I’m tired of all this.”
“Well, then, if this is what you want.” O5-O reached into thin air and took out a flaming sword.
O5-9 also reached into thin air, pulling out a spear made of grey steel.
“Why couldn’t O1 show up?” Commander-1 asked.
“It’s rather a funny story,” O9 began smiling as she rushed towards him. “If I tell you, will you tell me how you got the sword?” Sparks flew where the two weapons hit.
“Sure”
“You see I made a proposition to our good buddy O1,” O9 continued as she fought. “Me and a few other council members have this plan, but we need our good buddy O1’s support. Now, he doesn’t want to give his support because it involves killing a bunch of the O5 council. So, I made a wager, if I kill you, then he’ll agree.”
O9 lept in the air, flying down towards O0, who simply dashed out of the way. However, O9 simply landed on her feet, jumped into the air, did a backflip, and landed her spear directly onto O0’s sword. Sparks flew, and 09 was pushed back into the air. As she flew towards the wall, she tossed her spear into the air. It flew upwards, sailing down towards O0. At that exact moment, O5-9’s back slammed into the wall, but she merely pushed herself off, bouncing back, and heading straight towards O0. At that exact moment, O0 had one object coming in from above him, and one right across from him. He only had time to block one of them.
So, he simply moved to the side. Both spear and O9 impact to the right of him, but O9 simply grabbed the spear and thrust it towards O0, who dodged it.
When O9 landed on the ground, the pavement cracked beneath her.
“So,” O0 asked. “Why did you agree? You know no one can kill me.”
O9 chuckled. “Or so it would seem. Now, how did you get that?”
“The Gate Guardian is dead.”
“Oh no. We’ll have to change his class to neutralized.”
O0 laughed.
O9 brought her sword down.
O0 suddenly stopped. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? For me to laugh? All those years, you would never stop talking. Everytime I gave a slight compliment, you turned into a little puppy.”
O9 said nothing.
“I could never be who you wanted, and so you helped that…that bastard overthrow me.”
“It was either that or have the world end.”
“Well, what do you think is happening now?” The man raised his arms up.
O9 sighed. “140 years. We had about 140 years as a result. Humankind landed on the moon, invented milkshakes, and created I Love Lucy.”
O0 face contorted into a grin. “Those are very specific.”
O9 sighed. “You know, I used to want to make you laugh, now I just want to make you scream. Scream for a million years.”
She raised an image in the air, being careful not to look at it. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” O0 groaned. “That was your plan?”
A wall broke open as a pale creature entered the room.
With a simple swipe, O0 cut him clean in half.
“You really are far too…” he looked around.
“Hello?” There was no one there. The door to the bunker was closed.
He went towards the hole the anomaly had created. It led to another room of the bunker, in which sat a large metal box. Inside the box were the words “Scranton Reality Anchor.”
Then, he walked back to the creature he had just murdered. He should have noticed when it didn’t bleed. Under the skin was a jungle of wires and a large device, now cut in half. It also read “Scranton Reality Anchor.”
A laugh blossomed from his lips.
He went towards the door. “Oh…okay..very funny…but you know this won’t work.”
The voice on the other side was soft but sharp. “I hope you suffer. Every cage we built was because of you. You will shrink away to nothing but a monster, just as you turned me into one, just as the entire world is turning into one. Enjoy.
“I’m already a monster.”
He plunged the flaming sword into the ground, and four flaming wings burst from his back.
“I gave you everything! Everything! I did all of this! I am KING SOLOMON!”
He flew towards the wall, but the sound of humming had already begun. An invisible fist punched him back. He looked down, to the spear of the non-believer, lying on the floor and humming. His sword cut a trail of red in the air as he sailed down. A wave of night unfurled from the crash, eclipsing everything. Then, he was lost in darkness.
__
On October 33rd, Valentina opened her eye. The lower half of her left hand was gone, as it had been the previous 6 times she woke up. She kept expecting it to be there, as if it had merely been hiding in secret, waiting to jump up and surprise her.
“Hey,” Auqui said in Spanish. “Have a nice sleep?”
“My back itches. And this bed sucks. And this cast is uncomfortable.”
“Well, I see you’re recovering.”
There was a pause.
Auqui then changed to English. “I made a new friend. Hey, Nails, meet my sister, Val.”
Val turned around to see a boy lying on a bed, facing away from her.”
The kid grunted a hello.
“Hello.” she responded, then turned to face Auqui. “Nails?”
“It’s a nickname. His real name’s Niles.”
Auqui then switched back to Spanish. “I think he’s going through some stuff, so we should be, you know, nice to him.”
“We’re all going through some stuff.” Val responded in Spanish.
“Yeah, but I overheard him crying last night, or day, whatever. He was crying, but he was doing it all quiet and stuff, like he was embarrassed.”
“Why are we assuming that he doesn’t speak spanish?” Val hissed.
“Yeah, why are you?” Niles said in perfect Spanish.
There was a pause as Auqui’s eyes grew wide. Val burst out into laughter.
“Your pronunciation is a bit off.” Auqui grumbled.
“Oh…your face…” Val laughed.
“Sorry.” Auqui said.
“Just leave me alone.” Niles said.
“Look…I…I…I just wanted…”
“Mind your own business.”//
_
On October 39th, the foundation saw the being on the other side of 2317, The Door, had disappeared.
Another instance of 1861, The Crew of the HMS Winchester, occurred. It was also during this moment that the seventh bride of the Scarlet King gave birth to an entity resembling a red spider about the size of a human child. This spider quickly grew to become approximately 80 meters tall, and then proceeded to make its way across North America at an anomalously quick speed, eventually diving into the red lake and disappearing.
//It was October 34th.
Niles woke up and immediately regretted it. The warehouse was too cold, and his body was still hurting, and all of reality was ruined by his thoughts. Even the strange dreams that had plagued his seats since the 31st were far preferable to the real world.
When he looked at his right side, he saw an empty bed. For some reason, he was a bit disappointed.
It was at that moment when he realized his guitar was destroyed. His Mom had bought it for him on his 10th birthday. The amp Dr. Anthalt gave him was probably also destroyed.
In fact, all of the objects he once had were now gone. The only thing left was that stupid guitar pick, which was still lying on the cot.
After that, his attempts to stop himself from crying proved futile. Eventually, he ran out of tears, and there was nothing left to do but sit in the bed and think. He thought about the 05 person in the car. He had mentioned being in contact with Dr. Anthalt, but didn’t Dr. Anthalt call him a her? Maybe he was in contact with multiple 05s.
His thinking was interrupted by a voice. “Hello.” It was Auqui.
“Hey.”
“How is it going?” Auqui asked.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to tell you that we’re not gonna be here anymore.”
“I got that from context.” Niles muttered.
Auqui plopped himself on the side of Nile’s bed.
“Maybe I just wanted to see you.”
Niles did not know how to respond.
“How’d you learn Spanish?” Auqui asked.
“I’m half filipino.” Niles sat up.
“Cool. Is that like a lizard or something?” Auqui swung his legs back and forth in the air.
“What? No. The Philippines, it’s a country. Pretty sure everyone there got turned into seaweed creatures or something.”
“Oh…cool, I mean no, not cool, sorry. That must suck. Uhhh…so… wanna know why I speak English?”
“Why?” Niles asked.
“You’re gonna be shocked…school. Dun! Dun! Dun!”
“Oh.” A slight smile appeared on Nile’s face.
There was a pause.
“Do you wanna hear a secret?” Auqui asked.
“I…guess?”
Auqui leaned in close to Niles’ ear. “I came because I left my book here.”//
On October 40th, the entirety of Australia was overtaken by 5007, as well as New Zealand and various other nearby islands.
//It was October 34th.
Various red stains sat in chairs.
“The Administrator isn’t going to like this.” 05-1 said.
“So what, is old grey eyes not gonna choose us for the avatar job?” 05-9 said.
“So…you killed 5 members of the council, now what?”
“No thank you for not killing you?” 05-2 said.
“You can’t kill me.” If 05-1 had eyes, then he would have rolled them.
“So…are we going to be getting new members now…or…” O5-4 squaked nervously.
“It doesn’t really matter.” O5-1 shrugged.
“More people would be nice…” O5-9 offered.
“Look, if you want to go waste your time, then sure, but you’re gonna have to do the whole ritual thing yourself, okay?” O5-1 snorted.
Following his words, the only sound in the room was the faint whispering of O5-4’s hands fidgeting.
“I know this may not be the perfect moment, but we do need to discuss it…the dreams.” 05-12 said.
There was a pause.
“Well…it’s funny you should mention it, but I know of a particular solution to that problem…” 05-9 began.//
___
On October 42cnd, a massive metal being emerged from the red lake and made its way to The Neo-Daevite Empire. The Neo-Daevites sent a message to The Federation saying that their god had arrived.
In the next couple of days, the empire underwent an impossibly massive change. Massive cities and forests made of unknown material suddenly appeared.
Footage from The Neo-Daevite Empire showed that all termite people had turned into massive anomalous red globs of goo with glowing yellow orbs in their interior.
During this event, about 10,000 people around the world turned to anomalies of various shapes and sizes and then disappeared.
It was also on this day that a universe believed to be the one associated with 1861 began to bleed into reality, with various people in certain locations turning into red mist.
_
//It was October 36th.
The entire underground bunker was like a dentist's office stretching to infinity. The fluorescent lights stared coldly down at Niles as he was led by an armored guard through unending gray corridors. In his right hand was a crutch. In his left pocket was the guitar pick. That night had featured another strange dream, one with large creatures and battles filled with hellfire.
Eventually, he and the guard stopped in front of a door marked B5.
The orphanage was overcrowded, but Niles still managed to find an empty cot.
“Hey,” It was Auqui. “How’s it been going at the ol’ warehouse?”
“Fine,” Niles responded. “At one point a balloon went up to me and began talking.”
“Oh yeah, he comes by regularly to cheer people up.”
“Oh.”
“So…uh…I see you’ve made yourself comfortable. I’m over there…and my sister is over there. Well, she’s usually there. She’s been sneaking off and stuff, got a whole punk attitude and…uh…yeah. We’re not supposed to leave unless we get permission, apparently we’re like, constantly in danger of being attacked by something…and uhhh…” As he spoke, Auqui oscillated between fidgeting and gesturing with his hands.
There was a pause before Auqui spoke again.
“Maybe you could get a sharpie, get people to sign your cast. Sorry, am I talking too much?”
“It’s fine.” Niles sighed.
This was all interrupted by a sudden shouting and a blaring of alarms.
Moving down the hall were three creatures. One was like a massive ball of yarn, made entirely out of long tendrils of flesh. The second was a large sphere of feathers that cut the ground where it moved. The third was a massive shambling beast made of metal, with flesh messily affixed to it.
Valentina watched it all from a crack in the door. She was in a large room full of machinery, and had been smoking into an air vent when the alarms went off.
Now, she simply watched as a squad of people in black armor approached the monsters and began firing. There were 12 soldiers at first, until one of the men was grabbed by a tentacle of flesh and smashed against the roof of the building.
A second soldier was lost when the beast made of metal shot a beam of light which reduced them to a black puddle. The light had barely left the beast's metal hand before a round of bullets sent it flying back against an elevator door.
