my brothers broke me. these men broke me. perhaps i was meant to be broken.
The area surrounding SCP-8499.
Special Containment Procedures
Memetic wards, equipped with sensors, have been installed around the perimeter of SCP-8499 in order to deter civilians from trespassing. Said sensors were programmed to send a signal to the nearby sites in the event that one of the wards goes offline. If this occurs, Foundation staff is to be deployed to reapply it.
Due to the remoteness of the location of SCP-8499, no additional means of containment are necessary at this time.
Description
SCP-8499 refers to a patch of land approximately 10 km2 of size, located in the north of the Arabian Desert. Individuals passing through it experience one of the eight possible hallucinative scenarios. In them, they re-live the memories, together with the accompanying emotional and physical sensations,. Said sensations persist only for the duration of the memory and do not carry physical damage to the individuals experiencing them. of a mechanical humanoid of vast proportions with a feminine build, hereafter referred to as SCP-8499-A.
Other than the entity itself, these visions prominently feature a young man, his wife,. Based on the findings discovered within the city of Amoni-Ram, the two are theorized to be the first emperor Bumaro and his wife, Hedara. and his eventual followers.
SCP-8499 was discovered by MTF-Mu-47 ("As He Wills It") in 1984, during the retrieval mission for an unrelated anomaly. While traversing the area, the operatives experienced various delusional episodes that were both internally consistent and recurring. Following their reconnaissance and debriefing, they declared the location tentatively anomalous and notified the Foundation about it.
To gain more information on the area and to find out more about the memories, the Foundation dispatched MTF-Mu-47 to the location of SCP-8499 again. This time, they were equipped with mental recording devices.Built based on the existing prototype of the LSAP Cadmus-Aram Deep-Brain Oneiric Parietal Stimulation Array. and were able to record and catalog all eight memories.
With detailed reports on each of the visions, the Foundation was able to determine their chronological sequence and arrange them into a cohesive timeline.. Some of the memories were determined to be directly sequential to one another, but most of them had a significant amount of time pass between them. See Addendum 8499-1 for additional information.
Addendum 8499-1: Memory Logs
Below are the possible visions persons crossing SCP-8499 may experience. To preserve their accuracy, they were included in this document in the same form as they were received from the recording devices.
Memory #1
I am flailing with my six arms, falling, burning. The atmosphere is blazing white hot around me and I scream as my systems melt and my body warps with the heat.
The landing is sudden and abrupt. I crash into the surface, and the world goes blank.
I dryly cough up sand that lodged in my throat and wipe the dust from my eyes. Through the fire, I did not immediately notice I was shooting towards a vast expanse of sand. I do not know where I am.
I plant two of my hands onto the ground and strain to lift my body away from the burning and molten sand. This does not hold up for long, though. Is it because of our battle? Is it because of the flames? My arms snap and I drop back down.
The merciless sun beats down upon me, I am suffocating under the heat of my molten armor. And even this intense pain is drowned out by the mind-numbing ache spreading through my abdomen. I look down at it, at the place of damage. There is a large, gaping hole. My wires spark, my blood leaks, chunks of vital pieces are missing.
Whether it is the sand in mouth or my already sore throat rattling with my whimper, I cough and gasp. Pain overtakes me, climbing all through my wires and tubing, as if the oil pumping through my veins was rotten, boiling, corrosive.
To the horizon, I spot two shepherds, commuting, herding their lambs. I am grateful they are alive. Life persists in their blessed forms — this place is not desolate.
Even in my pain and abandonment, if this beautiful sky could grant me one wish, I would beg to save my brothers from themselves. Perhaps I'll live long enough to meet them again, and we could make amends for our foolishness.
Memory #2
Slipping in and out of consciousness, I see the shepherds approach me to get a better look. One of them — the man — had likely spotted a glimmer of my form, half-sunk in the desert. He gasps when he is close enough to see all of me and leans on his wife as though the sight threw him off balance. He slowly falls on his knees and begins panting heavily, staring at me with both fear and awe. Even though I am broken, he sees something beautiful in me. His gaze is an honor.
His wife is unmoved. She is oblivious to my presence, instead focusing on her husband. Hugging him, asking him urgent questions about what and why. Breathlessly, he answers her, and it is only then she reacts, trembling, mouth agape. She runs to her lambs to comfort them.
While she tends to her crying sheep, her husband pushes himself upright with his crook and stumbles towards me over the dune. I now see he's missing a leg. He is trembling while he walks towards me, as if fearing getting crushed by me. As if I could rise from the blankets of sand that cover me, move myself at all.
It soon dawns on him. I cannot do either.
