The Billboard Said, "The End is Near"

Link to article: The Billboard Said, "The End is Near".

:root {
  --header-title: "R\0026 C SITE-43";
  --header-subtitle: "SURVIVE ● CONSERVE ● PERSIST";

  --accent: 255, 34, 67;
  --head-font: var(--ui-font);

  --timeDelay: 1s;
}

(none)

```
blockquote
```

[[include :scp-wiki:theme:foxtrot
dark=a|
canada=a|
hidetitle=a]]

[[module css]]
:root {
  --header-title: "R\0026 C SITE-43";
  --header-subtitle: "SURVIVE ● CONSERVE ● PERSIST";

  --accent: 255, 34, 67;
  --head-font: var(--ui-font);

  --timeDelay: 1s;
}
[[/module]]

=====
[[include :scp-wiki:component:preview
text=
“The authors,” his breathing hitches, “The authors have left us.” Words spoken in barely a whisper, as though uttering something so terrible that not even he wants to hear.

]]
=====

[[=]]
+ The Billboard Said, "The End is Near"
[[/=]]

[[>]]
[[module Rate]]
[[/>]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:author-label-source start=--
|name=Dino--Draws]]
[[=]]
**Written by [[*user Dino--Draws]], 3k words, ~15 minute read**

**[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/dinodraws-author-page View my other works here!]**

[[/=]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:author-label-source end=--]]

[[=]]
[[div class="blockquote"]]
[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5956 Dr. Deering proposed that the creator of the REISNO Cannon, Dr. Placeholder McDoctorate, be located and questioned as to its whereabouts. It was hoped that Dr. Deering could still fulfill his instructions and revert the paradox-breach. Dr. McDoctorate was retrieved from Site-87 in a state of high paranoia and disarray and transported to Site-43, having spent the duration of his journey frantically claiming that "the authors had left us."]
[[/div]]
[[/=]]

Sloth’s Pit has been mostly devoured by its own namesake, collapsed into empty nothingness and pumpkin vine. Footsteps on crumbling ground, a pair of survivors follow an odd and unstable bridge of gravel and gravedirt -- all that remains of an old town’s road. Any trees left around the rim of the pit have twisted into claw-like things, scraping against the blackened sky.

The interior of the Site is pockmarked by the same holes, everything beginning to fall away. They have to be careful where they step, have to be tedious in working around any shifts in their perceptions, lest they plummet into the darkness below.

There are no people. Only scarecrows.

Until they find who they are looking for.

He is collapsed amongst scrambled notes and diagrams, an overturned desk and a whiteboard filled with so much scribbling it's indecipherable. Everything has turned to a numbness, a silence-silence-silence. Empty and alone. Alone. Left alone. Words are leaving his mouth, but he cannot hear it. No one to listen, no one to hear, no one to wri--

A hand touches his shoulder and snaps him from his stupor. The torrent of red returns. Oh. There’s a different perception this time. Waves of heat in the air like thin lines. Like worms. Writhing against the walls and the roots and the holes and his skin and--

He is hauled to his feet. It makes his head spin.

“They’re gone,” he manages to choke out, voice warbling. “They’ve left us.”

“They?” A woman’s voice? There’s a person. Two people? He can see them through blurry eyes and heatwaves.

Distantly, his mind chides him for playing the pronoun game. He tries to force out more, but it sputters into a wet cough. Breathing hitches through a voice long raw from crying out.

“Please-- you have to listen to me--” No one else did, for scarecrows have no ears. Why was he the only one left? A few days since all hell broke loose, a few days and yet the halls had become devoid of life.

There’s a response, but the blurring of reality worsens and it's drowned out. Visual heat fades but exchanges itself for the world overlapped so many times over. His office oscillates to states he remembers and doesn’t. Decayed, gone, fallen apart, pristine, occupied and unoccupied. Blurred faces and people.

He’s being dragged forward, now. Someone’s thrown his arm over their shoulder. It looks like several arms, against the distortion. He kicks and squirms in response; words fall off his tongue in a frightened scramble. It’s making the person tense. The woman tries to shush him; he coughs and shakes his head.

“You don’t understand--” his own shrill tone finally breaches through the noise, “I can’t go, I have to figure this out, please-”

“Dr. McDoctorate, this place is crumbling in on itself, you’re not going to //last// much longer if you stay here.” There’s an urgency to the woman’s voice.

