Link to article: Those Whose Spirits Have Been Crushed.
:root { --header-title: "SCP Foundation"; --header-subtitle: "Secure, Contain, Protect"; }
:scp-wiki:theme:black-highlighter-theme
:scp-wiki:theme:scp-archive
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:black-highlighter-theme]] [[include :scp-wiki:theme:scp-archive]] [[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] [[module CSS]] :root { --header-title: "SCP Foundation"; --header-subtitle: "Secure, Contain, Protect"; } [[/module]] It had taken Joe ages, but he had finally found it. His one chance at ridding himself of the misery he had so desperately desired to escape. He had read the file, he knew the effects, and he knew that this was the quickest way to end it all. He had broken every protocol and endured every kill agent that the Foundation could conceive to prevent a being like him from gaining access to such a closely guarded secret. As he stepped foot outside the aged and slowly opening automatic facility door, the desert air became thickened by the heat that radiated from the glowing object betwixt the mountains only six miles away. The process of breaking in had been as simple as it always was. Walk around and pretend like you own the place–that is, he did exactly as he always did, and nobody batted an eye. Even when he entered into a restricted area, they must’ve assumed he had been authorized to do so since he was wearing the stolen uniform of a dead researcher he had picked up during his last visit to a Foundation site. And what a mess it was, him nearly having to avoid the concussive blasts of an MTF shock rifle not even being fired at him! All this was to say, the end couldn’t have come any sooner. As he started to traverse the desert plain, he began recounting the file to himself. “Any entity that approaches within 1 km of SCP-001 is immediately struck by the weapon and obliterated from existence…” The way he recalled the exact wording felt almost robotic. He had gone over it as many times as he could before he had to leave the document so as to avoid drawing suspicion. Yet, he hadn’t quite understood what the big deal was. So what if it’s the first? There were probably a million things far more dangerous in the system than a mere angel standing guard, let alone enough to try to kill someone over attempting to learn about it. Despite being invulnerable to harm, the heat still made his body heavy with the beads of sweat that soaked into his clothes, causing them to stick to his legs and chest. The winds began to pick up as he crossed the first kilometer. Sands kicked up as he looked around for any obvious signs of the Foundation. Nothing. No guards, no watch towers, no cameras. Absolutely nothing. Time passed more slowly as he stepped closer; each step felt like an hour. The day never changed, and he never recalled this being an effect in the file. Maybe it was another ‘anomalous trait’ he had as the eggheads at the Foundation like to call them that he previously was unaware of, now rearing its ugly head. Though he didn’t understand why it would be manifesting now. By the time he passed the two-kilometer mark, he had recited the lines of the file from memory like Bible verses from the mouth of the preacher. “Any and all hostile actions taken towards SCP-001 have resulted in the annihilation of the attacker, regardless of range,” he muttered to himself as he felt the back of his pocket. The gun was still there, reminding and reassuring him that if approaching the Guardian normally didn’t work, he could always count on the gun to elicit a response. He had almost felt sorry for the armed guard whose body he had looted it from during the last aforementioned containment breach. He usually didn’t entertain such feelings for the idiots who attempted to lock him up, but something about that guard just seemed a bit sad. Maybe it was the fact that he lay dead, curled up in the fetal position. Maybe it was because his lifeless face appeared bloodied by the effects of an unknown anomaly, simultaneously crying and vomiting blood. Or maybe it was the fact that, despite the guard’s death at the hands of another anomaly, Joe almost felt a small twinge of guilt at the fact that he had been the one to cause the breach in the first place. //He// had been the one to end this man’s life. But, like with every dark deed he committed, every feeling boiled down to an almost. A what-if. Perhaps in another life, he would’ve felt something. Anything for that poor man, yet he felt nothing. Even when he tried, there was nothing. Death and misfortune had followed Joe his entire life. In spite of the fact that to everyone else he was your average Joe Schmo, he was a walking hurricane of chaos, and that was purposeful. Everything he had done, everything he did meant nothing. What is life without consequence? What is cause without an effect to complement it? Is it existing if no one knows or sees you for who you actually are? He had gotten so used to the thoughts that eventually they just became a background hum in his mind. Even now, as he stepped past the three-kilometer threshold, the thoughts haunted him like dead air to a channel. By now, he could clearly see SCP-001 in all of its holy splendor. They weren’t kidding when they described it standing at a tall 700 cubits in height, whatever that meant. The being itself stood glowing like a pillar of pure light against the backdrop of the barren and arid landscape. The wind seemed to pick up even more now as he got closer, causing