He hobbles as fast as his crook lets him until he reaches one of my outstretched hands frozen above the sands the way it was left upon my impact, drenched and dripping oil. He presses his palm to my fingertip. I know his presence is a miracle. He sees me, and I see him.
However, I cannot enjoy this moment for long. I hear a wild cracking, and a moment later, my wrist snaps off and falls into the sand. I'm blinded by pain. Oil gushes from my stump, pooling underneath my arms.
When my vision returns to me. I see the shepherd hacking and coughing next to my hand. He managed to avoid getting crushed by it. I call out to him in worry, and he answers with a wave. He is fine, even if a little shaken.
Curiosity gets the better of his weakness. He pulls himself upright again and moves to my fallen wrist. Letting his crook fall, he braces himself against my finger, wrapping both arms around the digit as tall as him. Pieces of my broken gauntlet jut out, and he is careful not to get cut on them. He gets on his one knee again and looks into the inside of my hand, daring to poke his head in. He emerges from me with a handful of wires and a couple of cogs in his fists.
He sits down next to me and examines his finding. My wires, my blood vessels, my nervous system. I see an idea, a realization sparking across his face.
He rips off a chunk of my gauntlet and begins folding it into a cylindrical shape. After finishing, he attaches it to the place of his missing leg. His eyes widen in surprise: it fits perfectly. He looks at me again, squinting, then looks back at his leg.
His wife and their lambs reach him. He pauses to think, and uses a small shard of my hull to hack off more of my plating. The wife tilts her head in confusion. She steps back when the man starts attaching pieces of the gauntlet to his sheep. When he hands her a chunk of metal, she accepts it in silence, and with that, they leave.
Memory #3
The shepherds return to me. The man, now with a sleek, jointed prosthetic leg, guides his wife to me, then turns to her and caresses her cheek with a soft smile. He lifts her hand and places it on one of my fingers.
She smiles at him and laughs as she caresses me. Her voice is so soft. Her laughter, so bright. The man hands her a knife and she accepts it. He guides her blade onto a layered plate and she stabs through the surface, dragging the sting halfway down my finger.
With a yelp, I recoil from her. How was she able to pierce my skin?
I am unable to move, but there is something I can still use. My Voice.
“i beg of you, stop…”. Persons experiencing these memories gain the ability to understand the languages spoken in them. This effect only persists for the time they are under the influence of SCP-8499.
A weak plea is all I can muster. I do not know whether they even understand my speech. Yet I hope that despite its weakness, it still will reach them.
And that it does. But it only appears to reach the wife. Her husband shakes his head, and he is back to normal. She looks at him with confusion.
“She asked us to stop, love. Did you not hear her Voice?”
The man pulls her closer to himself, wrapping his arm around her waist. He whispers something in her ear as he caresses her cheek and hands. After some time, she smiles at me again.
“My husband once again walks, thanks to your gift,” she says. “He wishes for me to gain a new sight. You are a miracle from the heavens… Will you allow me?”
Whatever he told her has freed her from the influence of my Voice. I have indeed become weaker if this was all it took.
The wife is but a docile one, not one who demands. If my parts could make the man walk, they could make her see once again. I close my eyes and allow her to continue peeling my layers away and take what she needs. It is through my pain they may heal.
When she finishes, her husband takes the blade and wipes it on his cloth. Looking at it closely, I see a familiar shine of gold. The gold of my armor.
I look down to see that my abdomen has finally stopped bleeding, yet the ache persists.
Memory #4
I had thought that by banishing our kin full of darkness, our family would see peace once again.
We were wrong. I was wrong.
My brothers of blood and bone, you were strong. Always wanted to prove your strength to each other. All but simple brotherly banter. Or so I thought. Even so, you still loved each other… you should have.
So why did I see you with your hands wrapped around each other's throats that day, so determined to take each other's lives?
I blinked and you clawed, and gnawed, and gouged, and screamed at each other. Your eyes, filled with just as much vile hate as the one we casted out. Why?
I did not want to fight but I needed to intervene. You refused to listen to my pleas to cease, to my Voice crying to you as you destroyed each other. What happened to you?
I was not able to convince you with my words. You dragged me in. Forced me to join your fight, and I was consumed by the same hate you two possessed. I did not realize this until it was too late… Until we all fell wounded and collapsed.
My brothers… What had come over you? Why were we fighting? Why did you start this….
I tried. I tried to understand it. But, I didn't. I couldn't. what has gotten over you? why did you do this to each other? why did you do this to me? why? why? why? why? why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?
you broke my heart… now they are breaking mine, all while it still aches for you.
Memory #5
His hair and beard have gotten longer. One of his arms is designed like his leg. He is sitting next to my face, hacking through strands of my hair with his knife. He’s focused on his tasks, not paying me much mind.
