"Who lit the fuse that tore the Foundation's world apart?"
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Info
SCP-8082: "The Wild Hunt"
Written by
Nonaggress
Content Warning: A few depictions of verbal emotional abuse, gaslighting, allusions to child abuse, disturbing imagery.
by Nonaggress
Special Containment Procedures: The Foundation is incapable of containing SCP-8082, as a general mutiny of Site-46 staff has led to the fall of the installation and regional security assets to a United States military incursion. Tensions between the Foundation and the United States government are not conducive to containment operations in civilian areas. Efforts are currently focused on maintaining Foundation control over critical installations, and preparing for a potential definition of Tiamat-class Special Containment Procedures targeting the United States of America.
Under no circumstances should personnel approach or interact with SCP-8082. Statistical analysis indicates a mean time of eight minutes to breaching of one of the conditions for a nomenclature mutation event in SCP-8082's presence. These conditions include, and are not limited to, referring to SCP-8082 with a name, responding to a name SCP-8082 bestows on you, lying to SCP-8082, denying SCP-8082 food when admitting SCP-8082 to an abode.
It is likely that SCP-8082's hazardous effects are not under SCP-8082's conscious control.
Description: SCP-8082 is the designation for an nomenclative-kinetic eigenweapon. The exact capabilities of this eigenweapon, as well as its status and whether it is at large or in American custody is not yet known.
Discovery: SCP-8082 was developed by Site-46 in an effort to combat an anomaly that was causing the widespread disappearances of children throughout the continental United States (to date, approximately two hundred thousand (200,000) children have become casualties). Though such a weapons project had been suggested by various Foundation staff, the O5 council chose not to pursue it due to concerns that the process to create the weapon was insufficiently understood. Site-46 began its own initiative in secret, labeled Project Erlkönig.
Survivor testimony from the fall of Site-46 indicates that the procedure to create SCP-8082 took place on 9/27/2024 at 12 AM, which correlates with the disappearance of all but two progeny of Foundation staff, inflicting a critical blow to organizational morale, and sparking widespread defections to US government allegedly in an attempt to seek retribution against the Foundation as a whole for being complicit in Site-46's actions.
Project Erlkönig: Research documentation
Irrelevant. It has already begun.
Source of image undeterminedAnother addendum, my friends: There are two of them.
Location: The dream glade without Names
The young god of death was fused to a tall alder tree. A weird unlight gloamed from the streams of sweet-tasting ichor flowing down his face and arms into the olive carpet of grass beneath him. Each blade in the field is stiff and though he hears a gentle breeze, every blade remains stuck in place. They were like mossy cactus spines. His neck feels stiff where his spine was pierced by the jagged heartwood.
He saw a vague silhouette emerge from the dark and move towards him. As his eyes continued to adjust, he saw she was tall, dressed in a black three piece suit, with two matching Foundation pins in each lapel. In one pocket, a silver chain dangled, likely the tail of an ornate pocket watch. He couldn't make out her face. He saw her bare feet crush the swampy grass, but heard no sound of crunching vegetation, or rustling clothes. He saw the grass behind her turn to straw and wilt, and then turn red.
The fatherless son amidst bastards saw what she saw with his other eye. He saw himself; a bloodless, blank-featured corpse protruding from a tall, leaf-less alder tree, his face frozen in a wide-eyed scream. Two streaks of sap flow from his eyes and drip from his jaw onto the mossy green grass; the only other part of him sticking out from the crease-less bark is his left arm, hand grasping at air.
She of the sanguine tears: "This won't do."
He saw her reach into the pocket with the silver pocket-watch chain, saw her pull out the combat knife it was connected to. She stopped inches away from him, and then, grabbing the handle of the knife with both hands, she thrust it straight into the tree's trunk, inches below his jaw where his neck would be. She yanked the knife earthwards, and the wood rent where the blade moved like she's stripping the flesh from cooked meat. The gaping wound she creates expels a mist of flies and gold, and the man with tattoos of winged things sloshed onto the ground, dressed in a Foundation D-class uniform, writhing in a viscous pool of amber fluid.
As the vision of what she sees vanishes from his other eye, he is finally able to see her face, and every nerve in his body fires a 'run, run right now' message to every limb he has. His jaw started to ache, and he realized he was voicelessly screaming.
It's me.
