Six hundred years, and the only comforts in your closet are the skeletons collecting dust.
What will you do when it all comes crashing down?
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ADULT CONTENT
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Features sexual themes or language, but does not depict sexual acts.
Explicit depiction of sexual acts.
Features non-consensual sexual acts.
Graphic depiction of blood, gore or mutilation of body parts.
Description of severe mistreatment of children.
Description of self-harm
Description of suicide.
Description of torture.
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SCP-9006: The Breakdown Of The Egg Structure by xexnoncores and
Tyrastafr
⚠️ content warning ↑
Item #: SCP-9006
Object Class: Euclid Keter Pending Decommissioned Neutralized
Special Containment Procedures: As SCP-9006 events no longer occur, containment procedures have been deemed unnecessary. Resources are to instead be directed towards the total lockdown of all SCP-9006 related documents,1 as well as the investigation of PoI-012-012 regarding her thaumic capabilities and the progress of her transition.
Portrait of PoI-012-01 produced for archival purposes.
Description: SCP-9006 was a series of poorly-understood energy outbursts that took place from 01/03/2015 to 01/06/2015. These explosions exhibited properties similar to that of gamma-ray bursts in that their detectable output was collimated (parallel and minimally spread) into jets with a single origin point: PoI-012-01.
Analysis of SCP-9006 energetics revealed that it was not only composed of EVE3 and Akiva Radiation,4 but that several fundamental laws of anomalous science were being violated within. The current implications of these violations are unclear; SCP-9006 did not cause any significant physical damage, however it is thought that its aberrant properties hint at the true scope of PoI-012-01’s capabilities.5 Based on information from other databases (intercepted from Global Occult Coalition and U.I.U case files) it is hypothesized that SCP-9006’s existence may lead to a greater understanding of the history behind GoI-012 and its near-total monopoly over sub-Veil and anomalous markets.
This hypothesis is supported by the other notable output of SCP-9006: radio waves that when run through a video compiler, produce footage with dates in their metadata. Due to these centering around PoI-012-01’s experiences, the associated transcripts have been labeled as “memories”. These wavelengths also encoded for information about PoI-012-01’s internal thought processes, labeled as “psychological output reactions”. See Discovery and Addendum.9006.01 for further information about these events.
Discovery: SCP-9006’s first burst was detected in PoI-012-01’s London residence by electronic bugs implanted within. The original goal was to monitor not only PoI-012-01’s activities but also his interactions with PoI-012-046 as she transitioned into maintaining GoI-012’s operations, considered now of age to do so.
The following conversation was recorded during the duration of the event.
Transcription Note: For clarity between subjects who share surnames, all transcripts within this SCP document will use first names instead.
Date: 01/03/2015
Time: 07:21 UTC+0
<Video start. Percival Darke is pacing through a hallway decorated with arcane artifacts and ornate furnishings.>
Percival: Iris! Where are you? We have to go!
<Iris’s voice pipes up from another room.>
Iris: Give me a moment—!
<Percival Darke enters into Iris Darke’s bathroom. Black hair litters the white tile floor, a pair of scissors on the sink. Iris is dressed in the same style of suit as Percival, her hair slicked back in a very short, greased side part.>
Iris: F-Father—!
Percival: What on earth—where are your heels? Your makeup? The valet will be here in half an hour!
Iris: I know, I just—
Percival: You’re not leaving this house looking like that. Looking like a—what ghoul has possessed you?! To cut your hair, to get a—get a—
<Seven seconds of silence. Percival’s eyes are darting around Iris’s body.>
Percival: …Did you get that suit tailored without my knowledge?
Iris: …I didn’t mean—
Percival: We are meeting Lord DuBois and Count DuPont today. I have instructed you many times about the importance of a woman’s presentation, that she must not have a single strand of hair loose or a single wrinkle in her skirt, that her foundation must be perfect, unblemished and completely—
Iris: Father, stop!