“They’ve left us!” he cries out again, “I need to find out why--” The second person has seized his wrist now, amidst his attempts to thrash and back away. The grasp is harsh, and the feeling of nails accidentally digging into his skin snaps his mind a little bit more into focus. He sees them clearer.

A woman in heavy armor, a second person in lighter gear -- field agents, maybe? At least the one is; the dark skinned woman looks more like a captain. It's the field agent who grabbed him. He tries to pull away.

“Who are //‘they?!//'” The woman’s tone is sharp, he can’t tell if she is frustrated or afraid.

He hesitates.

“The authors,” Place's breathing hitches, //“The authors have left us.”// Words spoken in barely a whisper, as though uttering something so terrible that not even he wants to hear. Vision blurs this time not because of reality’s disarray, but his own. Face wet with tears, he watches as the woman stares and the agent exhales heavily.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that he’s out of it,” they say.

“Let’s get him to the car before we catch something's attention.” The woman shakes her head, but her gaze on him lingers, as though she wants to ask what that means.

“Please listen—“ the pataphysicist sobs, and the agent is back to dragging him forward past scarecrows and ravaged halls. His arms are eventually wrestled behind his back to reduce squirming — when the footfalls become treacherous. One glance down into the darkness below makes him feel ill. Everything fades out again in favor of his own ragged breathing and pounding heart.

He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to wrangle that horrible, clawing feeling in his gut. His teeth buzz from sobbing, his head aches. Place just lets the two of them lead him forward to wherever they're going -- just trying to focus on continuing to gasp in breath.

The ground beneath his feet changes texture after some time, from gravel to pavement. Placeholder cracks open his eyes.

Outside. They're outside the Site now. The agent has drawn a firearm; they scan the surroundings as they walk down the road. There's a vehicle a few meters outside of the town.

Amongst the crimson haze, Placeholder tilts back his head and stares at the sky for the first time since it started.

He is met by a yawning blackness. A horrible, festering emptiness only rimmed by a raw red -- like someone has stabbed the sky and bled it dry. The center of a deep wound that rots blood and pus against the horizon. There is nothing. It's all nothing. Empty space empty pages empty--

The man stumbles to the side and vomits into the dirt. The humidity that clings to his skin suddenly makes it feel as though they stand at the precipice of something alive. A rotting wound. An infection. His throat burns, and the only thing that stops him from collapsing is the woman darting to grab him.

"Hey, hey, look at me," her voice is barely audible against his heaving breaths. A hand squeezes his own, he tenses. "Look at me," she repeats.

He tears his gaze away from the pale red froth and looks at her. Against the distortions, he can make out her face. Older than he is, or maybe she's just tired. Dark coils of hair frame her face.

"Deep breaths, we need to move quickly." Her other hand brushes against his back, as she tries to nudge him up to his feet.

"What's your name?" Placeholder murmurs hoarsely.

"I'm Chief Ana Mukami," she whispers. Chief, that likely means MTF or Security. He nods numbly, stumbling up to stand. //They're Foundation.// It eases him, slightly.

As they approach the familiar form of some type of Foundation off-roader, the first thing he notices is that there's no windows. Not in the sense that it's some windowless van, but in the sense they've been //removed.// The side mirrors seemed to have been taken off in a panic, torn from the car doors harshly. Even the windshield is gone.

The car's exterior is scuffed and scratched, dull. He doesn't get to think about it for much longer, as Mukami gets in the driver's seat, slips keys from her pockets. The agent opens the back door, braces a hand on his shoulder as though they expect him to run. He lets himself be more or less pushed into the car.

Once the three of them are in the vehicle, they begin to move.

"Buckle up, this is going to be a long drive," one of them mutters. Everything still feels hazy; he can't tell which one spoke as the engine rumbles to life.

The lack of the aptly named //windshield// causes the full force of the air to whip through the vehicle in a loud, whistling sort of rumbling. He presses his palms to his ears in an attempt to drown out the sound, but it rattles his teeth regardless. It does, however, cut through the omnipresent humidity that hangs in the dead air. It lessens that awful, hot sort of stickiness.

Place curls up tightly in the back seat, rubs his face on his sleeve. It's still damp with tears, he still tastes stomach acid in the back of his throat. He realizes, faintly, that he has no idea what's going on.

"...Mukami..?" he croaks. Against the wind, he has to repeat himself to be heard.

"Mm?"