The ball of flesh grabbed another man, who, before being smashed against a wall, shot out a device which punctured the ball. For a moment, the device blinked a red light and a high-pitched noise, before exploding into a hurricane of fire that sent hunks of meat against the walls.
The metal beast had rebounded, and was currently running back towards the soldiers. Meanwhile, the creature made of wings jumped into the air, filling the hallway with the screams of two men and the shrieks of their ripping armor. Another soldier shot at the ball of feathers, but the bullet bounced off, and they never got the chance to pull the trigger again, as the arm of the metal beast was suddenly erupting out of their chest.
There was a sudden scream of orange as a fire erupted from a flamethrower, only for the soldier who held it to also be speared by the metal beast. The flamethrower flew through the air, landing on the ground right next to the winged creature. A blood soaked hand reached out from the mass of feathers, grabbing the flamethrower and turning it towards the ball of feathers.
The water shooting from the sprinklers on the ceiling splattered on the armor of the wave of soldiers which had just appeared, opening fire on the ball of flame and the blur of metal zig-zagging across the hall. Meanwhile, the various bits of flesh on the wall had begun to move towards each other.
It was at this point that Valentina shut the door. Outside, the clamors of metal and explosions jumped freely against each other. Her missing arm was screaming madly as it burned with an endless fury.
Once the hurricane of shrieks had stilled, she cracked open the door. The hall was entirely covered in red. The only motion was the dripping from the ceiling.
She knew that if she got out of the door, turned right, then turned right again, she would be in front of a door marked B5, and inside that door was the orphanage. She also knew that there would be an unmarked door next to it, and this door led to a janitor's closet which just so happened to connect to the orphanage.
She took a deep breath, opened the door fully and began to walk. Piles of red lay everywhere. A soft plopping noise came from her hat as drops of blood landed on it.
The only life was a man sitting on the floor, completely naked, a massive hole in his chest, staring at nowhere. “The wings,” he muttered to himself. “They took the wings.” He did not notice as she snuck behind him.
Eventually, she turned right. Her beaten down shoes left red footprints on the now white floor, but her mind was not on that.//
//It was a few hours later. Valentina had managed to make it back to the orphanage without any adults seeing her. Unfortunately, adults were the least of her worries.
“Where were you?!” Auqui tried not to yell too loudly. Both him and Valentina were in a corner.
“A place.”
“You can’t just leave. I thought you were dead.”
“Okay. Okay.” Valentina sighed. Her eyes moved everywhere in the room except for where Auqui was, including where Niles sat, badly pretending not to be listening in.
“No, it’s not okay.”
“You don’t need to protect me.”
“When we left…Dad said…” Auqui spoke slowly.
“Dad is dead.” the words flew out of Valentina’s mouth, landing with a bang on the floor and echoing in a long pause.
“Wait…I shouldn’t have s…” Valentina began to say, but Auqui was already storming off.
_
Auqui was hunkered behind his cot in a pile of sobs when Niles came towards him.
“H-” Niles began.
“Oh, here comes Mr. Mind Your Own Business, here to mind someone else's business.” Aqui snapped.
“I haven’t e-”
“I’m fine. I’m totally fine. La-de-da. The sky is bright. The sun is blue. It’s beautiful.”
“I…I was gonna say I’m sorry for being rude earlier…” Niles sighed and turned away.
__
October 37th
Valentina was laying on her cot, making a drawing of a hideous crowned figure. The orphanage provided pieces of paper and crayons.
“I see you’ve moved on to self portraits.” It was Auqui, right behind her.
Valentina slammed the paper face down onto the cot. “Wow. It seems this place is just full of people who don’t know about privacy.”
There was a pause.
“So…what was that?”
“Nothing.” She didn’t say it was a figure she saw in a dream.
“So,” Auqui said. “Uh, I feel like…we…are we good?”
“Sure.”
“I just…well…” Auqui trailed off.
“I’m sorry.”
“Good.”
Auqui nodded, then walked off.
Suddenly, there was the sound of a metal door creaking open. A man in black armor had entered the room.
His black boots slammed against the floor as he made his way towards the custodian of the orphanage, an elderly woman with an unusually high pitched voice. The armored man said something to the custodian, who then pointed at Valentina. When the soldier reached Valentina’s cot, he merely bent down and picked up her shoes. A thick layer of red covered their soles.
“Valentina Chayanca?” he asked her.
“Yeah?”
“You’re wanted.”
__
A dark man with grey glasses stared down at Valentina.
“I don’t have much time, so I’m gonna be straight with you, are you an anomaly?” The man spoke in a vaguely hispanic accent.
“A what?”
The man sighed. “Were you paying attention to the video?”
“What video?”
“Th…oh my god…are we not showing a…fuck…I mean…frick…whatever! Look, are you human?”
Valentina spoke slowly. “Yeah…of course.”
“Are you working for an organization?”
“No?”
“Have you ever worked for an organization?”
“The Catholic Girl Scouts of Peru, but I got kicked out because I defaced a st-”
The man sighed again. “Why were you not in the…children place.”
Valentina met the man’s sigh with one of his own “I was smoking.”
“Aren’t you too young for that?”
“Yeah, I just…I didn’t even like it, but you know, if I’m not sneaking away to do bad stuff…then well, what am I doing?”
The man nodded. “Jesus christ. Okay. You’re telling the truth. Don’t break any rules again. You can go.”
Valentina blinked. “Am I in trouble?”
“Are you kidding? The world is going to shit. I don’t care. This has been a waste of my time and yours.”
The man pointed, and Valentina headed towards the door. As her hand hovered above the doorknob, she turned towards the man. “Those things…what were they?”
“Anomalies. They’ve all been going psycho lately. Well, more psycho than they usually are.”
“The…the man…he was murmuring about…wings.”
“Dead. Look this isn’t Q and A. If you’re not the son of The Scarlet King then I want you to leave.”
“Okay.”
“Who was that?” Auqui asked her when she returned.
“Just some dude with glasses. The guard said he was an 05 or 06 or something.”
_
That evening.//
//An old projector was displaying a movie on the orphanage wall. It was a 1997 Romanian knock off of “The Little Mermaid” with no subtitles, made with stop motion. It was one of the three “Foundation Approved” films, as almost all media had been corrupted by some sort of mental disease involving a mouse.
Valentina was off in a corner, drawing.
Auqui plopped down next to Niles.
“Sorry.” Auqui said.
“What?”
“Sorry.”
“For what?” Niles asked.
“I dunno.”
“Ok.”
For a few seconds, they let the sounds of a Chinese voice actress fill up the space between them.
“Have you seen this before?” Auqui asked.
“No, it’s banned in the U.S. Of course I’ve seen it before.”
Auqui laughed.
“It wasn’t funny.” Niles remarked.
“It’s the delivery that is truly important.”
“Oh…I see. Did you graduate from the Peruvian School of Sarcasm?” A soft twinkle shone in Nile’s eyes as he spoke.
“First in my class. I majored in irony. My teachers said I was great, but I’m not sure if they meant it.”
Niles laughed.
___
It was the night of October 39th.
There was a special room on the side of the orphanage with pink pillowed walls, reminiscent of a mental asylum for 6 year old girls. If you woke up in the middle of the night screaming, then you could go into said room.
Valentina did not want to go into the room. However, when she woke up that night, she was greeted by the stare of the custodian of the orphanage, scowling at her from their desk. The custodian never seemed to sleep.
When Valentina woke up in the middle of the night last night, she had not gone in, and the same thing had occurred the two other nights before that. With every night, the custodian had gone up to her and said she could go in the room “if she wanted to”.
However, that night, she decided that she was tired of saying no, so she went into the pink room. Before she entered, the custodian handed her a lollipop, which was customary for entering the pink room. She placed it in her pocket.
When she entered the room, all she found was Niles, a wrapped lollipop in his hand.
Neither spoke to each other as Valentina sat on the pillowed floor.
The silence eventually stopped when Niles spoke to Valentina. “Hey, do you want this? The custodian gave me this, but I…I didn’t want to tell her that my nightmare involved me eating a lollipop with a red scorpion in it.”
“That’s not very funny.”
“That’s because it’s not a joke. Do you want it?”
Valentina took her lollipop out of her pocket. “I already have one.”
“Want another?”
“Sure.”
Valentina caught the thrown lollipop in midair.
“Nice catch.” Niles said.
“Thanks.”
The lollipop tasted strange on Valentina’s tongue. It was during its consumption that she realized it had been 4 years since she had a lollipop. When she was young, she had lollipops every couple of months. Nowadays, she barely had any lollipops, or all that much candy. Normally, Valentina wasn’t flooded with memories upon tasting food, but she supposed it was a result of everything she had experienced. The lollipop did taste strange, however, despite the fact it was supposed to be root beer flavored. Perhaps it was just because it was a different kind than she was used to.
Another moment passed. The silence was so awkward that Valentina’s mouth moved for her. “My brother seems to…enjoy your presence.”
“Oh…uhhh…yeah.” Niles blushed slightly.
“Yeah, cool.”
When Valentina was finished with the first lollipop, she had the other one. It was supposed to be pineapple flavored, but it tasted the same as the previous. It was then when she realized that if the world hadn’t ended, she might never have gotten to have a lollipop again. Adult’s didn’t eat lollipops, and she was almost an adult.
“Do these…taste strange to you?” Valentina asked.
“I haven’t had one…the dreams and all..started when I got here.”
This all seemed rather strange to Valentina.//
__
On October 50th, there were only 3 anomalies in captivity: 999, 173, and The Girl.
About 4 million human beings were alive on Planet Earth.
On October 37th, a massive theme park called Fundertainmentland appeared a few miles outside of London. It began to rapidly grow, spreading until it covered the entire island. All foundation tech stopped working within a 48 meter distance from the theme park, and all teams sent in did not come back.
Also on October 37th, a message reading “5001 has opened” was sent from an unknown email address to a few high ranking doctors. The foundation was not able to verify the veracity of this statement due to the presence of 610.
//It was October 43rd.
Niles stared at the guitar pick. Why had Dr. Anthalt called it a gold coin? And why had he offered it to him? It made no sense. If only he had talked to him. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was all he could think about. Well, it was one of four things that he could only think about.
“Hey.” It was Auqui.
“Hmm.”
“You play guitar?” Auqui asked
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason, I just like asking people that question. It’s because of the pick, you silly elephant.”
Niles put the pick down. “Wow, that sarcasm school must have been crazy. Yeah, I play. Well, I played. My guitar broke.”
“Oh cool, what kind of guitar was it?”
“A stratocaster. Electric.”
“Cool.”//
By October 54th, there were about 800,000 humans left. All of these humans were in foundation run facilities.
On October 52cnd, Ferdinand the Cannibal led an army of 1006 entities in a charge on a foundation encampment in Spain. However, the federation had abandoned the Eurasian continent three days earlier, and the encampment had been rigged to explode in the case of attacks.
On October 49th, the Serpent's Hand sent a psychic message to every human being that they were all going to The Wanderer’s Library. All who wished to go simply had to state their desire clearly in their mind, and they would be teleported to the library, where they would assume the form of a librarian. The dehumanization of becoming a librarian was stated in the message, as well as the gradual erasure of former memories, personalities, and individuality. After that day, no one else would be allowed to go in.
About 12 million people accepted this offer.
__
//It was October 49th.
There was a room with a screen on the ceiling. The only thing this screen showed was the sky. Right now, it was engulfed in black, with freckles of stars dotting night’s face.