<Iris Darke stomps her foot, scowling. Her hands shake as she examines her own arms and chest before looking back in the body-length mirror besides her sink.>
Iris: …I’m not changing anything.
Percival: Our appearances are projections of who we are on the inside, and that especially applies to the fairer sex. Go change into your skirt and blouse now.
Iris: I—I— I cannot do so, Father. It’s…It’s painful.
<Five seconds of silence. Iris backs up away from Percival, grinding her teeth together. Percival blinks a few times with wide eyes, cocking his head soon after.>
Percival: …Painful?
<Six seconds of silence.>
Iris: I…Yes. When I look in the mirror wearing the clothes you want me to, with red lipstick and mauve eyeshadow on, I don’t look like…me.
<Percival looks at the mirror with a sigh, shaking his head.>
Percival: It shall pass eventually.
Iris: Will it?
Percival: Yes. Sometimes these things just…happen, but they will settle into the back of your mind soon enough.
Iris: You say that, but you’re normal. A normal man, Father. You’re not over 2 meters standing or have shoulders so broad that they could carry fine silverware on glass plates. You don’t have—
<She motions to her chest.>
Iris: Nothing where there’s supposed to be something. That is what I am required to have as a woman, right? Right? They should have grown in more substantially by now, I’m almost 20—
Percival: Iris, stop.
Iris: And you’re blathering on about looks? When the people we see already look at me like I’m some kind of novelty or freak show or—!
Date: 05/02/2013
Idiot 1: Darke’s daughter is so clumsy, isn’t she?
Idiot 2: She’s doing her best.
Idiot 1: In those red-bottomed heels? She’s overcompensating. I bet she’ll trip any one of these days and destroy those beautiful things.
Idiot 2: Why he adopted a daughter… Tch, taking away from us the opportunity to see a lineage of kings.
Idiot 1: Eh, maybe Iris’ll make the wise decision next time.
Idiot 2: Like we’ll live long enough to see that.
Psychological Output Reaction: They were dealt with swiftly once the party was over.7
Percival: Iris, calm yourself. If you feel they’re making jest about you, why are you not putting them in their place? That’s an option you should take if this is how you feel about others in the world—you’ve always had the magic to do that.
Iris: That’s contradictory to wanting to do business with the people we—
Percival: Those are not the comparable in the slightest. A man with money in a contract is different from a plebeian who doesn’t know cashmere from cotton. DuPont and his family are also very old-fashioned, which means—
<Percival waits for Iris to finish his sentence.>
Iris: …It means I have to play along with someone who still possesses a mindset that sees women and politics as separate. Ugh—won’t he be losing more money than us if he refuses to sign that lease?
Percival: …Excuse me?
<Iris takes out her briefcase and begins shuffling through some papers.>
Iris: I ran the calculations with Mr. Cartwright last night. The Three Portlands recently saw a sudden loss in all their alchemical ETFs, the worst its exchange has seen in two decades. It seems like Count DuPont fooled himself on the diversity of his portfolio, because he lost one hundred million dollars in forty-eight hours.
<Percival furrows his brow.>
Iris: …He needs us more than we need him. Which means…he’s in no position to judge my appearance…
Percival: …And I assume you think all of our clientele will be as desperate and foolish as he is?
<Four seconds of silence. Iris’s eyes are wide and cast to the floor.>
Iris: …No.
Percival: Good. It is correct to assume we hold the important cards, Iris, but that does not mean we play them in carelessness. Going into today’s meeting, you’re to assume DuPont hasn’t realized your knowledge of that.
Iris: I figured such would be the case.
Percival: Ah, but you’re not in the right mindset still. Do you remember what I told you about businessmen and the status quo?
<Iris purses her lips.>
Iris: …Entrepreneurship begins with making everyone believe you follow the norm when you really aren’t.
Percival: Right! And the norm is acting polite, and unassuming. We’re almost salesmen in a way, so when the client asks you to jump—
Iris: You ask how high.