him to cover his eyes with his hand. From what he could make out, it had seven wings jutting out from the back of its body, though he couldn’t be sure. The file did say that there hadn’t yet been an accurate count established, but he still found it strange that he didn't see the number of wings as listed by the witnesses in the file. He tried to breathe, but the air itself became ashy with the amount of sand blowing in his direction. The feeling reminded him of a memory that stayed locked away, out of sight and out of mind. There wasn’t any real reason he could think of for avoiding it. After all, there was no real risk to his life looking back on it. But still, the memory of having your older brother leave you to drown wasn’t going to make him feel any more miserable than he already was. The image was still vivid, the way his brother Marty had invited him out to fish at the lake near the parents’ cabin. He could still remember the way his brother smiled when he said it was just going to be the ‘two of them on an adventure’. Looking back, it was pretty apparent why he’d really been smiling. They had set out from the nearby pier in their dad’s rowboat, Marty paddling from the front while Joe paddled from the back. When they had gotten to about the center of the lake, they cast their lines into the water in hopes of bringing back a carp or bass. Joe’s line immediately began to tug with the familiar hard pull of a large fish, maybe a sturgeon or a pike. Whatever it was, it yanked on the line, dragging him to the edge of the boat as if they were playing a game of tug-of-war. At first, he managed, locking his legs around the seat and pulling the line upwards as he reeled it in faster and faster. Then it began swimming erratically, forcing him back to the edge of the boat just to keep hold of the line and then… Everything went cold. His vision blurred as he bobbed up from the near somersault from falling into the water, and initially, he had thought it might’ve been the fish. His line was gone, fallen out of his hands in the scuffle, but then he looked up to see Marty, who coldly stared down at him as he struggled to stay afloat. He cried out to him, but that only seemed to drive his brother to start rowing away, all the while Joe could see his face leering down at him and shaking his head. He panicked as he started swallowing mouthfuls of water, and eventually his vision faded. When he came to; his parents were standing over him with the pained look of two people who believed their whole world had come to an end. Joe didn’t even cough up the water when he came to, he just awoke. As if everything before had been a bad dream. Only it wasn’t. As he trudged past the four-kilometer mark, his mind thought back to how Marty merely stood in that moment, arms crossed, and leaned up against a nearby tree where his face lay shadowed by its branches. Once again, expressing the familiar glare of both hatred and fear because no matter how hard he wanted him gone, Joe never died. Their parents later punished him, but it didn’t matter. What was an act of betrayal in a relationship that didn’t exist? “God, why did I ever think there was chance?” he snarled as the winds picked up further. The sand now became a blinding torrent of rock and dirt that came in waves, striking him in the eyes and disappearing into his lungs. None of it hurt, but it was annoying. Very annoying. Annoying, like the ways people politely addressed him after he hurled an insult at them. Annoying like the way that people and places felt disconnected from him because none of them were experiencing the real him. Annoying in the way that he was treated as some freak of nature meant to be hidden from the world, when the world didn’t even seem to notice him. The journey was endless, and now thoughts of turning back began to dog his psyche. Settling into the background hum that had always been there to remind him of one thing: //you’re alone…// Then, the winds suddenly stopped, and the air was calm. In fact, it was more than calm–almost tranquil in how nothing seemed to disrupt the gentle silence that had befallen the land around him. The heat had become even more immense, so much so that he took off the lab coat that now made him feel like he was standing in a walk-in oven. His eyes traced the entity that stood before him, now only a kilometer away. Titanic and imposing in all its magnificent glory. To Joe, the Foundation now seemed a much tinier drop in a larger ocean of questions that begot answers which were never to be known. Now he stood before the Guardian, as an average Joe at the Gates of Paradise. It seemed almost poetic to him. A life lived without consequence, now being faced with possibly the most ultimate judgement conceivable. Yet, it still didn’t frighten him. In reality, he was elated upon laying his eyes on the flaming sword that shone a blinding light rivaled only by the Sun. //If only he could feel his retinas burning, then this would be more humbling,// he thought to himself as he stared intently at the blazing weapon. He then closed his eyes and laughed at the thought as he began to hear the background hum of doubt begin to echo from the back of his mind once more. If he couldn’t be blinded by the infinite glory of God, did that make him above even God’s judgment? What was life if even God couldn’t grant death for him? All of it came in a cascade of uncertainty that only served to dishearten and tire him. He sighed, taking three steps forward and hoping to meet the