Usinsk, Russia
“What a trouble, just use the ability.”
And after, Skuld teleports the whole camper along with them to an Usinsk outskirt, simply because she’s annoyed of sea-crossing.
Through the window, Skuld gazes to the distant horizon: Smokes flow out from the factories still, drillings work in diligence still; while a trail shows up on the other side.
Though Skuld removed the license of the car already, she still decides to drive deep into the trail to avoid getting inspected. She really wants to get supplies.
……It’s a major industrial area after all, can’t assure no war-flame’s coming ahead.
“Skuld……I’m hungry.”
“……Ugh.”
Sigurrós sneaks over the driving cab. She sticks her head out, staring at Skuld, driving.
Skuld’s helpless, so she can only park the car to a side, before getting to living area of the camper.
“Hmm……still some ingredients in the fridge, make a sandwich then.”
“Hooray!”
Ingredients in the fridge are all for Sigurrós, while she scoffs the compressed rations from MTFs——Even so, Skuld leaves the nice part in rations for Sigurrós too.
Skuld doesn’t know why Sigurrós could be satisfied simply with a sweet sandwich as a European though, just like how Sigurrós doesn’t know why Skuld could eat nothing but some rations every day.
Skuld walks to the table. She chips the processed meat heated beforehand, then stacks some lettuce, tomato, cheese slice and bread on it as well as a bit of ketchup and butter, and a sandwich at its simplest is done.
So then she eats all the rest of ingredients, raw. This shocks Sigurrós. She has never seen Skuld doing this.
“Skuld……the rest one, what’re you…?”
“Nah, can’t be anything serious, right?”
“What nonsense! You’re going to get sick!”
While laughing, Skuld opens the laptop on the bed. The screen flickers before showing SCP-3930’s document.
“There’s……nothing?”
Sigurrós sneaks over with half of the sandwich, while Skuld covers her eyes, pushing her back as if treating Sigurrós as a kitten.
“Hey!”
“Better not look at this? Foundation ain’t lack of things that kill you when y’know it.”
Hearing that very word, Sigurrós runs right away. She’s very scared.
Though she says that, SCP-3930 still requires clearance to know what it truly is.
Skuld pulls out a USB, gently winds it, and plugs it to the computer. SCP-3930 pops out with all contents after the fan “hoots” and spins for a few seconds.
“Already know the whole document by heart……though need to confirm the exact location still.”
Skuld memorizes the specific location before closing the page right away, hot-unplugging it out.
She pets Sigurrós burying her head to the pillow while typing in the coordinates into the navigation.
“Get ready, our witch, we’re going to a place.”
SCP-3930 is to be familiarized by few one——
Except the Transcendent.
Upon a daze of flicker, the camper falls next to SCP-3930. Skuld bends the reality to adjust it for a bit to prevent Sigurrós looking at SCP-3930 directly.
“Alright……Sigurrós, it’s important, once you make a mistake, you could be never seeing me anymore.”
Skuld stares at her with a sense of graveness.
“……Ok, I’m all ears.”
“Firstly: I’m entering a place, very dangerous place. The way I get back, is all on your magic, Sigurrós’ magic.”
Skuld gives Sigurrós a roll of kite string and notebook.
“Try to enchant it, it works as long as it pulls me back. Take it as flying a kite with your eyes closed. Hold me well with it. I’ll communicate with you in a special way——This notebook. There’ll be things I’m telling you.”
Sigurrós nods. Skuld gives her the things, before pulling out the string, tying hard to herself.
“Secondly……how many toys can you make? Like those moving by themselves.”
“Eh? Um……”
Sigurrós never heard of such requests.
Foundation guys all don’t allow her to create living things——not even unsentient ones.
“……No need to be living, moving one can do……Or……rabbits! Can this do?”
“Rabbits……”
Sigurrós reliefs. In a wave of her hand, a white rabbit jumps out of her cuff.
“How many you want, sister?”
“Roughly……”
Skuld thinks a bit.
“Tens of thousands?”
……
White rabbits pile up around. As if a torrent, they seem like they could devour all leaves. Yet they follow their instinct, avoiding an area that doesn’t look anything wrong at all.
And that’s exactly SCP-3930.
Skuld stands among the rabbits, staring at that nullness; while Sigurrós takes a deep breath in the camper, ordering them to approach into that “nullness.” They terrify, yet they have to jump forward to the nullness, as if heedful to a witch’s order——
Skuld looks back to the camper……and walks along with the rabbits.
So then, a string remains suspended.
Nullified Null
Skuld closes her eyes, sealing the senses off. She plays possum.
……Until she recollects things that she should have remembered in emptiness.
A rabbit appears in her arms.
——Rabbits? Right, rabbits……I told her……she put rabbits here.
Skuld wakes up. And gravity is constructed at the very moment. Along with gravity, sights and tacts. They emerge into the apartment that Skuld never forgets.
Skuld right now stands at the first floor, with a rabbit trembling in her arms. It jumps off right away, and disappears before Skuld’s eyes straight upon it lands.
“How come it’s here?……Sure. I shall pull the nullified one from here.”
Skuld opens the elevator.