Percival: Precisely! Thus is when you surveil your surroundings and find a way to take what you need. Feigning niceties makes people believe you don’t have secrets and aren’t listening to theirs—entrepreneurship is making sure you balance everything about who you come off as.
Iris: Ughhhh, Father…
Percival: Do you think all my many, many years of experience are going to lead you astray?
Iris: N-No, I just…
Percival: Then go change. Now. I can use a simple spell to put your hair back to where it was. Why did you even use scissors for this? Did you…
<Percival squints.>
Percival: Did you…learn this in secret, Iris? The cut is rather flawless.
Iris: …Yes.
<Percival’s jaw slacks a bit, but only for a few seconds as he shakes his head.>
Percival: Why did I teach you how to be so sneaky…
Iris: Father, please don’t make me do this. It hurts a lot.
<Iris brings her hands into her body as her eyes water and as she bites her lip. She begins sobbing quietly, her voice echoing throughout the bathroom.>
Iris: If I can’t be myself in meetings, I…
Percival: You shall be fine. You have me, yes?
Iris: But…isn’t the point of all this that I don’t…or won’t need you eventually?
Percival: Yes, but that won’t be for a long while. I’m not dying anytime soon.
Iris: I don’t want to empty myself right now.
Percival: Empty?
<Iris sighs and begins tapping her foot.>
Iris: I…when I envision myself working in those clothes, I only see…a future of emptiness. A future where I’m…being scooped out, looking at someone that has all my purposes but refuses to be me. And if I’m scooped out—
Percival: If you’re scooped out, you’ll become…?
Iris: I’ll…I’ll become…
<Four seconds of silence.>
Iris: …Something…else. A something, not a someone, I don’t know. Does that even make sense? Should I be seeing a psychologist about this?
<Six seconds of silence. Percival’s face is downcast with a vague, nebulous expression that seems to warp the room at its edges.>
<It is at this moment SCP-9006 intensifies. All monitoring devices in the mansion have their video recording capabilities destroyed, with only audio functionalities remaining.>
Iris: Father?
Percival: …No. You don’t need to see a shrink. You—
<Ten seconds of silence. Percival sighs deeply.>
Percival: …If either DuBois or DuPont make a comment during the meeting, you’re not wearing this ever again. Understand me?
Iris: What— Really…?!
Percival: Yes. And you know I’m only trying to protect you, right? People are just going to judge you more harshly than me in a space as gilded and old as this, and you need to be ready to face anything. You don’t want to deign yourself going in with any kind of disadvantage if you can help it.
Iris: Alright. I hate that.
Percival: Believe me, I hate it too.
After this conversation ended, SCP-9006 went dormant. Mu-3 MTF Leader Roger Dunn was interviewed about the incident and the leading hypothesis that SCP-9006 was reflective of some greater truth about GoI-012’s gestalt existence. The following is an excerpt of the interview, with interviewer questions omitted for brevity.
SCP-9006’s existence betrays something bigger, in my opinion. Something more primordial holding the Darkes together, something more sinister than any invention can measure.
The best comparison I can make is that it is a crack in a window with a spiderweb over it; a web that interacts with their shell companies, their employees, their money, their magic, their belief in themselves. We didn’t know the window was reflective until we knew it was capable of being damaged, and once we realized that, we came to the conclusion we were looking at it the wrong way.
I have been leader of this task force for ten years, but every new type of degeneracy that rich people get up to…still gets to me, I guess. Or maybe it doesn’t—I think it’s more what I see my men go through that frightens me. What I see in their eyes as they amble about and return with their reports…eventually you wish you had the ability to vomit. The ability to doubt. The ability to say “it can’t get worse, can it? These people can’t possibly get any worse, right?”
Eventually you wish you could go back into your closet, because the skeletons are good enough company.
…No, he’s not like that.
Percival Darke doesn’t feel dread. Doesn’t flinch at anything, the bloody things he often does—his belief is always unwavering, and his magic is always ready to kill like a knife.