nothingness that awaited him. And then… //FORGET//. He now found himself staring back toward the facility from which he came. Initially, he thought this might’ve been some kind of final destination vision before his hopefully quick death, but it didn’t end. No fading vision. No life flashing before the eyes. No blackness. Nothing. He actually couldn’t quite recall what he had been doing out here in the first place. He had been out in the middle of the desert to find something. Something… His eyes then shot open, and his blood began to boil as he realized what had just happened. He had been played for a fool. Like every other subject who approached SCP-001, he had fallen for its most basic trick and hadn’t even realized it! He then turned back around to face the being, who simply stood in its same supplicant pose with its head bowed and its sword at rest. Marching toward the entity, he was now prepared to run toward it, which might give him more of a chance at getting close enough to elicit its defense mechanism. He warmed himself up, pumping up his knees as if to run a marathon, and bolted across the one-kilometer line and within seconds came closer than he had before and… //FORGET//. Now he found himself sprinting back toward the facility once again. Unsure as to what he was doing or where he was. He started to recall what he had been doing. He had broken into a facility and snuck a peek at a file that had been made hard to find by the upper echelons of the Foundation. The file activated a kill agent that hadn’t worked before he read the contents, which detailed an entity that could give him the one reprieve he had so desperately craved. The thing that had eluded him for so long… What was it? His eyes shot open at the realization once more, and he turned back to see the Gate Guardian in all its glory, still retaining its singular static pose with seven wings jutting out on all sides behind it. He had fallen for it again. Not just once, but twice now! Every single thing he had memorized from the file, and he had been duped by the same property as every other layman! There had to be an end to this. No more was he going to fall victim to the same tricks employed against the disposable D-Class he had seen be butchered in droves during his observations of the Foundation's experiments. Today was the day he would die, he had already decided. He then calmly strode toward the one-kilometer line once more and drew the pistol from his back pocket. If he couldn’t get it to kill him with just determination alone, he might as well try the next best thing. “Figured I’d bring this along in case you decided to pull any of your bullshit tricks!” He shouted to the unresponsive being. “So consider this my parting gift to you, since you’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass to deal with!” He then raised the pistol and lobbed off five shots at the entity. At first, it remained unchanging and unmoving. It didn’t even sound like the bullets were moving through the air, much less that they made contact with it. He half-expected the sword to finally be raised and come crashing down in a hail fire of blinding light. And still… nothing. The story of his life was nothing. Nothing. All he was, everything he did, everything he said, and everything he struggled for was for nothing. All he could do was… //REMEMBER//. He was now back in the water that day as his brother watched. Only this time, Marty began to scream and cry out for him to grab his hand. The mouthfuls of water no longer felt like a mere annoyance. They were real. As real as every suffocating drop that began to fill his lungs as he continued to rise and sink above and below the surface. He then felt a hand grab one of his struggling arms and hoist him upward. Now he was back at the Foundation interrogation room with Doctor Loyd, where he had been introduced to this whole other world, completely unknown to him at the time. Only this time, the Doctor seemed more irritated at each of his snarky remarks. Every blunt statement was met with a more direct and prying follow-up question that dug into the mind. No words were shared that didn’t exist. The conversation was happening as it was supposed to. //Supposed to…// He remembered the doc having been in his life only once, though he had left a lasting impression. Perhaps it was because he was the epitome of everything that made Joe’s life a living hell. Perhaps it was because he was the one man who at least tried to get to know him. Or perhaps it was just down to the fact that he had been the one man who realized the truth, even when it was far too late. Lost in a nuclear fire along with the doc and everything he had worked toward. He blinked once again and now stood outside the smoldering facility, staring up at the mushroom cloud that hovered like a dark nimbus over the fiery ruins of what once was one of the most secure places on earth. But this time, there was no apathy or perverse joy at the destruction. He had since come to notice that the background hum had vanished and now been replaced with something else. Was it… //grief//? A single, tired sigh escaped from him as he looked solemnly down at the burned remains of humans and anomalies alike among the sea of scorched rebar, concrete, and steel. Now, he was back on the boat with his brother Marty, who exhaustedly collapsed back into his seat on the other side of the boat. Heaving both from his previous exertion and the panic that now bore itself across his face. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was now standing over the dead guard from whom he had looted the gun. He had never seen the man. He had no idea what his job was other than that he was a standard guard. He didn’t even know his name. And yet, there was this aching feeling as he gently lifted the pistol from the man’s belt. A tear then escaped his eye as he looked down at the corpse, all frozen in fear. The kind of fear that was laced with anger and panic as does befall someone in such a chaotic situation. He had heard many times when his brother and he talked about a feeling he knew nothing of. //Guilt// was what Marty had called it. Usually, using it when apologizing for something shitty he had done, deliberate or not. He always spoke of how it was guilt that drove him to even do so. Even after leaving him to die, he still admitted to the feeling and how it propelled him to ‘do the right thing’ and say he was sorry. More so during their last conversation on the swing set in the backyard of their childhood home, where he still continued to say that it was guilt that drove him to feel bad for what he had done all those years ago. Even though he was never really able to understand Joe, it was always //guilt// that drove him to try to reconcile anyway. As hollow as the attempt likely was, a small part of Joe wished it were true. Joe blinked and was now back on the boat with his brother. Who looked over at him, panting and shaken, “Are you ok?” He asked, leaning forward to see if he had sustained any injuries. “No, I’m fine…” Joe responded distantly, looking out toward the lake and then back at Marty before turning to face the water once more. “Are you sure? You looked like you were about to sink to the bottom,” Marty replied. “Plus, you're shivering.” Joe then turned to see him, confused and concerned. Joe’s eyes widened as it dawned on him what had just happened. “D-Did you just…” Joe asked before the question trailed off into a shocked silence. “Did I just… what?” Marty asked. “You’re not making any sense, little bro. I think we should probably get you to a doctor. You might be a bit delirious from the shock of it all.” “Y-You… you actually heard me?” Joe asked in astonishment. “Uh… yeah. I’m not deaf,” Marty remarked. “Seriously, what’s going on? Are you feeling ok?” At that moment, Joe jumped forward and embraced Marty. Unlike the days when he had been forced to join in family hugs or pretend to embrace loved ones at the gatherings with a smile on his face, this one was different. This was something new. Something unfamiliar, and he knew what it must be. This was what //love// was. This is what it felt like. A warm embrace with a brother previously desired to be forgotten, now the one and only person who understood him. Now it wasn’t just a single tear or belated breath. It was a waterfall of emotions and hitching sobs as he held on tight to the one and only person who made him feel alive. This was living. This was how it was for everyone else. His heart beat in rapid succession as he held on tighter. “Whoa, dude! What’s gotten you so mushy all of the sudden?” Through blurry eyes and labored breathing, he heard himself cry out over Marty’s shoulder all of what he had wished he could’ve said. “I won’t ever leave you again, Marty! I promise! You’re my big brother and don’t want to lose you ever again!” “Whoa, whoa, slow down, little bro. You know I’ll always be around. One way or another…” Then the image faded, and he now stood back at the one-kilometer line as Marty disappeared as though he were any other mirage in the desert. Joe’s arms were now empty. Wrapped around nothing and nobody. He was back to where it always returned to… nothing. “P-Please… Please, don’t leave me…” he whimpered, watching as the last vestiges of Marty’s form dissipated into nothing. He then stood up and cried out to where the vision had been sitting, “Please, don’t leave me! Please!” He then collapsed to the ground, scraping his palms against the dirt and recoiling from the stinging burn with which they felt. He held them up to see blood dripping from tiny blisters and cuts where the sand and rock had grazed. They curled back into fists and fell back to the ground as he hung his head down and began to cry once more. “No… You can’t do this to me. You can’t! Not like this!” He exclaimed, lifting his head back up at the Gate Guardian, which continued to stand in the same pose as it had before. Frantically, he searched his pockets and the ground around him for the gun, but it was gone. As he did, the loud buzzing alarm sounded off in the distance. The last vestiges of his old plan had vanished like the life he’d never had, and in its place roared the new reality with which he beheld. A voice over the site’s loudspeaker announced, “INTRUDER DETECTED WITHIN THE ONE KILOMETER ZONE OF SCP-001! ALL AVAILABLE ON-SITE SECURITY STAFF ARE ORDERED TO APPREHEND THE TRESSPASSER AND TAKE HIM INTO FOUNDATION CUSTODY!” The message repeated on a loop as several armored trucks converged on his location. As he looked behind at the quickly approaching vehicles and then back at the Gate Guardian, all he could muster out was a single choking plea. For now, he was just a normal man at the Gates of Paradise. A small speck in the face of infinite power and infinite mercy. Now he wasn’t in a hell of his own circumstance, but of his own volition. He had done this to himself, and he didn’t want to believe it. “Please, you can’t leave me like this. Please… let me see him one last time. Please… Please…”