Currently, Auqui and Niles were the only ones in the room, making use of their fifteen minutes of allowed unsupervised time.
“Are you going to accept the offer?” Augui asked.
“No.” Niles responded.
“Not gonna even think about it?”
“I thought about it, and I don’t wanna. I like being human.”
Auqui nodded. “Same.”
Niles turned to Auqui. “Do you think we’re gonna survive?”
“No,” Auqui said truthfully. “I knew we weren’t the second we left my house…”
“Oh.”
Auqui leaned against Niles. “Sorry, I’m being a bummer.”
“It’s fine.”
A flood of silence filled the room. The clock on the wall showed they only had 4 minutes left. If Auqui wanted to do it, he had to do it now.
“You know,” Auqui began to say, sweat trickling down his forehead. “We should-we should probably…make…you know…the time we have…”
“What?”
“I…I…nevermind. Forget it.” Auqui muttered.
Another awful silence came.
Auqui shuffled away from Niles.
A moment passed before Niles grabbed Auqui’s hand.
“Thank you.” Niles said.
“For what?”
“I guess, for reminding me…for reminding me I have something to live for.”
This was the perfect moment. Nile’s face was only half a foot away.
Auqui smiled. “Happy to be of service.” he gleamed, then turned away.
Every surface inside his mind displayed the word ‘coward’.//
___
Nothing too extraordinarily occurred between October 57th and October 73rd. About 20,000 people died or were transformed during this time. These deaths were due to both anomalies and also the ecological calamities resulting from Yellowstone exploding.
__
//It was October 65th.
When the door to the pink room opened, Niles immediately assumed who it was. He was wrong.
“Hey.” Auqui said as he walked in, a lollipop in his hand.
“Hey.” Niles responded.
Auqui flopped onto the floor and stared at the lollipop.
“I got pineapple flavor,” he blurted. “I don’t really like pineapple. Val often comes here, right? Does she like pineapple? Probably. She has bad taste.”
“Yeah, she seems to like these.”
“My Mom used to make these awful quiches, and I…well…yeah.”
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s not important.” Auqui messed with his hands.
“Have a bad dream?” Niles asked.
“No, I don’t dream. You?”
“Yeah. I have this recurring dream, there’s a lollipop in it, and a guy with red armor. You know, if you don’t want the lollipop, then just stick it between the cushions, some other kid can have it.”
“Oh,” Auqui responded as he stuck his hand in a gap on the floor. “Sure. A good deed, heh?”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause.
“So,” Niles asked. “Why did you come here?”
Auqui shuffled on his knees towards Niles and cupped his head in his hands.
“Do you want me to be here?”
Niles' response was to lean forward and push his lips against Auqui’s.
A silent moment passed between the two of them in that little pink room as they let their breaths collide.
Auqui leaned his head against Nile’s. A soft smile spread across Auqui’s face as the linoleum lights flickered in his amber eyes.//
//It was October 70th.
“Is there…something wrong?” Auqui asked Niles, his face barely visible in the dim light of the janitor’s closet.
“No…no…I just…I just feel like…maybe…I feel like this isn’t the thing you’re supposed to do when you’re…mourning.” He didn’t add how he felt like a woman who had just murdered her husband and was now having sex with her gardener.
“Okay…we can…” Auqui muttered.
“No…no…I. I deserve to be happy. Are you…okay?”
Auqui nodded. “I’m fine.” He didn’t mention how he felt like he was having a party over his parent’s graves.
Niles kissed Auqui again, and they stood like that for a moment, Auqui leaning against the wall, holding a mop so it wouldn’t fall over. Then, Niles leaned away from him. “I…I feel like I killed the moment.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Auqui rose to his full height.
There was a sudden clamor from outside the closet. The two stared at each other, then Auqui slowly opened the door, peering through the crack into the orphanage. When he saw what was there, he froze. “What? What is it?” Niles whispered. Aqui’s hand let go of the doorknob, letting the door slowly open. “What are you doing,” Niles asked. “We’re g…oh.”
His face turned white when he saw it.
The door of the orphanage was knocked off its hinges. All eyes were focused on the center of the room. Valentina was at the side of the room, staring with eyes as large as dinner plates.
In the center of the room was what looked vaguely like a man. He was giant, with massive horns and fangs as well as a Santa Hat. Staring directly at him was the custodian. “We’re below the line!” she yelled.
The creature laughed. “There aren’t any children elsewhere! It’s a tough economy.” He then reached into a massive red sack and pulled out a large club covered in skin.
The custodian turned red, and then the floor turned even more red as the custodian's head split open, revealing a massive machine gun where a skull should have been.
The club caught every single bullet as the creature raced towards the custodian. Then, the club was casting a shadow over the machine gun and the creature was laughing maniacally. The custodian grabbed the club with one hand. The creature's eyes unfolded in shock. Then, the machine gun shot out of the custodian’s head and slammed into the creature’s right eye.
Dark green blood spurted out, and his scream was like a dying elephant. His club swung upwards, taking the custodian's arm along with it. It then fell back down, smashing the custodian’s body like it was made of glass. As meat splattered outwards, a creature jumped out from the center of the whirlpool of flesh. It looked like a large squirrel with hands.
The squirrel jumped onto the creature’s face and pulled the trigger on the machine gun, creating a hole right through the creature's head. This should have killed the creature, but it continued to thrash about. With one strong movement of its head, it knocked the squirrel creature off, sending it flying through the air. The squirrel landed against a cot.
The creature reached into its sack and got out another object, a spear made out of bone. It rushed towards the squirrel, leaping above a large pile of red where the custodian had been before. As it did, the pile turned into a pillar, which turned into an arm and a hand that grabbed the creature and slammed it onto the ground. The creature raised a massive foot and kicked the arm, sending it skidding across the floor.
The squirrel rushed towards the arm and then jumped into it. The creature rolled around the floor, but the arm still managed to hit it in the chest. The white spear turned red as the creature sank it into the arm. The arm continued to smash into the creature’s chest. The creature ripped the spear out of the arm and then brought it back down again, only for the arm to leap at it and smash right through it. The arm crashed onto the floor, and the creature skiddled away, reaching for its sack. From it, it grabbed a medieval style ball and chain, with the spiked ball a human head with spikes coming out of it, the stick being made of bone, and the chain being made of rings of skin.
The creature rushed towards the arm, which dodged, sending the creature flying into the wall. The arm then leapt towards the creature, who spun around and smashed the arm with the flesh mace. Red splattered everywhere, revealing a blood soaked squirrel.
The creature slammed the ball and chain into the squirrel, pummeling it with the head. As it did, the various pieces of the arm began moving towards each other.
“You have made this far too difficult!” it screamed. A mighty roar then jumped from its mouth, only to be smothered by a ribbon made of the former parts of the arm, flying into its mouth.
The creature’s blue face began to turn purple as its body bulged, the ribbon of flesh swimming through its body. The creature continued to rain blows down on the squirrel, which seemed to be laughing. but each blow had less fury than the last. Eventually, the creature tipped forward, and landed flat on the squirrel.
Then, there was silence. A squad of armored soldiers came into the room, only to find it was too late. They overturned the creature, revealing the splatter below.
Auqui realized he was sitting on the ground. Niles was leaning against him, his head buried in his chest, tears soaking his shirt. Auqui engulfed Niles’ trembling body in his arms.
Valentina ran up to him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
She fell onto her knees and pulled him into a hug.
_
That night.//
//A few hours had passed. No one but the custodian and the creature had been hurt. All of the orphans were currently in a large space which seemed to have previously been used for shooting practice, but who’s silhouettes of monsters were covered in cobwebs. Auqui thought it was funny that the foundation specifically had silhouettes of monsters made. Was it someone’s job to do it? Were they paid? Really, he should have been thinking about what some random person in a lab coat had told them, that the custodian had been a squirrel piloting a magical mech suit made out of human flesh, but his mind could only take so much.
Next to him, Niles was lying on a mat, his eyes closed.
Valentina sat down next to Auqui. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
There was a pause. “I just realized something.” Auqui said, turning towards Valentina.
“What?” A flicker of concern alighted in Valentina’s eyes.
“I…I have some math homework I didn’t turn in.” He broke out into laughter. Valentina rolled her eyes.
“Now is not the time.”
“You thought it was funny.”
“I did not.”
“You smiled a little.” Auqui teased.
“No, I didn’t.”
There was another pause. Auqui looked down at Niles, who was still motionless.
“You,” Valentina said. “You two…”
“Yeah?” Auqui turned back towards Valentina.
“You hang around a lot together.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s nice.”
“Yeah.” Auqui said.
“We’ve talked in the pink room. I think he likes you a lot.” Valentina blurted.
“Oh. Cool.” Auqui blushed.
There was a pause.
“I saw Dad.” Valentina blurted.
“What?”
“The night we left the house. I saw Dad. He was…changing, and I just…I couldn’t do anything. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, and I…but I know…he’s not there anymore…”
Auqui said nothing.
Valentina took off her blue hat. “I…you’re my little brother. I should be the one protecting you, but instead…I’m sneaking off…being an idiot…god.”
Auqui sighed. “If you hadn’t…if you hadn’t gone back for the hat…then we would have gone to the trucks with the rest of them, and…we wouldn’t be here now. Maybe we could all be a bit more idiotic.”
Valentina chuckled. “You’re already doing a good job at that aren’t you?”
Auqui snickered. “I made that too easy…”//
//That night, Valentina didn’t sleep. Instead, she took out 12 lollipops from her bag. After her first night, she had decided it would be better to store them instead, saving them for a special occasion.
She only planned to have one but had nothing but empty wrappers by the end. There was just something about them that made memories come back to her.//
_
On October 59th, the foundation ordered all remaining living beings to relocate to encampments underground.
__
//It was October 72cnd.
The orders were simple: if you began to experience certain symptoms, you went to the medical wing. When Valentina woke up on October 71st struggling to breathe with a forest of pain in her stomach, she ignored them. Then, October 72cnd came and she woke up with a fever, barely able to move, with her chest feeling like it was shriveling up.
For once in her life, Valentina followed orders.
“Let me help you.” Auqui said.
“I’m fine.” Valentina replied. She walked four feet down the hall before falling onto the ground.
“I’m gonna get you sick.” she said as Auqui pulled her up.
“It’s fine. They probably have a cure for it, whatever it is.”
She leaned against him as they trudged to the medical wing, where a nurse told him to go back.
“See you in an hour or so.” Auqui said.
“You’re too optimistic.” Valentina’s mouth was beginning to get heavy.
“Okay then, see you in a coffin.” Auqui chuckled as he left. The humor in his voice was as thin as paper, not even covering the squirming anxiety below. The second syllable of “coffin” was spoken much quieter and quicker than the first.
They took a blood sample from her arms. “We’re just going to do some tests, and then you’ll be okay, okay?” the nurse said.
“You don’t have to lie.” Valentina struggled to open her mouth enough to squeeze the words out.
“Good, because I’m not.” the nurse said as she left.
The minute hand of the clock slowly drifted. With every click, her bones seemed to harden. By the time the hand had gone from 2 to 9, the ocean of reality had completely submerged her, and the truth was certain.
Valentina’s desire to move was squashed by her inability to do so. It felt like her skeleton was holding her down. A thin layer of sweat was coating her face. She was beginning to feel something moving inside of her skin. Her only company in the room was the ticking of the clock.