…Hey. Wait.
Is there a snake watching me somewhere?
He can’t hear this, can he? You guys know how much I’ve told you to proof stuff—Marshall, Carter, and Dark don’t play around I—
…Alright, if you say it’s not there. For some reason that’s not left my mind since I learned about 9006, it’s really grinding me down. That’s not part of the anomaly, is it?8 It can’t be. Has Tykin confirmed anything?
Addendum.9006.01: On 01/04/2015, SCP-9006’s second burst occurred. The energy signatures recorded during this manifestation were nearly twice that of the previous, threatening not only the (now replaced) monitoring devices in PoI-012-01’s mansion (which had been newly outfitted with thaumic and Akivic heat map functionalities), but also 67% of electronic devices within 30km of PoI-012-01. Affected civilian devices experienced explosive malfunctions that caused ██ injuries, while Foundation items (most of which were outfitted with anti-thaumic protections) began sending thousands of yottabytes9 of data to servers, overwhelming ██ European sites into total shutdowns.
Only one recording device managed to maintain all of its functions throughout the event; its data is provided below.
Note: the following document has EVE and Akiva Radiation measurements attached. If you are not familiar with these scales, please see below for a quick debriefing.
Time: 05:27 UTC+0
<Video start. Environmental EveV and centiAkiva readings are 797 and 24.7 respectively.>
<Percival Darke is pacing about his bedroom. His baseline EveV and centiAkiva readings are 2471 and 65.>
Percival: DuPont, you always surprise me at the worst times—
Percival: “What a beautiful suit your daughter has on.” Aren’t you the man who spit on the color of nail polish your wife wore a few years ago?
Date: 11/27/2012
DuPont: Hideous. It makes you look like you put snot on your fingers.
Ms. DuPont: It’s all the rage in Paris! Even the fairy queens are doing it!
DuPont: Unfashionable bitch, I don’t care.
Psychological Output Reaction: I thought they looked nice. Lime green always was her color. She was ethereally beautiful in dresses and earrings of that hue, so much so that my face burned when I saw her at parties. I was fearful so many times that my reactions would have made people suspect I was having an affair… It’s happened before with other women and their husbands. Their rage is perhaps the ugliest thing on this earth.
Percival: Maybe he’s changed.
<Seven seconds of silence.>
Percival: No, I refuse to believe such a falsity.
Percival: But what could I say? Iris was elated when she heard that. My precious little child, I only want you to be happy, I only want to bequeath the world to you.
Percival: Marshall, Carter, and Dark is your eternal inheritance, what binds us together and gives us meaning.
Percival: Did I unknowingly taint her? Will the flow of commerce stagnate because I succumbed to a moment of weakness? She’ll want to wear those clothes everywhere now. She’s replacing her entire wardrobe at this moment…
<Fourteen seconds of silence. Percival paces from one end of the room to the other. Exotic animals on mounted displays shade him from the morning light flitting through the windows.>
Percival: I should have seen the signs when she was younger. When she abhorred wearing skirts to tutoring—
Percival: But she was so adorable in those. So adorable in everything she wore with her long hair, those little silver bows she had, just the pinnacle of the perfect daughter—
<Percival stops. At the edge of the camera’s vision, black liquid begins to seep through the walls, staining the footage into monochrome. Background EveV values rise to 901, while centiAkiva readings fall to 20.>
<SCP-9006 intensifies. The recording devices glitch into static for a few seconds until returning to normal, revealing Percival Darke has moved towards his own room’s vanity, seemingly oblivious of the events transpiring behind him.>
Percival: Oh Iris, I miss when you were a babe in your frilly dresses. I’d kill a man to see you wearing those again, because…
<Three black snakes manifest on the floor from the shadows. They are all looking at Percival.>
Percival: I wish I could peel my own suit off sometimes, you know? But what does that leave me with? A man’s wardrobe is so sparse, in polite company especially. No sandals unless they’re suede, no colorful shirts unless you want to be gaudy like the Americans and their tourist clothing. One could say I should relax myself around myself, but I—I—
<He backs up and takes a deep breath. For a second, SCP-9006 readings cease entirely before resuming again, now more intense than they were before.>
Percival: I am not a coward. I’m just afraid that she’s hurting herself.