"Where are we going? Do you know what's going on?"

Over the din, he hears her reply: "Site-43. It's the only Site still standing functional, now."

"Do you know what did this?"

There's an audible exhalation, and as she begins to explain, his gaze drifts out the window.

A [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5956 paradox] happened, is what she says. Something that should've existed didn't exist, and everything has fallen apart as a result. Site-43 and its surroundings remain the only stable place left -- the rest of the world turned to a nonsensical hellscape. Site-43 still has its struggles, but it's far more hospitable than the rest of the world. Something he can believe, as he stares out the window and watches whole mountains rise, fall, warp and crumble in the distance.

He asks her why //him?// Why drive cross country for one man? Why was he dragged from the ruins, the sole survivor of a collapsing town he'd been starting to call home?

The suddenly lucid realization that everyone else is //gone// silences him from spurting out any more rapid fire questions. It feels like a knife being twisted in his stomach as the thought sinks in and settles heavy as lead.

All she tells him in response is that it's not information for her to explain. He will be debriefed on arrival. The non-answer makes him sigh weakly.

They’ve passed the same tree forty two times in a row now. A spindly thing, barren of leaves with a twisted top. A bird sits at the peak. Forty two birds have sat at the peak of forty two trees.

//Reused assets,// he thinks to himself. He wonders where that thought came from -- and he shakes his head like that’ll dislodge it. When that fails, he simply buries his face in his arms and knees -- throat still sore and cheeks still damp.

Minutes pass. Or maybe it’s hours. The whipping of the wind through the windowless vehicle and the sound of wheels on not-quite-pavement is mind numbing. There’s something in the road up ahead. His half-present attention is drawn by the resulting commotion. While it’s hard to hear over the wind, he catches a “The hell--?” and a “Slow down.” amongst the chatter. It prompts him to lift up his head.

There's a coyote, down the way. Least it’s shaped like one. When he squints, when they draw closer, it becomes less shaped like one.

It’s empty inside.

[[image endisnear1.png]]

No eyes, no teeth. Its jaw hangs slack like a taxidermy someone’s long given up on, all sagged down like fabric. No one notices the splattering of viscera and bone just off the side of the road, wet as though still fresh, against the omnipresent crimson. Thus all that’s left is skin and fur standing in the road. Unmoving.

“Gonna swerve it or--?” The people in the car are talking again.

“Maybe it’ll move,” Mukami murmurs, sounding on edge.

“...I don’t think it’s even alive anymore.”

They’re slowing down a touch anyways. It’s a few meters from them now, maybe less. And as that gap closes, there’s a shift. A sound like cracking glass; he squints against the visual distortion. The fur moves in the low breeze now, the ears swivel, and suddenly the thing scampers off the road with a wet sort of gurgling sound that should’ve been a yelp. Its limbs are a tangle against each other, and without bone to guide, it fumbles and limps like some dying thing.

That empty head and slack jaw swivel back over to stare at the vehicle as they pick up speed again. He finds himself still staring at it, as its skin becomes fractals. A shimmering cloud oozes out from the woods in thin branched strands. Grass oozes into coyote fur, coyote fur oozes into pavement. It prompts Mukami to abruptly swerve to the side to avoid it. Placeholder nearly hits his head against the car door, and in the process catches a glimpse of something on the other side of the road.

They’ve passed the same tree from earlier. Forty three.

"...no one around to write it," he murmurs in a low, trembling voice, "so it doesn't happen until we happen." The empty eyes of the thing in the road. Unmoving until they approached.

He knows the other two have likely long since tuned out his on-and-off muttering, but he can never seem to stop the words from spilling out. They enter his head and leave his mouth in a frightened, manic slurry.

"Nothing's happening anywhere unless its acted upon. By us. Which doesn't make sense. Everything observes, everything acts, so why only--" He buries his head back into his hands. He wonders if the coyote is now frozen again, stretched out across the road. Waiting.

"...we don't have much understanding of the paradox," he hears a quiet response, "it's barely been days."

"The authors left us." He repeats numbly. He doesn't know how many times he's said that already. The same dread that's been in the back of his head since he realized begins to boil again.

"Can I ask what that means?" Mukami seems to instinctively glance up, as though there's still a rear view mirror to view him in.