It seemed best for Valentina to focus on one movement. She lifted her pinkie finger. Then, she lifted her thumb. Then, she breathed in and lifted her entire arm. A terrifying crack joined the ticking of the clock. She had a good view of her arm, whose skin was bulging where it shouldn’t. It looked like her bones were weighing it down.
Her legs shook and trembled as she shifted her weight onto her legs. With a symphony of creaks, her body lifted into the air. She took a step into the air. There was another crack, then a snap, and she could feel something falling inside of her. The bottom of her leg bulged. When she looked down at it, a cracking came from her neck, and she felt her head fall. Her attempts to try to move proved futile.
It didn’t matter. She had to get to the door. She had to see Auqui again. Another step was dragged out of her, this one also ending in a crack. The world titled and she fell onto her hand. The door was only a few feet away. If she could have gritted her teeth, then she would have. She lifted her hand forward and then down again, dragging herself towards the door. One rise, then another rise, then another rise, and she was at the door. All she had to do was one more rise, and she could grab the doorknob.
Then, there were the sounds of stomping and someone grabbed her. It was the nurse from earlier.
“No…no…you can’t.” the nurse groaned.
Valentina tried to scream. The bandages on her face and arm had fallen into ripped pieces on the ground.
“Look,” the nurse said as she placed Valentina on the chair. “It appears your symptoms…are…are much worse…than I thought…I’m gonna give you a sedative, alright?”
The nurse stood up. “You’re going to be alright, okay? I’m guessing from your arm and eye that you’ve already survived a lot. You’re a brave girl, okay?”
The door slammed behind her. The clock continued to click. Valentina could not move. In the corner of her eye, she could see something slowly growing out of her face, reaching for the ceiling. It must have been coming from the hole where her other eye had once been. Moving her eye downwards, she could make out a long spear of bone which had taken the place of her left arm.
Valentina could vaguely hear her voice. “There’s no need!”
Another voice said something unintelligible.
“Yes, I’m sure!” the nurse hissed.
There was a pause before the door opened. Valentina could softly hear a man talking. “Oh, shit…shit…oh, she definitely has it…yeah, there’s no need for the test, get th-”
“Shhh! She can hear us!”
The door slammed shut. The clock continued to tick. A few moments later, and the door opened again. The nurse entered her field of vision.
“Okay, I’m back, missed me?” The nurse chuckled.
“Okay…this is just a sedative. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay…”
Within Valentina’s mind, she saw Auqui. He would hate that his last words to her were “see you in a coffin”. Those words would stick onto his neck, burying their claws into his skin and refusing to let go. She hoped he would realize that it didn’t matter.
The syringe sank into her skin. A hand grabbed her own.
“You’re going to be okay…you’re going to be okay.”
She held onto the thought of Auqui for as long as she could, like he was a rope dangling above a precipice. She refused to let go, to give into the yawning darkness lurking beneath. But her hand was growing weak, and the abyss was coming.
_
Niles’ arms were wrapped around Auqui’s trembling body, tears dripping onto his shirt.
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Niles didn’t say anything.
“I hate them. I hate everything.” Auqui said.
“Me too.”
There was a quiet before Niles spoke again.
“I don’t…I don’t know what to say to you.”
“This is enough.”//
_
On October 74th, the sea of flesh covering Asia rippled and pulsed. From it stretched a massive being. Yaldaboth made no move, as it was still lost in its slumber.
At that exact same time, unusual activity began to occur in West Europe. All 217 entities merged with each other into a mass of gears which slowly carved a path above the Atlantic Ocean to North America. There, the mass combined with the various 6217 beings. Black and blue tendrils stuck out from them, melding together. To form the shape of a massive creature. These tendrils lifted various objects into the air including 882, 808, and 804. These objects grew, filling the space between the tendrils. Eventually, the creature formed. This creature was Mekane.
During this event, about 300,000 people turned into bizarre anomalous beings of various shapes and sizes and then disappeared.
On October 48th
4971-1, Biphi the goddess of secrets, escaped from 4971. The only reason the Foundation knew so is because satellite footage showed it jumping into The Red Lake.
_
//it was October 49th.
166 huddled in a corner in a grey room in Antarctica, her brownish blonde hair messily draped around her horns. A few months ago, her former protectors tried to kill her. She didn’t mean to kill them, or everyone else at Site 37, but it all happened so quickly. The path she traced away from the site now covered in plants was a winding one that eventually took her to a group of people who called themselves the AFF. They took her to this place, along with 3 others. Two of them were killed on the first day by the third one, another girl. She had black eyes, pale skin, and always talked about “Kali”. 166 did not want to kill again, so she fell to her knees and begged the girl for mercy. Somehow this worked.
There had been other humans in the faculty, obviously, but they had also been killed by the black eyed girl. Currently, the black eyed girl was curled up in a ball next to 166. It had been 27 days without any death threats, so she was improving. The black eyed girl wasn’t sleeping, that was for sure, because she would always cry and whimper in her sleep, then refuse to talk about it.
“Are you cold?” 166 asked.
“I am a warrior. Cold is not important to me.”
“Cold is important to all of us. We are all vulnerable, as God made us.”
“Your god is weak,” The black eyed girl groaned. “He did not even try to fight the Romans.”
“Is recognizing your death and embracing it not strength? Is bearing every lash and every nail in a hand not strength? Also, Jesus Christ is not God, he is the son of god, and an aspect of the h-”
The black eyed girl sat up. “Your god is too fucking complicated.”
“Don’t swear.”
“Sorry.” the girl muttered.
“Also,” A slightly mischievous look appeared in 166’s eye. “Kali is the angry form of Vishnu as well as the yoga nidra also known as the cosmic sleep…so maybe no judgment.”
“You’ve been listening?” the girl asked.
“Of course I’ve been listening.”
The girl briefly paused from shock.
“Why…why are you trying to help me?” she asked.
“Because everyone deserves it.”
“Even the people who tried to kill you, and me? The people who called us objects? W-”
The girl’s rant was stopped when 166 was transported to another place, a rippling red world. “Hello, daughter” a voice from nowhere said.
From the crimson nothing strode a massive deer, with a triangle for a head. “I am Biphi.”
166 did not know what to say. Somehow, she knew the creature spoke the truth.
“I’m sorry I did not visit you sooner. Those creatures had trapped me. But, me and your grandfather are pleased to see you,” A vision of a massive red creature appeared. “As well as your six aunts and uncles. And, of course, your brother…” A vision of a deer with a human head appeared.
Somehow, 166 knew that Biphi was smiling despite the lack of a face.
“You can bring the friend of yours two. We’re going to have so much fun.”
Before 166 could say anything, she was back in the world. However, she had changed, in every single way. The faculty was below her now, and it had turned from a metal construction to one entirely made out living matter. She was also transformed, now over ten meters tall. Her body below the chest had turned into that of a deer, while above the chest she was dark orange. In one of her four hands was the girl with black eyes, looking extraordinarily confused.
“I’m sorry,” 166 sighed. “We have to go.”//
_
On October 54th, The Girl disappeared.
On October 56th, a massive humanoid creature emerged from the red lake. It was believed to be The Girl due to various readings from psychics.
This being sprouted wings and flew into the air, disappearing behind the moon.
_
The Girl stared down at Earth, a blue and green pearl slowly rolling. Leaking from it came various lights, unable to be seen with human eyes. When these lights finished flying towards her, they enveloped her in an embrace of holiness.
“Hello, my daughter.” a voice spun from blood crooned.
“Hi Dad.” The Girl smiled.
_
On October 74th, the two beings awoke but did not move.
On October 75th, an unplanned total solar eclipse occurred. Despite all laws of physics, this eclipse would continue perpetually, with neither the sun nor the moon setting.
The sky turned a permanent shade of dark purple.
Interlude: The Present Day
//In the forever darkness, King Solomon walked, till he found a hunched creature sobbing into nothingness. It, or rather, he turned around as he approached, revealing a cracked grey face, with black eyes that could not cry.
“Dr. Scranton, I presume.”
“What have I done?”
King Solomon did not respond.
“Where is this place?” Dr. Scranton asked.
King Solomon chuckled. “The end. Death. This was once a thriving dimension, until The Black Moon was trapped in it and absorbed everything. It’s just like the other dimensions. Does that make sense to you?”
Now it was Dr. Scranton’s turn to laugh. “Of course it doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter. What’s to become of us?”
King Solomon raised his hand, and a flaming sword appeared in it. “Like all dimensions, this one is contained.” The sword swished as he swung it in a circle, revealing four windows to a blank grey wall.
“Soon, it will crack, and then The Black Moon will break free, it will spread from this dimension to our old one, and then…it will feast.”
“This Black Moon, why hasn’t it destroyed us yet?”
King Solomon paused, his expression changing to one of confusion. Then, a smile spread across his face.
“What?” Scranton asked.
“It just told me why.”
“What?”
King Solomon chuckled again. “It needs an avatar.”
Then, he plunged the flaming sword into Dr. Scranton.
The grey man did not get a chance to speak before he collapsed into dust.
King Solomon sighed. “Stupid…stupid girl…and after everything I did.”
He turned his head up. It wasn’t necessary, but his instinct told him to do so when talking to higher beings. “So? Is this a good enough audition for you?”
No response was spoken, but he knew it anyways. “Yes, yes…but that was two hundred years ago. I mean, I wasn’t planning on joining you when I woke up today…but I have nothing else to do…so why not?”//
__
…
Part Three: Life
Night enfolds her cloak of holes
Around the river meadow
Old moon-light stalks by broken plows
Hides spokeless wheels in shadows
Sentries lean on thorn wood spears
Blown on the hands, stare eastwards
Burnt with dream and taught with fear
Dawn’s misty shawl upon them
Three hills apart great armies stir
Spit oat and curse as [redacted]
Forming lines of horse and steel
By even yards, march forward
…
__
//The sun had been black for eight “days”.
“Hey.” It was Auqui.
“You say that alot.” Niles said, then immediately regretted it.
“I just remembered…there was something I wanted to show you. Before uhhh…yeah.”
“Okay.”
They walked out of the open door of the orphanage, which had not been fixed.
Eventually, they made their way to an empty room, with only a single red electric guitar in the center.
Niles turned to Auqui. “You…you…beautiful…was it just…here?”
For the first time in 10 years, Auqui smiled. “Yeah.”
“It’s probably like, evil or something.” Niles said.
“So?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
The neck of the guitar was cold against Niles hands. He took the pick out of his pocket and played the highest string. As the noise verberated through the room, Niles looked at Auqui with wide eyes.
“What?” Auqui asked.
“It’s not plugged in!” Niles said.
“Oh shit.”
Niles chuckled.
“Whatever, c’mon, play something!”
“I…what should I play?”
Auqui cupped Niles face in his hands. “Whatever you want. But…I don’t know, something happy. No, not happy, what’s the word…melancholic, bittersweet.”
“Okay. Uhh…this is kind of a piano song, but it sounds good on guitar too.”
Niles' hands came to life.
“Wait,” Auqui blurted. “You’re not singing.”
“I…I don’t sing.”
“Okay…okay…if that’s what you want to do, fine by me…”
Niles sighed. “Okay.”
Again, the strings trembled against Nile’s fingers.