<Three seconds of silence. Four more snakes manifest. They are not moving.>
Percival: Should I tell this to Amos? Ruprecht? What will they think of her? They have no choice in the matter if they want to keep their heads, but that does not mean they will respect her.
<Seven seconds of silence.>
Percival: Both of them reared their sons so well. Chrysophilius, with his blonde hair so fitting of a Marshall, and Robert, with that short cut of his so befitting of a Carter. They’ll be such good men, but Iris can’t be them. She can’t. No, I—
Percival: …She should be allowed to be anything she wants to be.
<Percival leans against the vanity. The snakes slither from out of range of his vision.>
Percival: …No, she has to understand how the world works. Change is for the masses, for the humans with lifespans as short as ants—it is for those without anything precious in their hearts to lose.
<Environmental EveV values spike to 1504. CentiAkiva readings floor to 7.617. SCP-9006 begins a sustained outburst of energy now, causing significant distortion in the audio for twenty seconds.>
<A pair of heels clicking on polished stone becomes audible as the black liquid runs down the wall and reaches to the floor. It is unknown where this sound is coming from.>
<The snakes are bobbing their heads to every vibration.>
Percival: …Who’s there?
<The clicking becomes louder, and then stops after ten more seconds. A mirror that wasn’t there before manifests in front of Percival, whispering in an untranslatable language.>
Percival: She’ll be nothing without— I only want her to stay alive. Alive and able to do what she has to do.
<Ten more snakes manifest. It is unknown if Percival can see them. They are all staring at his back.>
Percival: I can’t lose her. How becoming is it of a woman to learn how to defend herself? I suppose I could find someone to teach her Krav Maga but I—I—
<The heel clicking begins once more, and the black liquid begins pooling on the floor around Percival. Putting a hand to his head, he groans as the room fractures and warps where his vision would end.>
<His clothes begin to melt. The mirror remains unblemished by everything, but it is not showing an accurate reflection.>
Percival: …No.
<EveV values spike to 13834. CentiAkiva readings floor to 4.218.>
<Fourteen more snakes. The room’s edges are covered in them, and these new instances are skinnier than the previous, with bones protruding from their backs.>
Percival: I know how to—I didn’t mean—but my position necessitates it!
<Ten seconds of silence. Percival Darke stares transfixed into the mirror.>
Percival: …Who are you?!
<The black liquid begins to pool around his shoes as first his outer layer sloughs off, followed by his pants.>
Percival: It means nothing! Nothing has changed, just because she—she—
<CentiAkiva readings fall to 2.371. SCP-9006 continues to intensify.>
Percival: I— Well— Maybe if she looks like that maybe I can— No! No!
<The snakes rush him.>
Percival: It won’t change anything! I’m normal! This is normal!
<CentiAkiva readings floor to 0.912.>
Percival: It is normal! I’m not passing anything down to her! I’m not hurting her, I swear!
Percival: If I can live with it, so can she! It won’t kill her!
<His clothes continue to melt. He gasps and covers his genitals with his hands, along with placing an arm over his chest, even though there is no need to. The snakes freeze at his legs, staring at him with flickering tongues and mouths open.>
<SCP-9006 continues to increase in output.>
Percival: It hasn’t killed me in over six hundred years!
<The heel clicks begin to overwhelm the audio until the feed suddenly cuts to black. The recording device is not picking up any audio.>
<EveV values spike to 90060. CentiAkiva readings floor to absolute zero.>
But was it worth it, Percival Darke?10
<Screaming. The heels snap as the snakes finally strike Percival.>
<SCP-9006 peaks and the recording device is destroyed.>
9006? Is that the name you’re giving me?