"Nothing follows any conventions," he shakes his head rapidly, "No rhyme or reason, nothing. Any sort of narrative-- any sort of narrative readings that I could get from 87 came up //dead.// There's //nothing.//"

He can vaguely see that she furrows her brow. The agent in the passenger's seat glances back at him. They open and close their mouth a few times, before going:

"When was the last time you ate or drank?"

He raises his head up from his hands, brow furrowing. "Uh--"

"There's some water under the seat in front of you. We don't have a lot, so try to conserve but you're... probably dehydrated by now." He can tell the agent is mostly //concerned//, but something about the statement makes him tear up further. //Get a hold of yourself. Please.// Placeholder ducks his head, wipes his face on his arm. His sleeve is damp.

There's a few plastic water bottles, dull and opaque like everything else in here. The water is warm. He tries not to gag on the odd chemical taste, forces himself to swallow. Place peers into the bottle, and the liquid within does not shine. He bites his lip and lowers the bottle. //Don't say anything. They don't have a lot.//

He places the water bottle back on the floor, pulls his knees back up to his chest.

The drive continues for several hours more in relative silence. It's only broken by his occasional sniffling, a bump in the road, or awkward sorts of exchanges between Mukami and the agent in the front seat.

Place buries his face against his knees, and lets the sound of the wind drown everything out. There's no other way to pass the time, when looking out the window and seeing that empty sky makes that low dread boil again.

Time blurs together -- maybe he'd fallen asleep? He's not sure where the line between dreaming and waking lies in the new state of the world. The wind has stopped, the sound of tires has stopped. Have they stopped? He still feels like he's moving. Place raises his head and the world becomes a torrent. Crimson whirls, shivers and writhes, long shadows that stretch upwards like the forms of trees. Does he hear birds? No. No that's not real. He reaches out, tries to feel for something. His hand touches the back of the passenger seat, rough fabric against his shaky grip.

Placeholder can hear talking, he hears the doors open, he does not see them. His breathing picks up as he fumbles blindly.

//Where?// His eyes dart around, stares at the figures that surround. Trees? Are they trees? Is this a f--

##34a626|The forest.##

##34a626|Woods without name##, and something ##e33636|great and terrible lurking within##. He shakes out his head, yelps when he feels something seize his wrists. He squirms, heels digging into dirt (or is it stone?). The man doesn't know where he is, the world his eyes perceive and the world where his body resides suddenly not the same. The past, this is the past. He runs through the woods. Two hands have seized him.

//"LET GO!"//

He can hear voices now, jumbled things.

"Get a hold of him!" "Perception changes hit again--" "Get out the eyedrops," shuffling, a hand touches his face, his head shoved against something cold.

"Stay still."

He doesn't. In a raw panic, as the ##e33636|thing beyond the trees## shifts, he tries to kick outwards. Placeholder's foot connects with something solid, and a shout pierces through the rustling of the leaves. The world blurs, everything shifts. He can see a person -- several people. There's a lake in the distance, its waters are as black as the sky. There's a rumble through the earth, it feels the same as his own hitching breaths.

He can't see Mukami, nor the agent from before.

"We did not get him all the way here just for that //thing// to get him," someone snaps, a frazzled looking man with a faint beard and lensless glasses (why are his eyes so dull? Why are //all// their eyes so cloudy?).

"I don't want t--" "We can't take a risk like this," "It'll make matters worse!" "We can calm him down when he's //not// at risk of being maimed!" Two people arguing, they turn to him as he squirms. The world flickers like a dying flame, red and dark and bright and dark again. Wait -- no, there's a person before him now, blocking out the world's dim light. A light Placeholder could never determine the source of. //Nondiegetic?//

He feels a sharp prick in his thigh, looks down and sees a needle plunged into his flesh.

//Oh.//

//That's a sedative, isn't it?//

------

[[div]]
[[=]]
<< **[[[Remember the Name]]]** | **[/on-guard-43-hub Words of Power and Poison]** | **[/over-time-hub The Breach Goes On: Over Time]** >>
[[/=]]
[[/div]]
------
[[=]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]]
> **Filename:** endisnear1
> **Author:** [[*user Dino--Draws]]
> **License:** CC BY-SA 3.0

> This article contains an excerpt from [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5956 SCP-5956] by [[*user HarryBlank]] and [[*user Placeholder McD]] (CC BY-SA 3.0).

[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]
[[/=]]
@@ @@

The Billboard Said, "The End is Near"

Module Styles

Inline Styles

Includes

CSS Classes

Page Source