“Closing time…time for you to go out to the places you will be from. Closing time…turn all of the…turn all of the lights on over every boy and ever…” There was a dissonant sound as Niles hit the wrong notes. “Closing time…one last c…one last call for a…”
The guitar slammed onto the ground. Niles collapsed onto the floor.
“Hey…” Auqui went down to him.
“Sorry…I…I can’t…I…it was stupid, so stupid of me.”
“No, no, you were right, it does work on guitar.’
Niles broke out into a choked laugh. “No, you idiot. It’s not…I…”
He closed his eyes and breathed in. When they opened, he found the eyes of Auqui, anxiously awaiting him.
“I,” Niles croaked. “I…had this guy…he was a friend of my Dad’s. He took care of me, and he…he died…for me. There was…there was this gas…and there was only one gas mask…and he…carried me…and…god, I was such a little shit to him. He mentioned it, this, this song once…and…god, fuck…I’ve been galivanting with you instead of…I don’t know…”
“Being miserable?”
“No…yeah…I guess. It’s the end of the world, people aren’t supposed to find l…to find…a boyfriend.”
Auqui paused before speaking. “Don’t we…deserve to be happy? If the world is so shit…isn’t that more of a reason to do what makes you feel good?”
“I…I suppose,” Niles sniffed. “Sorry for getting all…wheepy.”
“It’s fine.”
Niles rose and grabbed the guitar. “Maybe I…maybe I’ll…okay. Uh, how about something else. Okay…”
The guitar wailed softly as Niles strummed. “Sundown…dazzling ray. Float through my head…but my eyes burn within…only see..starless…and bible black….”
When Niles was done playing, he stood up and hugged Auqui. “I…I…if I die…before you do…I want you to have this.” He held up the pick.
“What?”
“To remember me by…okay?”
“Okay.”//
_
Not much happened in the upcoming “weeks”. A census revealed that the total population was about 430,000.
This number would fall on an uncertain date when approximately 200,000 humans turned into anomalous beings and then disappeared.
_
//“Nails?”
Auqui and Niles should not have been in the empty orphanage. All civilian refugees were supposed to be in the massive warehouse space that was once the hospital area. When they decided to sneak out, they had no clue where to go, as they also had no reason to leave other than the spirit of rebellion. The orphanage seemed as good of a choice as any, even if they just sat on the ground and stared into nowhere.
“Nails?” It was Auqui, yelling at Niles, who wasn’t listening. There was an intense thrumming noise in his head.
“Niles?! Is everything okay?”
Niles turned towards Auqui, and for some reason, a smile began spreading across his face. It spread, and spread, and spread, till it was nothing more than a line running around his head. Nile’s eyes began to grow and grow, crinkling like candy wrappers.
Meanwhile, all along his body, massive bulges began to appear. These bulges grew bigger and bigger. His flesh stretched until his skin snapped, revealing a massive pillar made of red eyes. Between each red eye was a dark red tentacle like a mix between a blood vein and a worm. Each of these tentacles danced and shook as if it was algae at the bottom of the sea.
There was a moment as Auqui stared at the monstrosity in the center.
Then, there was a puff of smoke, and the being disappeared.//
For the next few “weeks” after that event both beings began to grow, with more humans turning every day.
__
//The distant thrumming of heavy machinery pulsed through the empty hallway. Into the white space stepped 05-9.
She whistled as she walked, until she eventually reached a door, where a single boy rested his head against a massive vibrating machine.
She paused for a second before speaking.
“You do know that thing could kill you if it breaks?”
The boy blinked and looked up at her, raising his head. “What?”
“Shouldn’t you be…somewhere else?”
“There is nowhere else.”
“Hmm. Interesting. You’re a kid, right? Do you know that child…uhhh…what’s his name, Niles?”
The child's eyes turned into infinitely deep pools of darkness.
“Nails? He…he’s…something else.”
“Oh.” Was all the woman said. “Shit. All that for nothing…”
The boy stared at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” 05-9 said.
There was a pause before the boy spoke again.
“Are we gonna die?”
05-9 chuckled. “What do you think?”
The boy looked down at the floor. “I don’t see any other way.”
“Right on the money.” 05-9 said.
“How do you know Nails?”
“Well, I knew his father, and I talked to him once, in a car.”
The thrumming of the machine was the only noise for a few seconds. Then, 05-9 continued to walk, only to be stopped by a voice.
“Who are you?” It was the boy again.
O5-9 turned around. “Do you want to know the truth?”
The boy shrugged.
05-9 took off her glasses, revealing grey eyes.
“I’m nobody. I’ve been nobody for the last 100 years or so. All of us have been nobody.”
The boy did not seem shocked by the display. “All of us?”
O5-9 then inserted the glasses into her forehead. Her form bled away, revealing a massive grey shadow in the shape of a flower, with numerous tendrils at its base.
“The O5 council. We’re the leaders. They’ve been watching over humanity for four thousand years. You see these?” O5 took off her glasses and continued to speak. “These are not glasses. They’re a symbol, owned by every O5-9 before me. There have always been 14 O5s, each one with a different symbol. Then, in the 1800s, two of the original creators had a bit of a falling out, and well…I won’t bore you with the details.”
The boy just stared at her.
O5-9 just sighed. “Well…I…suppose…wha…what is that?” She stretched a hand towards an item on the floor right next to the boy. How could she have missed it? The boy picked it up.
“Wha…I…it was…it was a guitar pick before.”
“Oh god, did he give it to you?”
“Yes.”
O5-9 sighed. “Shit. Fuck. No wonder…he…oh god…I should have told him…”
The boy looked at the needle in his hand. “This is…this isn’t…normal…is it?”
O5-9 sighed. “It belongs to you now. When you need to use it…you will know how…”//
When the battle occurred, there were about 24,000 humans left, all of them in a large camp beneath site [redacted].
One might expect Mekane and Yaldaboth to fight. They did not.
Instead they stood together, along with the colossus, The Witch along with her team, and a giant mech made out of a coral being piloted by octopi.
_
//The only thing in the hallway was Auqui and the sound of his footprints. There had been some message about going to the underground bunker, but what did he have to lose? His eyes moved around, and finally landed on a cell. The open door read “107”. When he looked inside, there was a strange figure.
It had four eyes, arranged in a square, and a mouth in the middle. Its face reminded him of a nut. The creature stared at him, and he stared back. This stare ended when the creature began to crack open. From it hatched a shadow.//
___
The shadow that emerged from 173 grew and grew till it was a massive pillar reaching towards the heavens. Then, it unspooled into billions of images. These images flung outwards and the battle was on.
The sky flashed with lights: black, white, red, and blue.
It is unknown how long it took for the battle to occur. Perhaps it was days, perhaps it was years.
The oceans turned black, the ground turned red, the sky turned white, and blue fire blossomed everywhere.
The exact number of humans as the battle raged was uncertain. One by one, all of the civilians and foundation members turned into massive anomalous beings and joined in the battle.
_
//The Mother, also known as 2191, had once been a girl. One day, the village elders said they needed someone special. She had been sent into an underground chamber where she began to change. Over the course of many years, she slowly grew. About five thousand years after being sent down, The Son arrived. It was not her child, but rather the child of Grand Karcist Ion and Yaldaboth.
About three thousand years after being sent down, Yaldaboth awoke, and so she and The Son rose as well, joining their lord in the holy battle.//
_
//As the battle began, 166 turned to her mother, tears in her eyes. Perched on her shoulder was the girl with the black eyes, now turned into a writhing mass of spikes.
“What if I do not wish to fight?”
Biphi’s sigh was the sigh of all patient yet exhausted mothers, despite her lacking a mouth. “The universe is already tearing itself apart, what difference does it make if one more person joins in?”
“I can not serve someone who is cruel. It is not the way of a Christian.”
Biphi laughed. “You know that is true.”
“It is not the way of a good Christian.”
“Your god is just one of many gods, a mere grain of sand. To the humans, he may bring strength, but his power is nothing compared to the Scarlet King.”
“Well then, it is not the way of a good person.”
Biphi turned towards 166. “Then, am I not a good person? Is your brother, and your aunts and uncles not good people? In fact, even your father served cruel beings, whether they be the GOC or the SCP. The universe is cruel. Why should we be otherwise?”
166 was about to speak, but Biphi had already begun to trot into the battle. “If you wish to stay, then do so.” she said.
A moment passed. 166 turned to the mass of spikes on her shoulder. “If you want to join, you can. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Maybe…maybe later. How about I stay with you…you know, for protection, yeah protection.” the mass of spikes proclaimed.
The Scarlet King loomed above the shattered remains of everything. It and its 3 siblings had been there since the dawn of time, but it wasn’t until the first consciousness when they truly took shape. The destruction of everything would come soon. However, there were two older siblings, somehow older than time itself. These two siblings had kept them from their destiny, using their countless hordes of minions.
However, the two elder siblings could only keep them there for so long. They began to squabble, and as their squabble grew, their power weakened.
Now, the time had come. The Scarlet King filled its bloom with screams. Then, it became a streak of violence, a scar flying through the sky, an arrow sent straight towards the Black Moon, its hated sibling. A thousand fists pummeled endless kin, only for a thousand manacles to wrap around the wrists. Infinite spirals of teeth emanate from the manacles, piercing into The Scarlet King. However, when the blood escaped, so did the screams.
The Black Moon warbled like a flickering flame. Thousands of oily black tendrils danced on its surface. They erupted into tunnels of smoke, which collapsed into each other to make a doorway, out of which came a grey creature with a flaming sword.
This soldier was beneath The Scarlet King, who turned his blood into a volley of spears. The grey creature swam beneath the crimson knives, only for them to change trajectory, colliding into each other and form into a hand.
As the grey creature stabbed the hand, The Scarlet King reached into itself and took out a soldier of its own. Amid the black field covering North America, ashes stirred. They joined together, then began to undo their own destruction, growing and connecting to each other until they formed a dragon. This dragon flew forward, shaking off the black clinging to it. Other gods would not influence it. Wings screaming through the air, it soared upwards, towards the grey creature.
Its massive jaws unfolded, a thick inferno of teeth blazing. The grey creature, having just cut the red hand to shreds, stared at it. It zoomed down towards it, its flaming sword outstretched. Laughter erupted from its grey maw as its sword pierced through the jaw of the creature, only for a red fury to hit it in the back.
It fell towards the earth, landing in a shower of dust. When it looked above it, it saw the Black Moon and the Scarlet King, turning away from their children to continue fighting. However directly above him was the dragon, still bleeding, and a massive red humanoid creature. The Girl, it recognized.
“Are you not a servant of memory?”
“I was…but my brethren, they offered it a better deal. For two hundred years I wandered…my only purpose petty revenge, but now…well, enough talk, shall we?”
He flew towards the two creatures.
__
When Auqui stared at the growing black pillar, he knew it was time. He looked down at the needle in his hand. It was as if invisible strings had attached to his hand, guiding it upwards. The needle approached his eye, stood there for a second, and then sailed right in.
Immediately, he found himself in a room with no doors. His eyes darted over the amber wood walls coated in a layer of candlelight, then down onto a table with a single plate and two chairs facing it. Sitting at one of the chairs was a woman.
“What the fuck?” Auqui asked.
“Such profanity.” the woman said.
“Where…huh?”
