Link to article: Of Turtle, Time, and the Hare.
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[[include :scp-wiki:theme:black-highlighter-theme]] [[include component:preview text= "We dreamed one another into existence." ]] [[=]] [[module Rate]] [[/=]] [[=]] [[image https://scp-sandbox-3.wdfiles.com/local--files/turtle-time-2/sketch1748453747843.png]] "How much longer 'til the city?" "Sleep, child—" the [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-8100 Turtle’s] great eyes shifted, slow as the tide, back to the small human nestled in the crook of its neck. Behind them, upon the massive, moss-crusted shell, the crumbling ruins of Coastal Site-93 stretched out, ghostly towers sinking under ivy and silence. "I have been sleeping for thousands of years, and I shan't rest a moment longer!" declared the child, springing to his feet. He leaned against the Turtle’s neck like a sailor with his mast, peering ahead with impatience born of eternity. "Off your feet, child!" rumbled the Turtle, its voice older than stone. "Must I tell a story just to keep you from splitting your head open? Do children still like stories?" The child opened his mouth—but froze. "Wait—what was that?" he whispered. Down along the edge of the Turtle’s path, something moved. Small. Fast. White. A rabbit, impossibly clean against the ruined world, darted through fallen pylons and vanished into the dust. But not before meeting the child's gaze—eyes like stars, bright and old. The Turtle frowned. "...So they still run," it murmured to itself. "Bunny!" giggled the child, already leaning dangerously toward the edge. For a moment, it seemed he might leap down in chase. "Silence!" boomed the Turtle, the ground humming with the force of its voice. The child stopped mid-motion, startled. Their eyes met—fury and fear—until the Turtle's expression softened. "Silence... and slowness, please." "Why is that all you care about?" the child muttered. "Slowness." The Turtle blinked. "Ah," it said, settling back into an ancient rhythm. "Then listen. There was a moment before time. Just me and the Hare. And a silence so deep we mistook it for death. But we were not dead—we were dreaming. And in that dream, he ran, and I followed. And the further he ran, the longer time stretched. That was how it began." "A hare? Like the bunny?" "Yes," said the Turtle. "A wry little thing. Indescribable. Insatiable. Eternal. The Hare runs forever—but the Turtle is always close behind." @@ @@ [[image https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/The_Intersexes_-_Separator_-_Page_529.png height="25px"]] @@ @@ [[image https://scp-sandbox-3.wdfiles.com/local--files/turtle-time-2/sketch1748456968036.png]] Once, before time began, there came a knock at the Turtle's burrow. "Brother Turtle! Brother Turtle!" Dutifully, the Turtle rose from his hole, craning his scaly neck to the surface. There stood the Hare—bright-eyed, twitching, ears impossibly long, as if they could catch sound of the future. "Brother Turtle," said the Hare, breathless with glee, "I dreamed of you last night!" "An odd conundrum," said the Turtle, blinking slowly. "For I had dreamed of you." "And until that dream, I was unsure you existed." "A simple explanation," said the Turtle, "We dreamed one another into existence." And so it was. They traveled together for a long while, as brothers might. They wandered the silence and the void, sowing motion into stillness, breath into stone. Where they stepped, things began. Rivers followed the Hare’s erratic frolicking; mountains rose in the wake of the Turtle’s path. Yet, despite their dance of creation, the sky would soon dim. The brittle cold would kiss every frond of grass, and nibble upon the Hare's thick fur. Yet, it would bite relentlessly at the Turtle's unguarded hide, until it was too much to bear. The Turtle slowed — first in step, then in breath. His words became fewer, stretched between silences. The Hare stood at the edge, fur bristling, breath misting in the air as he paused for his companion to follow. He was poised — twitching — as if the world itself were holding its breath, waiting for him to run. “It is nearly winter,” said the turtle. “I know,” replied the Hare, though he did not turn. “I will need to sleep soon.” “I won’t,” said the Hare. The Turtle lifted his head, just enough to look up at his brother. “You could. With me." “I can outrun winter,” the Hare said, too quickly. “I know,” said the Turtle. A pause, long and wide. “But I can not. And I will freeze without you.” A silence, all too quiet and all too cold lingered between them. “And I would miss you. That’s all.” The Hare’s ears lowered. He did not want to say yes. But he could not say no. So, slowly, he stepped toward his brother, the cold now numbing his paws as it bit into him too. “I’ll stay one winter,” the Hare said. “Just one,” the Turtle agreed. And so, that winter, they slept. In a lonely burrow, they curled into one another, as children do—soft and strange and dreaming. When they awoke, there was a man upon their backs. The next day, the man’s wife. Then children. Then towers. Roads. Songs. A city, alive with light and laughter, sprouted and spread across their backs like lichen. It grew heavy, and so they moved—not apart, but in rhythm, for the city needed balance. Too fast, and it crumbled. Too slow, and it starved. [[image https://scp-sandbox-3.wdfiles.com/local--files/turtle-time-2/sketch1748459259925.png]] The Turtle trudged forward. The Hare skipped, paused, sprinted, always pulling at the seams. "Faster," the Hare would say. "Slower," the Turtle would reply. And always, the city held. Until one day, the Hare stopped waiting. He ran. The city—now unbalanced— tore asunder. But instead of dying, humanity unraveled into a new light. In a brilliant burst, the the city was undone, and humans fell alongside the burning fragments of their forsaken homes. Yet, where their embers fell, each burned into a new world, a new age. A thousand cities. A billion lives. Humanity became time itself. And the Hare, unwilling to carry them any longer, burrowed deep into the earth and vanished. The Turtle, wordless, followed the path behind, collecting the broken, the wandering, the ones the Hare left behind. He carried their ruins, their songs, their dreams—onward, ever onward. @@ @@ [[image https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/The_Intersexes_-_Separator_-_Page_529.png height="25px"]] @@ @@ [[image https://scp-sandbox-3.wdfiles.com/local--files/turtle-time-2/sketch1748462383946%20%281%29.png]] Except now, the Hare's path no longer offered songs or cities. Only dust. Only ruins. Only echoes. And the lone child—curled up now, sleepy again—spoke in a hush: "Did the Hare leave because he was tired?" The Turtle hesitated. "No," he said at last. "He left because he knew something I did not." The child blinked. "What did he know?" The Turtle's voice was like a breeze through a rye field. Dry. Soft. Ruthless. "That the city was not my creation- it was his, and his alone, made as a tether." "...A tether?" "He dreamed it to hold me. To root me in place. While he ran ahead—unburdened." "...But you're still carrying me?" "Because someone had to, and he knew I would never let you go." "But why would he dream of you— and of us— if he only ever wanted himself to run free?" "It's simple," said the Turtle. "He never dreamed of me," The child stared. "But you dreamed of him. You both said—" "I said what I hoped," the Turtle whispered. "But tell me, child—have you ever run from something in a dream? Something you didn’t understand, but couldn’t escape?" The child nodded slowly. "Then maybe," said the Turtle, eyes vast and ancient and full of sorrow, "I am not his brother. Not his dream. Maybe I am what he was running from. And when he ran into the burrow, he was not abandoning you. He was simply fleeing me." He looked ahead, into the infinite wasteland. Yet, a faint glow emanated from the horizon, beckoning them forward, towards this end. [[image https://scp-sandbox-3.wdfiles.com/local--files/turtle-time-2/sketch1748460995324.png]] [[/=]]