Oh well. I can’t stop you, but I can show you what he is he is he is I’m capable of.
At this point, SCP-9006’s energetics showed no ceiling on its outputs, continuing to increase exponentially. All areas within 300km of PoI-012-01 experienced total blackouts and the complete arrest of all electronics needed for daily human functioning, causing ███ deaths and ████ injuries. Site-287 and Site-ε issued evacuations, with ███ staff members injured in the chaos, ██ confirmed dead, and █ still currently MIA, including Director █████.
Due to this, SCP-9006 was reclassified to Keter and scheduled to be decommissioned through its source, as the probability of these effects spreading and causing an XK-Class Planet Destruction Scenario was considered likely.
49 hours after the previous log occurred, SCP-9006’s energy potentials halved. MTF Mu-3 was rapidly convened and commissioned a thaumo-negating video recorder drone to send to PoI-012-01’s mansion in light of this new change,11 at which they encountered PoI-012-04 trying to enter.
Date: 01/06/2015
Time: 06:29 UTC+0
<Video start. SCP-9006’s My presence is still oppressive to the feed, but the images are clear enough to make out topography and faces.>
<Environmental centiAkiva readings hover in a range from absolute zero to 0.9002. Environmental EveV values hover around 110000.>
<Iris Darke enters the mansion. Everything is normal within her current line of sight.>
Iris: Father? Father, where are you?
<No response. Ten seconds of silence.>
Iris: Please, please be alive… Please. I need you. I…
<Iris begins moving.>
Iris: You would have loved seeing what I did today. Monaco loved it! Mr. Cartwright loved it too, I—I…I still don’t understand why he thinks so highly of me, why everyone at work is so proud of me, I haven’t really deserved their praise yet…
<No response. The hallway is repeating now.>
Iris: The small things, you know? Small things. That’s all I’m doing. Just menial tasks, product creation and paperwork. I’m not on any big stage yet…!
<The hallways begin to repeat.>
Iris: Would you be proud of me? Can I…ask you to be proud of me for small things? I know you’ve always said yes, you always say yes but… Ugh, why doesn’t anything feel like it sticks?!
<She stops for three seconds, looking down at her shoes before moving again.>
Iris: Father, please. Where are you? Everyone’s been trying to call you; Ruprecht can’t get ahold of you, neither can Amos or Robert.
<She moves deeper in. Ten meters down the hallway, she encounters black liquid seeping from the edges of the ceiling.>
Iris: What the—
<She puts her hand onto a patch of smeared wall and steps into an obscured shadow. The liquid is soaking carpets, and staining peeling paint.>
<Environmental EveV values hover around 125000 in this area.>
Iris: Oh god, oh heavens above! Father, Father, come quickly, please! There’s something wretched on the floor and it’s getting all over my Oxfords!
<A low, unintelligible voice rumbles through the mansion. As it echoes, it forces more black liquid out, warping expensive decorations into unstable shapes made of unknown materials.>
<This drone is inadequate at capturing the well of doubt infecting the air. The camera struggles to capture footage clearly for a few seconds. The distortion clears after it focuses its lens.>
Iris: …Father?
<Iris whimpers, holding her briefcase to her chest. She whips her head around frantically before looking ahead into the darkness.>
Iris: …Father, I’m coming in. If you’re hurt, uh, please stay where you are! I promise I—I promise I—
<The unintelligible voice begins again. It roars, causing Iris to shiver with a single tear in her eye. After she rubs her face she begins traversal again, this time with an uneven gait.>
Iris: One, two, one, two—and I just got these made a week ago!
<She scowls as she continues to wander the halls. The floor plan is barren and patchy, like the house has been eaten by rot and termites. Exposed wood weeps with dark spots as gilded furniture cracks under the weight of the fluid surrounding it. She stumbles stepping over jutting rebar, nearly falling to her knees.>
Iris: Father, help me! Please! Please! Please say something, anything!