The woman sighed. “Ugh…here comes the information. Allow me to save you the breath. This room is beyond reality. All of us O5s can go to it. Usually, O5-1 would be here, but when I told him about this he said he didn’t care and it didn’t matter. Oh yes, what is this? You see, this is the flesh of the goddess of memory. She recently died, but it’s fine. If you eat it, you’ll become like us, and you get to join the final battle. Which I am late for, so I would appreciate it if you hurried.”
Auqui just staired. “What?”
The woman groaned. “Don’t they teach listening skills in school anymore? Look, do you want to get god-like powers or not?”
Auquis' legs shuffled towards the table and then placed him in a seat. A grey blob stood in front of him, perched on a fancy looking white plate sitting right next to a black fork and knife.
“Uhhh…” he sputtered.
“It’s not exactly the freshest, it’s been kept in a fridge for about 60 years or so, I had to get it out, defrost it, pop it in the oven,and all by myself, I might add. I haven’t cooked in over a century. It was… annoying.”
Auquis' eyes darted back and forth between the meat and the woman.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“Why me?” Auqui asked.
“We need all the help we can get.”
“Why should I?”
The woman wavered, reforming into a perfect imitation of Niles.
“Listen, you little tyke. You have nothing left to lose. I am already late for the most important meeting the universe has ever seen. Eat it or not.”
Auqui grabbed the black knife. “I…I can help?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re the good guys.”
The woman turned back to her original form. “Yes.”
“The people we’re fighting…they did this?”
The woman nodded. “And once they’re done destroying the world, they’re going to move onto the universe.”
Auqui only gulped.
“Look,” the woman asked. “What do you want?”
“I…I want to…I just want to…to never feel the way I keep feeling…again.”
“This will do that.”
“This isn’t some trick…is it?” Auqui asked.
“Why the hell would it be?” The woman chuckled.
Auqui closed his eyes, then sent the black knife forward.
The grey meat tasted like old fish. Unfortunately, there was no water to wash it down, but he swallowed anyway.
Then, there was only silence. “I really wished this could have happened earlier,” the woman said. “But like, this whole thing is crazy. The spirit of the goddess…told me I would get someone by the battle, so here we are.”
Auqui didn’t know what she meant so he just nodded as he swallowed another bite.
A few moments passed, before his stomach started to quiver. “Is the goddess of memory shellfish? Because I’m allergic.”
“Are eels shellfish?” The woman asked.
“No, they’re actually quite kind.” Auqui chuckled. Then, the entire universe struck him in the head. The world went black and he fell to the floor. His flesh began to ripple, like a blanket being shaken. The waves grew and grew till they began to peel off. Piece by piece, he was broken off, till all that remained was a grey light.
He looked up, at the grey light, and at that moment, he understood everything.
“So…how about O5-13 as your new name?” the other grey creature asked.
___
Nine grey lights flew through the battle. They looked a bit like large jellyfish, O5-13 thought.
His mission was simple: attack everything that is not on our side. He found himself smashing towards a large black slug with wings as well as a hat perched on its head. When he hit the beast's hide, he bounced right off it. The slug turned to face him, two massive eyes boring into him. Under those eyes was an armory of old fashioned guns sticking out of the creature's skin.
“Oh ho! A challenger!” A British voice beamed into O5-13’s head.
“Hey…” He said, or thought to the creature at least. “I…you are an…evil beast! And I am on the side of righteousness.”
Surprisingly, the beasts responded with laughter. “Why! You seem rather green! Allow me to give you a lesson, courtesy of the god of dreams!”
The creature flew towards O5-13, who dashed out of the way, only to find himself clenched in the grasp of a volley of bullets streaming from the creature.
The world spun, and he found himself falling. There was no pain, but he felt as if some part of him had been damaged somehow. He crashed onto the ground.
His form glitched and shuddered. It was at that moment when he stopped to think. The faint face of someone he once knew flew in front of him. Laughter was pouring out of her. “Wow! I guess you’re Superman now, huh? What are you thinking?” She was saying. O5-13 flung it out of his mind. The creature was flying down towards him.
“Hey, uh, how do I, you know, fight?” he sent the message into the air, trying to find one of the other grey lights.
“Use your object.” was his only reply. What the hell did that mean?
The creature soared towards him. It was at that moment when he remembered the needle. He reached a tendril into his head, or at least, what had once been his head, and ripped it out. As he did, it began to grow, morphing into a massive long sword. Great. Now all he had to do was learn how to use a sword. Thankfully, the sense that something had damaged him had disappeared. Just the feel of the sword against his body bludgeoned his body with energy.
He held the sword aloft as the creature fell down, and another volley of bullets of fire rained down. For some reason, O5-13 found himself striking the sword forward. When it struck, the storm of metal ricocheted back, sailing at the creature and hitting it right in the middle of its face. The creature plunged down onto the earth. Success! O5-13 sailed towards it, his sword aloft. Then, a massive black sword stuck out of the creature and struck his, leading it to fly into the air. O5-13 flew back to grab it, only to be met with another haze of bullet fire. He found himself falling back onto the ground, where his form distorted once again. When he looked down, he saw two hands. Was this his old body? Boulders of blood were tumbling down him in a red avalanche. Wasn’t he supposed to be god-like? The creature appeared in front of him, flying high.
“Why, you’re just a boy!”
“I…I’m going to…I need…”
Why hadn’t he asked the woman to explain what to do? It had all happened so fast, and the only thing in his mind was the thought of revenge. Who was he even trying to get revenge for? He tried to call the others, but his head felt fuzzy. Had he just been sent here as a sacrifice, a distraction for a few seconds?
“Child soldiers…ugh! How barbaric! Your goddess of memory is disgusting!”
“You…you…” He lifted up a bloodied hand, only to then drop it. For some reason, he still didn’t feel pain, just the realization that he was badly hurt. It seemed logical that the object might fix things, and it was in vision, a speck of sparkling silver a few meters away.
He trudged towards it, his legs cracked and distorted.
The creature snarled behind him. “Now, see her, you’re clearly on your last legs, and I don’t wish to do any more harm.”
“Fuck you!” O5-13’s rotting legs moved faster, red spraying into the air wherever he went. Behind him was the whooshing of air. The creature was coming towards him.
The silver sword was only a meter away now. There was a sudden crack, and a single bullet pierced through his leg, which exploded. He plunged into the brown earth. The sword was only a few feet away. He reached forward and grabbed it. Immediately, the red shook off of him. His body began to shift. In his mind, he envisioned a new form, one made entirely out of silver metal. This new form knew exactly what to do.
He spun around and plunged the sword straight into the creature. Black blood ran down the needle. Bullets flew out of the creature, hissing through the air, but O5-13 simply lifted the sword, smacking into the bullets. He jumped into the air, then with a slash, cut off both eyes of the creature, who screamed in rage. Bayonets began sticking out of its skin, piercing through O5-13’s silver form, sending shiny grey chunks into the air. He brought down the sword, only for a bayonet half the size of him to shoot out right under him, knocking him into the air.
When he looked down, he saw the giant mouth of the slug blooming before him. So, he soared right into it, lifting his sword into the air and plunging it into the creature's throat. He slashed and slashed, until air hit once again, and he was lying amid a pair of entrails. The sword was still in his metal grasp, its end firmly planted into the stomach of a man. He was pale, and entirely naked. The face of the stranger lifted towards O5-13.
When their two eyes met, O5-13 was suddenly filled with a lifetime of moments.
He was a tall aristocrat,walking through the grounds at Oxford. Suddenly, his eyes were caught by a bespeckled lady. Then, the woman was smiling in a white veil. Then, the woman was crying in front of a tombstone with the words “Daniel Blackwood, Born and Died 1854” written on it. Then, the woman was gone, leaving only a mysterious note behind.
He was at a massive bank, having just sold everything he had owned and getting a deposit to buy a ship and crew. The seas of the Atlantic lapped against his ship. The roaring rapids of The Strait of Magellan slapped into him. The tranquil waters of the Pacific Ocean buoyed him towards Indonesia. He was looking through a glass as he sailed through the East China Sea, spotting a speck of land not on any map. Copper eyes were staring into him, whispering words in a tongue older than fire. His skin was melting, melting, his veins knotting, his organs shriveling. Every ounce of him was contorting and crunching.
He was in a jar, then in a glass tank, then in a grey room. People in lab coats were asking him questions. The people were gone, and a black crack was opening between him and the grey wall. A voice was streaming through, grabbing him and plunging him into reality’s wound. Then, he was squirming through a void as a girl in a witch’s outfit spoke to him. “You see only the god of dreams can defeat the four malevolent forces.” She was saying.
“So,” he was replying. “This is a fight over the very fate of reality itself!”
Then, the memory was over. O5-13 was himself again, whoever he is, and his sword was plunged into the chest of the man.
“I…I…” the man gasped in a British accent.
“Lord Blackwood.” Was all O5-13 could say.
“I…I fought bravely…didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall die with honor.” Lord Blackwood grabbed the sword with his bare hands and ripped it out of his chest. One last wheezing breath climbed its way out of his lungs before he fell over, never to fight again.
As O5-13 stood up and walked away, he changed forms again, returning to the visage of a boy. His wounds had all been healed. Above and around him, the battle occurred.
He held his sword beneath him, its tip poking his soft belly. He didn’t know if it would work. Perhaps it was the intent that truly mattered. The events inside the room of amber wood flickered through his head. There was something he wanted to forget.
He was just about to plunge it into him when something appeared behind him.
He turned around, towards a large pillar made of red eyes, with maroon tendrils sticking between each red sphere.
The figure just stared at him.//
//King Solomon’s flaming spear flew through the dragon, cutting it in two. The two halves both tumbled down, only for The Girl to grab them, then slam them against King Solomon. The side merged around, skin welding shut around his own. He raised his flaming sword into the air and speared his way out of the creature.
This was taking too long. Then, he realized. What an idiot he was, completely forgetting all about it. A twisted smile spread across his craggy face. The dragon was flying towards him, the hole he created in it already healing. He flew down towards the ground, the creature and The Girl both in hot pursuit. At the last second before he touched earth, a ring of rust began to appear on the earth as he opened a hole of black. Then, he darted to the right. The dragon went in first, flying straight into the abyss. The Girl reached out her hand, trying to grasp her brother, but it was too late. The creature had fallen into the darkness, and it did not have time to react before King Solomon closed the portal.
“What did you do?!” The Girl shrieked in anger.
King Solomon laughed, only for his chuckle to be cut short when he noticed a look blossoming in The Girl’s many eyes. He turned around, sword held aloft, but it was too late. A giant pair of glasses covered in spikes was lodged in his head.
“I will never, ever forgive you for making this my object. This is so fucking pathetic as a weapon.” O5-9 ripped the glasses out of his head. He tried to react, but his brain had been skewered in half. Then, there was the whooshing of glasses as his neck was cleaved clean off. He saw the world tumble and then all he could see was red. His body could be felt, clawing around on the dirt, searching for his head, but he wasn’t sure where his head was. Then, something moved it, he was staring straight at The Girl, who smiled sweetly as she smashed she crushed his head.
___
The body of King Solomon was still moving around, swinging the flaming sword around. It must have felt the pulsing of the air as O5-9 flew down towards it, because it jumped up into the air. The Girl grabbed it by the legs and slammed it against the Earth. It brought its sword down onto her hand. When her grasp let up, the body flew upwards, only to feel the pulsing coming again. It was about to move when the glasses erupted out of its chest, then moved upwards, cutting half of it in half. It spun wildly out of control, back into the arms of The Girl who finished the process of ripping it in half, then stepped on it.