Buttons are all blurred apart, yet a button lights up. The 15th floor, that shouldn’t exist at the first place……as if inviting Skuld.
She walks into the elevator, fearless.
“Ding……”
The aged door opens, and Skuld is in the corridor she has known for long……the corridor in front of her house. Illumination flickers. Skuld remembers that it was a downlight that’s always broken, no one’s fixing it even after reporting to the property management.
She pulls out a marker that she always brings, waving it on air as if drawing in VR-painting——
What awaits behind the forbidden door of existence? The realm of mortals, or the other side beyond?
Upon the next flash of downlight, another one appears at the other side of the corridor. The unforgettable one.
“……Des——No.”
Skuld isn't great-sighted. She finds “Desiree” at the opposite wearing a blackhole depicting the event horizon just as she smiles. It should’ve been VR glasses.
“Who are you?”
Skuld points to Them with the pen.
“……A newborn deity, knows no respect already now?”
The moment They speak, bellow crashes out as if scream into the null reflecting her mind.
Skuld expected facing Them. She calmly draw a portrait of Desiree before asking:
“No offense. Simply, is there a person like this?”
“Ignorant. Being a dullard simply on your own, it does not disrupt me. Yet you broke in like this. The ink of narrative, you are loathed.”
In a fleeting glance, They begin to swear hard.
“Forgive my ignorance: May you enlighten me?”
Skuld shrugs. She does not bat a single eyelid.
“Its existence? You thought you saw through the Foundation’s narrative, yet you’ve fallen into a cage! There wasn’t a ‘Desiree’ at the first place!”
“Pardon……?”
“You write stories, and so does the Foundation, you fool! ‘Desiree’? Nothing more than a puppet of the stage, a street standee, a nonexistent one that you love-obsessed would never think of! Begone! Get out of here! Bothering me with these nonsensical things again, and you’re too erased!”
“Desiree” in front of her begins to distort from the central of the black hole, along with the whole corridor. It’s again a realm, neither black, nor white.
——Now……not the time to think! Damn it!
Skukd quickly pulls the string a bit, and writes on the notebook:
Skuld’s last hope, is the very ability from Sigurrós.
And so Skuld senses a calming power, pulling herself out of this realm of nullness.
Usinsk, Russia
Skuld returns to the camper, sitting in front of the bar downcastly. Sigurrós gets a cup of orange juice to pass over.
“Have this, Skuld.”
“I’m……fine.”
“……”
Sigurrós knows to read the room. The juice is simply put on the bar before she goes back to read story books.
“‘That person’ is a puppet……what does that truly mean? What’ve I done wrong?”
Skuld murmurs, immersed in pain. And a window pops up with a video-call request in the computer. Skuld lightly wipes tears on her face, and accepts the call——
There’s a woman with dark circles, wearing a JK uniform along with white coat. She holds a corroded book happily, standing in that library of all humanity.
“Testing, Ninth’s here. Oh, probably should call you sister-in-law, right?”
“……”
“Hey, say something.”
Seeing Skuld staying sad, the person on other side sighs, and takes down the camera put on the bookshelf.
“Regardless, your assumption was right. The……book for Desiree, is heavily implying artificiality. Seems like the Foundation was producing blank books by cultivating test-tube babies to fill in contents on the books.”
She flips through a few pages, pointing out the contents filled by the Foundation out of eroded papers.
“Foundation’s struggling with how to contain those anomalies that can travel through the narrative, wasn’t it? That’s why they had secretly invented of a instance using the narrative itself to contain them……Though I simply heard of it. Didn’t know even Desiree herself was a part of containment……”
“……”
“Stop crying! At least we have shared interests: Your girlfriend is my friend after all, so I’ll surely help you ’till the end!”
Skuld looks up, staring at the Foundation researcher calling herself “your girlfriend’s friend as well as colleague.”
“……So, the Pattern Screamer speaks right?”
“Oops the guards’re coming! Anyway there’re chances to revive not suitable to talk ’bout it here so please bring 239 to A07——”
Along with shaking of the camera, Ninth cuts off right away. She didn’t answer Skuld’s question still.
……
……Desiree herself, was the containment procedure?
Skuld feels this a bit difficult to believe.
But……
“Skuld……”
“Yes?”
“You went to such dangerous places to find someone?”
“……Yeah. Just that……”
Skuld lies on the table, looking at the little witch trying to becalm her, looking sideways.
Perhaps she’s the same with Sigurrós before, confined to an illusion shaped by the Foundation.
And now, the dream is shattered……
Twenty years of creation about irony of falling into a dream, she finally knows how painful it is to have her iridescent bubble bursted off.
“It’s alright, Skuld. You have me by your side! You saved me before, so I’ll save you from sadness this time!”
“Hmph……”
Rescuing 239 from the Foundation, Skuld planned to make it as a part to save Desiree too.
Yet so long accompanied with Sigurrós, she already can’t leave this little girl, taking her as sister yet pretty much ages the same as her.
“So, where’re we going next?”
She is entirely different from the naivety when she was saved. Now, Sigurrós had already found the reason to live——
And so, Skuld as a senpai can’t get behind her, can she?
Skuld tidies up her mood, and pat the little witch for a bit.
“It’s Gobi Desert~”