Link to article: Give Me Back To The Sky.
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[[include :scp-wiki:theme:shattered-thoughts]] [[>]] [[module rate]] [[/>]] You feel the crisis before your senses are able to register it. The combined decades of research on reality give you an idea of what's happening, enough of an edge for you to jump out of your desk and shut your eyes. They aren't enough to warn anyone of what's coming. You feel reality snap back into place, a moment too late. You see the figures that emerge from thin air through your eyelids. Gray static in your field of vision. You are unable to do anything as every member of the Department of Unreality is torn to shreds. As the gray blotches approach, you feel tears streaming down your face. As the tears reach your lips, you taste blood. Your eyelids are gone. Your eyes lose focus. You lay in a pile of rubble, unscathed. Through the blurry landscape, you can see outside the site; as well as the walls in between. Everyone you've ever known is around you. As your eyes glaze over, you start noticing the scowls. Faces you only recognize by association, screaming at you with righteous fury in their eyes. You pass out. @@@@ ----- @@@@ You do not remember waking up. Your senses betray you. The grass is flat, where moments ago concrete stood. As you lean on a wall to stand up, you realize there has never been a wall standing near you. You look up to find the floor of the site, 5 meters off the ground. You have never felt better, which makes you nauseous. Gone are the usual paranoias, the pervasive sense of dread that comes with your job. Your head is clear, and you manage to remember your own name. Your own newfound clarity alerts you that this can only mean one thing: Reality has been bent out of shape. The world is dead. @@@@ ---- @@@@ You don't move, and little by little you stop thinking. The screaming comes and goes, and with it your vision fades in and out. Instead of finding someone, you are found. You feel the air crackle. Slowly, the hum of a reality anchor guides you back into the vessel. The Foundation, wounded as it is, has survived. @@@@ ---- @@@@ The interior of a containment cell is a familiar sight. the familiarity makes you forget the constant hum of machinery that works to keep the walls tangible. Within a week of being at the Foundation, you remembered language, and words felt real again. Fragments of dialogue, of agitated screams and hushes, of auditory cognitohazards, of protocols, all work to make you feel at home. You don't mind the way the guards stare at you, or the way they whisper to themselves //where are their eyes// when they think you're not listening. Your defenses started receding. It was difficult, but pebble by pebble, the shell cracked. You were free again. You could see people. The screaming was gone. Your eyes refocus. You are standing in a sealed containment unit. There are no windows, and a single door. Upon it, you see a nameplate, and tear up a little. Your name. Your office. Your home. //Safety.// And in that moment of weakness, everything goes black. @@@@ ---- @@@@ You are floating, untethered. Through the newly formed window in your office, you can see Earth. You float in silence. @@@@ ---- @@@@ You're unsure of how much time has passed since. You're still here. At one point, you were given a final assignment. A final reminder that they're not alone. Your office is now a small outpost, stable enough to allow for basic shelter. The reality anchor, however, allows for something much more valuable. You turn on a video feed of Earth, and then set up the anchor. You are mesmerized by the view. Earth, shielded from harm. The sky is gone, but reality has been put back together. Within the sphere, light. Cities, less than before, but entire //cities// are there. A sight to behold. @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ The anchor powers up, and you're truly unbound as the backlash fixes reality around you. You gave up eating when your mouth went away. Stopped feeling when your body faded out of this plane. And now, as reality finally fixes //you//, you see things so clearly. Reality. Its inverse. The sliver of static stuck between realms, welcome in neither. You see humanity, and humanity looks back at you. You give up your name, and your self. Where you failed to stop it, you hope the next wanderer figures the cycle out. As reality reaches its baseline, you stop thinking. Humanity marches on. [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]