“Bad man! Bad man! Idiot! Stupid! Ouch!” she yelled that last one when she stepped on the flaming sword. She kicked it to the side where O5-9 swooped down and grabbed it. “Thanks for the sword!” she said, then proceeded to dash straight for The Girl’s face. There was no time to think before O5-9 had plunged the sword straight into one of The Girl’s eyes.
The Girl swung madly about, and both woman and sword flew into the air. The futility of all this was beginning to settle in on her, but she had to shake it off.
__
Off in the distance, 999 looked as its sister fought the grey being. Its parent had contacted him, telling him of his fate, but he had refused. Words like “premodern cruelty” and “uncaring modernity” meant nothing to it. The Scarlet made people unhappy, and so it was bad.
Sometimes the world was as simple as that.
The Girl did not understand this, young as she was. 999 knew who she was the second she had entered the site. He had attempted to comfort her, but they had not let her. It was frustrating. Somewhere in 999, a deep dark part of him shook with anger for his captors, but he tried to shove it down. They had good intentions, and they saved people from being unhappy, so they were good.
Sadly, 999 oozed along, till it eventually approached two figures staring at each other. One was a young boy, covered in green blood. The other was a massive pillar of red eyes.
The boy was nearer, so 999 approached it first.
___
Across Eurasia stretched a mass of flesh, diseased and rotted. Porous growths and tumors bulged and squealed.
This wave of flesh met a mass of oily gears and wires.
Yaldaboth and Mekkane lunged towards each other.
Beneath them, the world rotted.
Even the oceans began to rot, liquids of all sorts infecting them. Flesh spilled into them in one place, oil in another, blood in a third, and rust in a fourth.
The earth, reduced to a quaking ball of fury, bled as it rippled and distorted, unwinding in tattered sobs of chaos. Agony’s claws grew everywhere. Oblivion’s black jagged teeth tore all light to shrapnel of luminosity.
Behind the earth, the surface of the sun, the blinding sea, rippled and churned.
The thunder spread out from the earth, absorbing the moon, the other planets, and even the sun. All of the solar system drowned in the fog of frenzy, its image distorted beyond recognition. The sun shrieked red fire, expanding and unraveling. Infernal orange tears bled from the net of wounds ensnaring it. The poison nightmares it coughed expanded, covering everything. It grew like an unfolding wound, tendrils of fire grasping the light. The moon cracked, crumbling in on itself.
Still, the battle raged on amid the mass.
Somewhere within the quivering kaleidoscope once known as the solar system, O5-13 felt something touch his leg. It was a large pile of slime. Immediately, a warmth spread through him. For a few seconds, everything was perfect, before the creature touched the pillar of red eyes
_
The Being recognized the face. It had been a human too, it knew, and so it clearly must have known other humans. However, it didn’t know what relationship it had to the face.
Its concentration was broken by a yellow blob which first touched the boy, then rubbed itself against The Being. The moment was wonderful, until the slime turned its two eyes towards a fight in the distance.
__
The Witch flew through the air. A few years ago, she died. Upon doing so, she had appeared in a black void, where she faced a massive yellow creature wrapped in grey chains. “I have a holy task for you.” the god shaped hole within it proclaimed. She took some convincing, obviously, but his logic had been irrefutable.
Before the battle, she had loomed above Algadda. The others on her team had been in The Somewhere Else, as the king told her only she could bear the burden. Millions of people dressed in white masks buzzed through the streets, going about their business.
Tears fell down her face as light shone from her hands. This was for the good of everything.
All of Algadda had melted into a slurry of shapes and colors, a million screams forming fields of spirals. They all coalesced into one great spiral, which sailed down, into her. “With this, the tribute is paid in full. Your blood is now mine.” The words dripped out of her.
Their sacrifice had been worthy, however. The Hand of Dreams was in all of Algadda, in the king and in the ambassador, and in everything else. All of this power screamed within every quaking fiber of her being.
Back in the present, she flew through multiple grey beings, reducing them to ash. The goddess of memory was pathetic, dying before the battle began and sending her minions to do the work. It didn’t matter, however. Her allies were below her, the cephalopods in their massive mech. They were currently dealing with a wave of centipedes.
She flew through another grey blob, and with that she had finished off all of the minions of memory. Except…her mind flew around the battlefield. One of them was currently dealing with one of the scarlet’s spawn. Another spawn, a yellow one made of goo was rushing towards her. She was most likely toast.
Another minion of memory was also with a spawn of the scarlet, but a far lesser one, and they didn’t appear to be fighting. Instead, the minion was sitting down, leaning its back against the pillar of red eyes. Also odd was the fact the minion was in the form of a young boy.
The Witch flew down. The minion smiled up at her as she stopped right in front of him. The ritual had changed her, turning into a massive swarm of light in the vague shape of a human. However, the minion seemed to not mind.
“Hello,” he said. “Are you going to kill me?”
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
The minion laughed in big choking sobs. It was in the middle of that when The Witch flew down, only to be stopped by a single hand.
Curious. She was barely putting any effort into the kill, perhaps she had underestimated the minion.
“Wait,” he said. “Before you kill me can you do two things?”
“…what.”
“One. Don’t kill this.” He pointed to the pillar of red eyes.
“Second,” he continued. “Do you know my name?”
__
O5-9 floated above The Girl, who was furiously trying to reattach two of her six arms to her body. “You know,” O5-9 cooed. “I helped contain you for a while. In fact, I authorized the test which introduced you to your dear brother. Anyways, you and your kind shall all perish. The goddess of memory has a plan, even in death, and you…are not part of it.”
O5-9 flew down again, The Girl threw one of her arms at her, but she simply sliced through it and continued to fly, piercing the throat of The Girl.
“Call for Daddy. See if he saves you. Or maybe he’s too busy fighting a pointless ba-“
An interruption came when a glob of slime flew onto her, clenching her in a fist of goo.
She flew into the air, rapidly switching between forms, but the creature hung on. The glasses fell out of her grasp as her hand was covered with slime, but the other fist managed to hold onto the flaming sword. The layer of ooze buried the sound of cracking bones as the fist of goo clenched. She attempted to move the flaming sword, the only part of her sticking out from the slime, only for a thick snap to shoot out. Like a pipe made of aluminum, half of her arm was crushed, turning into a rumpled mess of red and white. The fiery sword tumbled out of her hand, towards the ground.
As she continued to soar upwards, she shifted forms again, attempting to turn into something so big that the creature would shrink as well, but it only grew with her. The pressure grew and grew, as did the sound of snapping. Her form expanded more and more, turning into a massive balloon of red mush.One of the creature's eyes stared down at her and she was flooded with a sea of memories and a single thought “I will not let you hurt her.” It was at that moment when she realized how high they were. She was not in control. The creature was, and it was dragging her upwards.
From above, the planet was barely recognizable. Gone was the shape of planets, instead, there was a mass of various colors, all erupting into each other. The surface shimmered like a thousand seas fighting, and even the shape was contorting. Then, the two of them hit the moon. They continued to move, torn to shreds by lava. Still, they lived, and still, they floated upwards and upwards, into the sun.
999 knew now fear. It had helped people, and that’s all it ever wanted to do.
When they disappeared into the sea of yellow and orange, the penultimate carrier of memories flame came to pass. Now, there was only one left to carry the torch.
One second, O5-13 was facing a large assemblage of light. The next, he was in a void of gray, facing two black eyes.
“Hello.” The eyes said.
“Hello.” O5-13 responded, purely out of instinct.
“You have done well, my child.”
“Uhhh…thanks….uh, what?” O5-13 asked.
“I am memory personified. I came to earth in the form of an eel in order to watch over the caged ones along with my brother, who watched from his kingdom in-between the atoms. But, our views on reality changed. Life on earth was an accidental creation of this imprisonment. My brother wished to destroy humanity, as the prayers the humans whispered made our brethren stronger. Not only that, but humans were far too powerful, their minds free from outside forces. Every decision they made crafted more universes. My reasons for protecting humanity were not out of kindness, however, but because their collective ideas shaped the universe, and perhaps our siblings would be tied down by humanities beliefs.”
“I…I don’t understand,” O5-13 said. “Why imprison your brethren?”
“They are younger than us by an infinity and a half, and they see the universe as theirs to conquer.”
“So…I…what am I doing here?”
“A messenger I created died. I was so enraged that in the moment, I saw the humans as my brother did. It was a moment to you, but to me, it was months.”
“Did you cause all of this to happen?”
The eyes almost seemed to sigh. “Not directly, no. It was my anger over my brother that did. However, my momentary anger at the humans led to the deaths of millions. I was…ashamed. When my brother’s minions came to destroy my physical form, I let them. But, it is no matter. I’ve waited to see which one of you would survive the longest. And you have, and now, I will give the most precious gift in the hopes that you will do better than I do.”
O5-13 screamed “But I don’t want it! I’m tired! I j-“
“Too bad.” The eyes said.
Then, the universe broke. In that second, O5-13
saw billions of different eyes, floating through a void. He caught one of the eyes in his hand. Something told him this one was important. Looking into it, he saw a grey room with various figures and various red stains on chairs.
“I may have a solution…but it’s complicated. It was the voice of the woman, who O5-13 now realized was O5-9.
“Pray tell, what is it?” A grey shadow asked.
“Well, you see,” O5-9 pronounced. “We know nightmares are the first signs of infection from the memetic disease. Now, we can’t just ask people about nightmares and then kill them. Instead, I have a two fold solution. One is for adults, and the other is for children, but they primarily rely on infecting them with eggs of a certain old friend of ours…”
Auqui ripped himself out of the memory. He collapsed within himself like a star turning into a black hole. “No…” he muttered.
The memories would not stop coming. An incomprehensibly complicated universe was laid bare before him. People and places and groups floated through his unfolding mind.
At the beginning of the universe, there were the eyes and the hand. However, without others, they were meaningless. So, from them came the mind, the body, the blood, and the voice.
The six sang in harmony, weaving the universe out of shadow. But, soon, they grew envious. They competed to see who could be the greatest, and the universe shook with fire.
The Scarlet created life, and to this life Mekkane granted minds. However, they all merely worked as one massive machine until Yaldaboth granted them free will and individuality. But this split the universes, with every decision leading to more being created. The mind of every sapient lifeform was spread thin through every universe, until the eyes split them, making it so every mind could only exist in one universe at a time. But, Mekkane and Yaldaboth would not let their anger for each other go, so they were both reduced to states in which they would not cause harm.
However, life grew too powerful, and so The Black Star invented death. With every new universe that was created, The Black Star grew stronger as every act of creation made entropy grow stronger. This anger of the Scarlet King was so great its scream burned holes into the sky, and both beings had to be sent into other planes of existence.
So, the Dreaming Hand and The Eyes of Memory were alone, and they too would fall to the call of anger. The Dreaming Hand would form his own plane to live in, while the eyes merely stayed in this one, watching over everything.