My Voice has no use on him, or even on some of his people. Those who heed my call get shaken out of it by those who do not get affected by it. I have stopped trying to use it to get them to leave me.
His people have been expanding the hole in my abdomen daily. Every breath I take makes it throb and burn hotter than the last. The first time, they had a chunk of my thigh removed with saws, they burrowed in me with drills, and went on to explore every little part of me, plucking out what catches their eye.
I recognized their tool's design, for it was built based on my retractable blades. The gushing oil didn't drown them, they had installed pumps around my wound in advance. I recognized their design as well. Those pumps were my veins.
They fueled their newly developed vehicles with my oil, and with them, they carried more and more of my parts.
Their blades bit on my remaining tubes and wires. Picking apart every strand, every fiber, anything that gave my limbs any remaining functionality. Hundreds of them… Writhing and gouging within me. I focused on every step, every grasp, every smile inside me.
At some point, I grew tired of screaming.
There are many such entry points around my body now. Openings sawed into me, ready to be entered and exited at their whim.
I do not understand why they are doing this. He attempted to cover my wound after he returned to me for the second time. He treated the stump of my wrist. He knows how to make more of my metal. So, why?
At least right now he is not here for that. He is merely cutting my hair.
He wraps up the sliced-off hair into a coil and brings it to a pile of other cut-off strands. There, he sits down and begins weaving the collected locks into ropes. Occasionally, he gives a passing, vacant grin.
I stare at him with all my remaining eyes. What does that smile hide?
Once he finishes, he takes his freshly woven ropes and ties them one by one into the hooks he pierced into my hands some time ago. I did not understand their purpose back then and I still do not understand them now. It is not like I could do anything with my hands, anything that would warrant them being tied down. None of them are functioning.
Only one question escapes my lips with a worn groan: “Why?”
He responds with silence and smiles at me again.
Memory #6
The desert winds and the endless tears make my vision a stinging blur. In months of trying, I still cannot understand him. I healed him and his wife. I healed his friends. And I heal more, and more, and more. When will they attempt to heal me?
I come back to a thought — first a nagging doubt, now an endless rumination. By now most of what they take from me they can and do synthesize themselves. The oil, the engines, the pumps, my metal. Yet, they still take. Their cisterns and depots and silos and arsenals are overflowing with treasure. Yet, they still take. What more could he stand to gain by now? Has the taking become the point?
Has the sky appointed them to ravage me for waging war on my family? My choices were to wring my hands while we tore ourselves apart or act. I acted.
We were broken. I was trying to put us back together.
Yet here I am. Strung up to be ravaged and stripped of more parts.
I…
The shepherd's wife glides to me. She now sports a pair of wings… Beautiful, golden wings. She carries a companion — a second woman. They land next to one of the bound arms and begin examining it.
I can tell something heavy weighs on the wife's soul. She has a sight, thanks to my blessing. She has limbs built from my body. She has a pair of wings, which would allow her to fly anywhere. Yet, she keeps shifting around while she walks around me, looks at me, touches me. She keeps reaching for her shoulder, rubbing the place where her metallic arm joins her flesh. Her steps are shaky and uncertain. And when the wind blows on her gown, revealing her skin, there are so many wires puncturing her flesh. When she isn't rubbing her shoulder, she is scratching the place where the wires enter her body.
She caresses one of my large fingers and whispers to me with a soft, reassuring tone. Even through her struggles, she smiles at me with her shining golden eyes, with that familiar candidness and innocence.
That blessed smile quickly falls, though, once she sees the mess that is me. She gestures to her companion to find some tools to cut the binds with. After the second woman leaves, she takes a golden sheet lying around and begins fitting it to the frame of my arm. The scent of her delicate, flowery perfume overtakes the ever-present sickening scent of oil.
“We can fix you,” she whispers through her tears, peppering kisses on my metallic frame. “You will be rebuilt, beautiful goddess. You will be as good as new.”
I weep for her. I am about to whisper my gratitude but words freeze in my throat from the sudden kicks to the side of my neck. I could recognize these kicks from between a thousand. It is the shepherd. How did he get here? Why must he be here?
The assault persists until the panel falls off. My breaths are short and raspy and my eyes dart around when his knife grazes one of my vocal cords.
The wife runs to her husband, pleading for him to stop. Instead, he shouts and strikes her cheek with his metallic hand. He plunges his hands into my throat, rips some wiring out, places the edge of his knife against my vocal cord and begins cutting through it.
The blade burns so hot that my throat goes cold. My mouth fills with sweet-bitter oil. I want to spit and cough, instead I choke. My screams and wails become gurgled and distorted whistling as he continues sawing.