Her jaw and cheeks and flowing dark hair were human enough, except for the rivulets of blood streaming over her chin, down her neck and into her suit. Then there was what the top half of her head was covered with. To say it was merely a mask was understating it. Someone might as well have ripped a giant rabbit's head off and smashed it onto her head. The blood spilling down her front was pouring from under meat veil. She stared at him with wet red eyes.
He realized those weren't eyes. Instead furry skin stretched where there normally would have been sockets, soaked through with twin shapeless patches of blood.
He wheezed, coughed up more sap, and found his voice again.
The man with the missing finger: "They got to you too?"
The unsung savior of all mankind: <Chuckling, yet shaking her head, as though pitying a confused child> "They got to me a long time ago."
The friendless child amidst the ruins: "You…you weren't really a therapist, were you?"
The harbinger of a new era: "No, I suppose we've never properly been introduced. Let's fix that, shall we?"
She waved her arms, and dispelled the glittering, pestilent mist. She leaned her head into the jagged, weeping tear in the now-sagging tree, and he heard her whisper something inside of it. She walked back over to him and grabbed his hair, and he shrieked in surprise as she dragged him away from the tree seconds before it burst into flame.
The heat licked his feet and warmed his cheeks. All at once, the expanding air popped and he heard and felt a strong breeze move over him, move through him
Shout in Whispers: "Wha-what did you just do?!"
O5-06: "I gave you a Name, so you can return to the Real."
Shout: "And what about you?"
O5-06: "I guess I will, too."
She extended a hand to Shout, and he accepted her help standing up. Now that his sense of sight and depth perception had fully returned to him, he realized O5-06 was quite a bit taller than he was. At six foot five, with a stature closer to a weight lifter than an administrator, she looked like she could easily pick him up and fold him like a chair. She spoke with a low contralto, and what Shout could only describe as a tender growl. She sounded shockingly human.
O5-06: "Home is this way, Shout. Come with me."
Shout: "I have no home. Where's my wife?"
O5-06: <Laughs> "I know you don't. Now, come and see."
In no time at all, she led him to a large well. When he stared at the surface of its water, instead of a reflection, he saw his wife from behind running from something, racing down the Level 5 hallway at Site-46. He could hear the sound of gunfire echo from the well. He saw her kick open a door, slam the door shut, and hold a scientist at gunpoint.
O5-06: "She's more tenacious than I expected. We will have to move quickly."
Shout: "The hell do you mean?"
O5-06: "Wake up, Shout. Let your instincts guide you and your wife to safety. And always remember, I will always be with you, even after everyone else abandoned you."
Addendum 8000-3: On 9/27/2024, the Foundation initiated Project Erlkönig to produce an eigenweapon capable of combatting the anomalous threat. This resulted in the disappearance of all but two progeny of Foundation staff. The parents discovered needles in their uniforms stained with blood belonging to the vanished children. The two exceptions were nomenclatively mutated individuals Shout in Whispers and Never Fades Away.
This inflicted a critical blow to organizational morale, sparking widespread defections to US government. Posited reasons include dissatisfaction with Foundation leadership, fatalism regarding the organization's future, perception of recklessness in Project Erlkönig, and indications the government has acquired undetermined leverage against high ranking members of Foundation staff. Security architecture of Foundation is significantly compromised, and nerve stapling has been authorized as a disciplinary alternative to termination for staff retention purposes.
Traceback: 804 "Secret Handshake" Exception: current authenticated user invalid
on null in
Stack trace:
#0 /home/wp_9w2zak/mydomain.com/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php(303):
erce_shi...')
#4
/home/wp_9w2zak/mydomain.com/wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/includes/class-wc-shipping.php(114):
Deploying malware...
Installed; running 'JANUS.exe'
"We see you too, assholes"Foundation Infiltrator AI:
Client annotations enabled
Time: Two hundred hours;
Address: Langley, Virginia.
Entity of interest: "Data-fortress Motherwill": US government cyberwarfare nexus responsible for offensive operations against Foundation infrastructure. Recommended actions: calculating…beginning tap…
<Chatter>
Operator "Brandywine": "Sly Fox, this is Brandywine. We have breached the Blackwall."
<Distortion, crash of desk chair hitting the ground, chorus of shoes galloping towards mic>
Operator "Sly Fox": "Mother of God…I never thought I'd see the day-"
Unknown 1: "I'm getting the champagne-"
Sly Fox: "So this is it, right? Inject Raven Rock, send in Ground Branch, take down Site-46, and the rest of the domino-"
Brandywine: "Ok, spotted the trace. They're watching us, sir."
'Gold Eagle':"They can watch this: we're waiting on you to start Operation Sunset."