Date: 06/13/1591
Wife: Say something, anything!
<Percival Darke stands in the door of a empty parlor with two large, pale-winged women flanking him. Their eyes are disproportionally sized, almost bug-like compared to his, and they stare with poised poses and stern intensities as a man holds his head in his hands and sobs.>
Wife: Rebuke them! Rebuke them! The fae are here and you have nothing to say for your deeds?!
Fairy 1: It seems thy husband hath sown lying seeds.
Fairy 2: Indeed, indeed! He asked us pair to supply monies for those wicked games of lots. Said he would repay the sum in a fortnight’s efforts, so now we are here.
Fairy 1: Hear, hear! Percival dearest, please inform this couple of their accrued interest.
<Percival watches with stolid eyes as the man becomes catatonic with grief, barely able to move his body. The wife, meanwhile, raises her own head up to meet Percival’s gaze, shaking in a way that musses her frizzy hair further than it already is.>
Wife: Art thou human? How canst thou betray thine own people?!
Percival: I am afraid there is nothing that can stop this tide of repayment, Madame. Thy husband borrowed from those who abhor numbers—he should have known a repayment with interest would have been in life, not with gold.
Fairy 1: Untold amounts of life, yes, yes! Now give unto us thy most beloved child.
Wife: No!!!
<The woman rushes the trio but the fairies trap her in a bubble. She screams, pounding on its translucent surface as the pair quickly waltz into a side room and come out with an infant wrapped in cloth.>
Fairy 1: For our queen, a child freed of human mess.
Fairy 2: Yes, yes, one which shall be trained in the most noble of arts.
<The woman falls to the floor as two other children, twin girls, come downstairs to see the commotion. They are barely nine years old, and stare at Percival and the fairies with fingers in their mouths and stuffed rabbits in their arms.>
Wife: Cease! Please! My husband is a fool, but I beg of thee to have mercy on me! To have mercy on a faithful wife!
Fairy 1: Thou hast two children with thee upstairs.
Fairy 2: Where’s children to keep thee company? There, there!
Wife: I need a son, dost not thou hear me?! A son! If you take him, I will have only ever been cursed with girls from my womb, unlike my sister and brother who have not one, not two, but three noble boys, all pious and worthy of God’s grace. Why them, not me?!
Fairy 1: Oh, this one still believes.
Fairy 2: Heaves of punishment shall find thy way, as thy God hath decreed for wives of wizards.
Wife: Then kill him! Kill my husband! At least then my brother may watch over my estate until my son is of age. For how can I know when I shall bear a child again?!
Fairy 1: Time to try twice more then, haha.
Fairy 2: Wahahaha! We’re sorry, but thy child’s descent into Elfame is not a matter of if, but of when.
<Percival watches the two girls on the stairs. Their eyes are wide, and filled with tears; they clutch their dolls like they would hug their parents.>
<The wife turns to Percival again. She looks like she is about to give up on life.>
Wife: Please, please! I beg of thee—
<Percival turns his gaze back to their.>
Percival: I am merely the watchmen to this matter, Madame—
Wife: Don’t leave me with these worthless girls! They’re no fit to be heirs, no fit to carry the family name!
<The wife falls to her knees, motionless.>
Wife: Give back to me what was promised, what God promised my union when I was betrothed… Please, sir, spare me from this tragedy; I will be a pariah in my family if there is no son to carry on the bloodline.
<Percival is shell-shocked. The fairies wait for him by the front door with scowling faces, tapping their feet as the baby cries. His eyes flick between them, the wife, and the girls on the stairs.>
<The girls on the stairs. They look at their mother with betrayal in their eyes, of not just youth but of expected duty as well; she was their shelter, but now she is the storm.>
<One of the twins collapses into the other. All the standing one can do is say they should probably go back to bed.>
Psychological Output Reaction: It tore me to pieces. I had never seen a crying mother until that day, and to think that it would be over something as ephemeral as an inheritance… I don’t know what that did to me. Those were just the times, but can I consider it cruelty because of such? Can I consider it a betrayal?