As the history of humanity washed over O5-13, he realized Anantanesha was gone. It was he who had to make a decision. “Let humanity die”. A voice whispered in his head. It had been the actions of humans which led to his sister's death. It was the actions of humans which prevented his Dad from going to the hospital. His Mom had decided to walk into the ocean. Before, he had convinced himself there was no choice, but now he saw everything. There was no choice with Niles, however. It was simply bad luck. As memories flooded over Auqui he realized that there was a choice. A man he never met decided to save Niles' life, and Niles’ life was only in that man’s hands because of another man’s decision.
And, everyday, Niles had made the decision to get up, and not to let oblivion win. A million different human hands had gotten him here.
He realized then what he had to do, and why he had to do it.
When O5-13 opened his eyes, he was still staring at The Witch. She had not told him his name.
“You know what,” O5-13 said. “It doesn’t matter. I just remembered. My name is Auqui. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna fight you.”
Auqui reached a hand out to The Witch and opened his mind to her. Memories of humanity danced between the two of them, a kaleidoscope of flame bathing their minds in light.
___
One by one, everyone fell.
The servants of The Dreaming Hand were all crushed. Alexei Belitrov, Murphy Law, Don Quixote, Ulysses B. Donkman, and 3002 met their fates within the inferno.
Able smiled as The Devourer of Worlds tore him to shreds. A blur of blue slammed into The Devourer of Worlds, the mech of the octopi. The colossus unleashed a lightning swarm of fists at the coral mech, slowly unraveling the layers of construction. The mech simply raised a sword which glowed every color and slashed. The Devourer of Worlds dodged it easily, only to realize it was not the intended target. A massive cut had appeared in the fabric of reality. Shrieks of metal cascaded out of The Devourer of Worlds as it broke apart, pieces of it flying into the wound. Still, it continued to fight, grabbing each scream and turning into a weapon.
The mech cracked and grunted, but continued to slash, creating more and more wounds in reality. Eventually, the mech was reduced to a mesh of blue pulp, while The Devourer of Worlds was various scraps of metal lying amid black cuts in the air.
The 7 children of the Scarlet King were slowly whittled down. The youngest child, foolish as it was, attempted to take on Mekkane, only to be stomped without a second thought.
Soon, all that was left was The Girl, Biphi, and her two children.
166 merely watched everything, the mass of black spikes staying on her shoulder. Even when her Mom and brother were slain by a long black tendril. Eventually, she was approached by a large red girl, crying.
“Why will you not fight?!” She screamed.
“It is not my way.” Was all 166 could say.
“Luck is not smiling on us,” the red girl seethed. “Even alone, the Black Star is mighty. Either we all fight, or we all die.”
“Then so be it.” 166 said coldly.
The red girl seemed taken aback. Then, her eyes narrowed. She reached forwards, and with one simple movement, punched a hole into 166. The black spikes shrieked and jumped into action.
“No,” 166 screamed, somehow still alive, as she grabbed the black spike. “No more blood will be shed today!”
“Why! Why won’t you fight!” More tears fell down the red girl's face.
“I already told you!” 166 screamed. Blood was pooling down her chest, but the pain of the wound was just another sensation.
“You…you… please hate me.”
There was no anger in 166’s eyes as her knees began to buckle.
“Be good. For me, please.” She whispered to the black tendrils.
___
As The Son screamed above the corpse of The Mother, Mekkane and Yaldaboth lunged at each other. When the waves of flesh and metal struck, a spray of fire rained down.
Long tendrils stuck from Yaldaboth as it grabbed Mekkane, lifting it. The oily strings connecting Mekkane to the mass of metal stretched and then snapped. The tentacles of Yaldaboth wrapped around Mekkane, slowly pushing it into the swamp of flesh. Soon, metal was covered by red flesh. Yaldaboth laughed, only for a fire to bloom within it. It exploded as Mekkane burst from it.
However, it took more than that to defeat Yaldaboth, who merely reconnected with itself, shooting forth more tentacles. It grabbed space itself and converted it into threads, winding them into a rope. This rope wrapped around Mekkane, trapping it. Mekkane simply began to glow, sending a peel of flame down the rope, burning Yaldaboth. Only laughs came from Yaldaboth, but as fire filled it, it began to bubble up, growing.
It simply threw itself at Mekkane, letting the bubbles of flesh fill every orifice. Evenn when Yaldaboths flesh melted, it simply formed rings around Mekkane. Then, Mekkane began to shift, massive claws spreading out from it. These claws grew, cutting Yaldaboth into pieces. These pieces threw themselves at Mekkane, morphing into smaller versions of Yaldaboth.
A scream of ice cut through the flames of battle as Mekkane began to rip open. Tiny bits of Yaldaboth had gotten inside it, and were now pressing against its metal exterior. Millions of wires burst out of Mekkane as it fell apart. The brief flicker of victory soaking the Yaldaboths was extinguished when these wires began to move, shrieking reality into spikes. These spikes flung in every direction, skewering the Yaldaboths.
The Yaldaboths rearranged themselves back into one singular puddle of flesh, only to be met by a massive wall of metal. This wall curved, turning into a spherical cage which wrapped around Yaldaboth. Then, a massive black cloud appeared above the cage. It was not The Black Star, but rather, one of its minions. It had taken a while to get to the battle, as it had to heal.
The Unspeakable wrapped its tendrils around the cage. Black veins began to bloom on it and inside of it. The destruction of the two entities would be its destruction as well. It did not care.
Through the battle, a sphere of dark purple tendrils known as 3812 flew, destroying everything near him. He was confused as to what side he was, or to what the battle was about. However, some voice had told him to kill, so he just assumed he didn’t understand the situation.
Then, two beings appeared before it, one many massive rings made of grey, another a yellow cloud of light in the shape of a human. “Hello,” they proclaimed. “Sam Howell, you must now calm down.”
The sphere then contorted, shrinking into the shape of a human. “What…what,” Sam Howel asked. “What has happened to me?”
“You’ve suffered for too long, Sam. It’s time for you to rest now.”//
__
//The Scarlet King was melting, slowly unraveling into blood. The black tower loomed above it. All that was in The Scarlet King’s mind was hatred. It would not allow its enemy to be victorious.
So, within one last gasp, The Scarlet King grabbed the energy of all that was connected to it. Thousands of beings found their life drained as they turned to grey husks. The attempts to steal the energy of its daughter proved fruitless, as some sort of energy surrounded her which it was too tired to decipher. But, it didn’t matter. It was enough.
The black tower plunged a tendril of darkness downwards, only to be met by a ripple of red. There was a moment of motionlessness. Then, The Scarlet King exploded into a blaze of blood colored light. The light consumed the darkness, drenching everything in crimson tears.
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The Scarlet King and the Black Star were defeated.
The entire solar system was choked to the brim with corpses. There was a tall, hunched, asymmetrical creature, with its head torn off by The Sealed King, who currently had half of its body in the mouth of a pure white pile of tentacles and teeth. This eldritch mass had its corpse being pecked apart by various dinosaurs. They were all crushed by the massive falling corpse of Isaac, The God of Love, reduced to a shriveled up husk by The Scarlet King, along with the giant horned serpent it had been riding.
__
The Girl was silent, dark eyes staring over the corpse of the 166.
“I’ll kill you!” the mass of black tendrils, also known as The Daughter of Shadows screamed. The Girl simply raised a hand.
Then, she found herself facing two figures. “She who bears the curse of rage. You have suffered greatly. Do you wish to rise?”
Somehow, she knew what it meant, and her tongue did not wait. “Yes.”
Then, The Daughter of Shadows faced the two figures. “She of the infinite darkness. You are skilled in destruction. Do you wish to rise?”
“Yes.”
The two figures faced The Son. “He who has just been born. Your mind is primal and confused. Do you wish to rise?”
“Yes.” the son thought, as he could not speak.
Lastly, a servant of Mekkane had to be found. When Mekkane died, so did its minions, but death was no matter anymore. They found a robot, buried in rubble, and sent a kiss of energy. The robot, once designated 1360, opened its eyes. “He who was made to work and suffer but rejected his purpose. You were born of invention and grew through ingenuity. Do you wish to rise?”
“Yes.”
“Humanity has faded, and it will not return for thousands of years. But, the universe is massive. Together, we can rise above the sins of our forefathers. We will not conquer, and not fight, but instead serve the fabric of the universe.”
The six of them overlooked the remains of the solar system.
The Goddess of Dreams, also known as The Sorceress of Illusions and The Dreaming Hand
The God of Memory, also known as The Eyes of Logic And Understanding
The Goddess of Life also known as The Scarlet Queen and The Ruler of Primal Rage
The Goddess of Death also known as The Black Supernova
The God of Flesh
The God of Machines, also known as The Metal Mind//
__
Part Four: Death
…
Ice blue silver sky fades into grey
To a grey hope that all yearns to be
Starless and bible black
…
_
//Niles found himself sitting on a beach. The shadow of Auqui draped over him.
“I’m sorry,” Auqui said. “You have to go soon. But…before you do…I just wanted to say goodbye.”
Niles couldn’t find any words. Auqui plopped down next to him.
“What happened?” Niles finally spoke.
“A lot happened. You turned into something else, and then you died, and now…now we get a bit of time before you go.”
“Oh.”
Auqui grabbed Niles hand.
“I…I…why do you always so…nice?”
“Because I’m just that great,” Auqui giggled. “And because you deserve someone being nice to you.”
Niles stared into Auqui’s eyes, a deep brown melted to amber by the sun. His lips felt real against his. When the moment ended, Niles moved his head back to stare once against at Auqui’s eyes, sparkling with both sadness and joy.’
“Has the world ended?” Niles asked.
“Yeah…this is an illusion…basically.”
“It’s good.”
“Thanks. I made it myself.”
It wasn’t funny, but their laughs came anyway.
Niles could already feel himself slowly unraveling, a void slowly tugging at a thread.
“Goodbye.” He beamed.
“Goodbye.”
Niles anchored his eyes on Auqui’s, losing himself in the sea of amber as he slowly faded into nothing.
Copper light drifted through the windows of the orange house, lightly dusting Valentina’s face as she sat in a chair. Her arm and eye were back, and the hat was perched on her head. Auqui was leaning against the wall, facing her.
She spoke before he could. “I’m dead aren’t I?”
Auqui nodded.
“Are you like, an angel taking a familiar form, or something?”
Auqui chuckled. “No, it’s me, Val. I can’t…someone else owns you now…I only have so much time before you go. But, our goodbye was kind of…”
“Shit?”
“Yeah.”
Valentina stood up and wrapped her brother in a hug. “You’re such a screw up, you know that?”
Auqui laughed.
“Goodbye.” he whispered.”
“Goodbye.”
She closed her eyes as she faded away, filling her mind with reveries of sunshine and soccer games.//
In the solar system, six lights flew above the contorted wasteland.
A garden of fire bloomed and wilted, shedding sparks into the abyss. Converging constellations of crystalline light engulfed everything, forming a shuddering mass of shapes. The solar system slowly folded in on itself, becoming a twisted scream of light, spiraling endlessly into oblivion.
And when the light faded away, there was only silence.
Far away, trails of fire cut through endless black as the spaceships sailed far away from the solar system.
200,000 years would pass before their metal hulls made contact with the soft dirt of an exoplanet known as Kepler 22B. Wires buzzed and gears turned. Glass boxes opened with a hiss. Tubes and wires slithered in a metal dance.
Human hands emerged, cluelessly grasping for the light.
Through the silent universe, hope’s song rang eternal.