The wife collapses on the ground next to him, and she sobs. She latches onto his legs, trying to drag him away from me. She shakes and cries, pulling at him, begging him to stop.
“Quiet,” he commands her, kicking her hands away. “Quiet down, or you will meet the same fate as her.”
He grabs onto the vocal cord and pulls it out. The slicing has weakened it enough that it snaps completely from my throat, only leaving a sharp ache and a spill of oil. So much oil.
He takes his precious time sawing through my second cord. Making sure he feels thoroughly as each tendon snaps, as the wires get severed from each other more and more. There is no sound coming from my lips anymore. Not even my miserable whistling scream. Yet I still weep. I still wail. I am truly a fool.
Through my foggy eyes, through the pain, I see the second woman rushing to the shepherd with a golden sledgehammer, readying an attack. As she is about to swing down on him, he holds up the vocal cords and commands her to stop.
my voice…
she closes her eyes and silently lowers the hammer. the man shouts another command to both of the women and they whisper a quiet apology before leaving me with him. his smile is long and shows more of his teeth.
the next day, he is giving a speech with his Voice. it is loud and powerful, like mine used to be. he raises his hands, holding up both the severed vocal cords and the hammer. the two women now stand beside him. the crowd, the people i once helped, cheer with great enthusiasm.
Memory #7
the shepherd no longer looks like a shepherd. he arrives again, adorned in my metal as if it was his. as if he was not the poor man long ago who stared in awe at the metal angel that fell from heaven, and used it to rebuild his body. next to him is the woman who attempted to strike him with her sledgehammer. she follows him obediently now.
he commands his men to bring down my head to their level. the binds that hook my shoulders, neck, and cranium pull me to the sand until my face is planted down.
they walk into my view and we greet each other with a stare. his gaze is dark and determined. i cannot bear to look at him, yet i cannot turn my head away, and the hooks in my eyelids do not allow me to close my eyes.
the shepherd pushes forward the woman with his metallic arm and gives her a command. she lifts her hammer and all the air leaves me. she swings down on one of my eye sockets, bludgeoning it, smashing the metal into pulp until it loosens. then she places her foot on my face, grabs my eyeball, and rips it out with the nerves and wiring that connected it to my skull.
no mercy.
no hesitation.
my screams echo nothing as i twitch. these bonds are ever-tightening with every little movement i make. the woman repeats this process on another one of my eyes.
and another one…
and another one…
…chipping away at my sight until there is none left. darkness overtakes my vision. i do not even have the energy left in me to attempt to cry anymore.
“Well done,” says the man.
after some time, i can feel crawling hands, metallic and flesh alike, digging into the gaps of my plated face. the last remaining intact part of my body. must be the followers of the shepherd. they claw into a plate of my cheek and begin pulling it off, unsuccessfully.
they leave it half-detached, crawling off my face and head. then i hear them returning, carrying tools this time. they shove whatever instrument they brought between the gap they made — i know not what it is, and i do not think i will ever find out. it is cold, metallic, invasive, clinging to me in all the wrong ways. they jerk it together in one direction. the chunk of my cheek rips off with no resistance. sands and winds joined the men as the little particles prick on my exposed face. they cheer and applaud each other, preparing for another round of peeling.
they do this for hours on end, working to remove every single intact plate. sometimes they do it swiftly. sometimes it feels like they are intentionally being slow. when they are done, they collect the scraps and leave.
i was deprived of everything. my armor, my skin, my metallic inner working… and then i became useless to them. they abandoned me, left me the same way i was found. it all becomes a blur. i can feel no pain, but a bitter, numbing cold. and then it begins slowly dissipating. i do not have a body left to feel anything with anymore.
my brothers broke me. these men broke me. perhaps i was meant to be broken.
Memory #8
i- hear them. i see them. i feel them. they are all creating my all-presence. breaking me, reforging me. putting me within their bodies, using me as their limbs. their support. i know of them all. their accomplishments, their failures, their pains, their pleasures, their sins and the virtues they claim to bring, their discoveries, their dreams, their worship. i know them all.
occasionally, i hear their chants. it is beautiful, it really is. chanting the name of the same shepherd and his newly married empress.
i finally understand. i am their ever-growing, ever-gaining, ever-golden empire. i am their place to achieve the impossible. i am their home. i am their all.
this lasts for long, but not for an eternity. i am being torn apart once more. i hear familiar, guttural noises. vines sliver through my skin and tear it from the inside. beasts of flesh march through me. screams of pain and terror, in a symphony. they all ring out. and just as quickly, they all cease. a great silence. a great nothing.
i am now nothing.