Brandywine:"We only just breached their cyber-defenses. How are you already in place to launch a ground assault?"
Gold Eagle: "We've had so many of their people go turncoat that we've had to turn some down. Feels a little humbling. They so obviously fucked the dog here, doesn't feel right gloating. Ready to put em down?"
Sly Fox: "Ready, sir."
Gold Eagle: "Do it."
Annotation AI: ERROR-cannot connect to Foundation cloud. High probability site has been rendered network-cauterized by antagonist organization. [DATA CORRUPTED]
Site-46: Top-side camera feed: Prudential Center Class C employee entrance
Prudential Center lights abruptly turn off; feed switches to night-vision. Three formations identified as DevGru combat units dressed in unidentifiable combat fatigues file into atrium and proceed into Hotel Lobby. Memetic firewall compromised; units file into service elevators and proceed underground.
Site-46: Top-side camera-2 feed Boylston Station tunnel vehicle service entrance
Military vehicles identified as M1-Abrams tanks drive in front of Heavy Asset Transmission Chamber. Individuals in military fatigues identified by face recognition algorithms as Level 4 employees. Unauthorized breach of embedded security OS. Unauthorized installation of unknown software.
Credentials accepted. Site perimeter systems transferred to remote admin.
Tanks and troop transports move into transmission chamber.
Static.
Site-46: Level 5 sector camera feed: Level 5 ad hoc quarters for interned Foundation staff within target age range of phenomena
Footage: Dr. Anthony Valera proceeding down corridor with pistol drawn. Dr. Valera is in a highly elevated stress state. Enters code to quarters and walks inside.
Subject identified as [Automated Change: UNKNOWN]||||||||||||||||||| <Footage briefly resets>
<Subject identified as Never Fades Away jumps on Dr. Valera and delivers a rabbit punch to the back of Dr. Valera's head. Gun clatters out of his hands. Fades proceeds to kick Dr. Valera in the head, then frisks him for credentials.>
Never Fades Away: "I always knew you had a glass jaw. Where's the counter agent to Shout's containment chamber…there we go…"
Dr. Valera: "You know you're not making it out of here alive."
Fades: "As long as your son outlives you by a fucking millisecond I can die happy. Life boils down to the death you choose. How did you see yourself filling in that blank?"
Dr. Valera: "I didn't. But humor me a moment. How did you compromise so many of my staff members? What leverage could you have had?"
Fades: "Look at my face. Do the math. You know, some parents are a little less open about how little they care. It makes it a lot easier to make the right people receptive. Beyond that? I guess I'm a charmer. And, oh cute, you left the safety on-"
<Fades switches off the safety>
"And to answer the other question you meant to ask me, you guessed right. I did find out the nature of Erlkönig. I would have told him everything if you'd let us have that night together. He would have gone ahead with it anyways, but it stopped being about you. You tortured him, but it was that stupid therapist that made him want to be a hero."
Dr. Valera: "If you learned about Erlkönig, then you surely know what you're capable of now. Why haven't you tried taking my name?"
Fades: "When you die, I want your name to exist long enough for your crimes to spear it. Your turn: why do you hate your son so much?"
Dr. Valera: "He's not my son. He's some bastard I fathered with a prostitute that a certain uppity [REDACTED] foisted on me nine months ago-"
Fades: "That's impossible. You shot his finger off when he was seventeen. You were invited to our wedding. I'd only convinced him to go no-contact with you two years ago. You-oh…oh Jesus…"
<Fades smashes the butt of the pistol into Valera's face, knocking him to the ground>
Fades: "You son of a bitch. You amnesticized yourself."
<A sudden breeze whistles through the narrow doorway behind Dr. Valera. Dr. Valera's eyes widen in horror.>
Dr. Valera: "What have you done?"
<Camera video feed cuts out>
Fades: "What's happening to m-"
Dr. Valera:"Shoot me."<The pitch of his voice begins to heighten, likely due to the slow liquefaction of his larynx> "Shoot me! Please!"
< Fades fires two shots in quick succession, and then a third. The shots are followed by a sharp splashing sound, like a pile of wet towels were dumped on the ground or soggy offal plopped on a scale. Dr. Valera's breathing takes unnaturally long to slow and stop.>
<Sound of Fades audibly retching>
Annotation AI: ERROR Admin data access revoked, all camera systems disabled [DATA CORRUPTED]
Addendum: Wake up, Shout.
<-WAKE UP->
You could have just asked, you know.