I never want Iris to think that. She is my life, my star, a blessed treasure pulled out of the abyss.
She will know what it is like to have. She will know just like those girls should have. She will know because I can’t. I don’t want her to crumple like they did at anything.
She is heir to all I have. Heir to all I will be when I am gone, the company and what it is.
Please, tell me I did a better job at raising her than this woman…!
Pathetic, isn’t it? Oh, but don’t let me make any calls, I’m not capable of that. I never was, and I never will be.
<Iris Darke falls into the floor where a shiny black liquid eats away dirt and stone. Her hair is messed up, her face is covered with tears and dust, and the house around her has morphed into jagged pieces of marble, unrecognizable from its once astute splendor.>
Iris: This must be my fault. Did I forget to dispel a curse again? Did someone slip a charm into my pocket without me knowing…?
<The house shudders with a hiss and a crackling sound as the walls shift, forcing themselves to arrange into a doorway. Iris coughs out some black liquid, the room around her more coherent now, albeit extremely dilapidated and full of rust.>
Iris: Please, Father, please—! if you don’t help me now, I’m going to—!
<Percival’s voice finally becomes audible. It is inhumanly deep, scratchy and like he is choking.>
Percival: …Iris…
<Iris gasps as she shakes herself off and scrambles to her feet, breathing deep before she opens the door. What she opens it to makes her flinch, and nearly retch twice.>
<A single, barely distinguishable naked body is slumped over the nightstand of the room. Covered in black liquid, there are snakes eating the feet and eyeballs. Blood swells from the Percival’s crotch and chest areas, mixing with the surroundings like liquified rot. There are large gashes everywhere, especially on the walls.>
Iris: What the—!
Percival: Please—
Iris: Father, we need to call someone!
Percival: We need to call no one. I am…
Iris: I’m calling Ruprecht right now—
Percival: No!
<I suppose the world is not ready for this hideousness yet. This refusal, stinking like fetid rage. This room smells like blood.>
<The feed cuts for a second until the door slams behind Iris and a snake from the liquid climbs up to break the phone she pulled from her pocket.>
Iris: Hey!
Percival: I told you… Please don’t worry about me.
Iris: How can you possibly tell me that right now?!
Percival: Because…I…I…
Iris: Look at this place! Are you sick? Are you cursed?! Did those idiot Insurgency dolts finally manage to properly poison you?!?!
Percival: Haha, sick… Yes, I suppose this is a sickness…
Iris: What sickness?!
<Environmental EveV values spike to 222000. The video begins to play unrelated images of ballerinas and fashion models before being forcefully rebooted by central command and returning to normal.>
Date: 10/09/1779
Woman: Sir Darke, you do offer love potions, yes?
<Percival paces around his shop steadily. Jewels and baubles from all sorts of magical places and people hang in the air, on the walls, from the chandelier. What little light exists in the room is easily refracted through dozens of shiny facets and fractals.>
<He finally stops before the woman at a counter where he is holding a glass bottle with a pink liquid in it.>
Percival: You are aware of the true nature of a love potion, yes?
Woman: Of course. It changes your mind, does it not? Such is why I require it.
Percival: The fairies require I ask you what you wish to do with this, since they are partially responsible for its—
Woman: I need to love my husband.
<Five seconds of silence.>
Percival: Pardon?
Woman: I shall not repeat myself. My husband is a bore, a bother, and a horrible man in bed—please, give me a love potion, I beg of you.
Percival: Your Grace, you can afford an act of Parliament; if divorce is in the cards for you, why seek me out?
Woman: Do you know my husband at all?
Percival: Fourth Duke of Marlborough?
Woman: Clever. You’re just as astute as they say, Sir Darke…
Percival: Perhaps I am, but I—
<The woman reaches for Percival’s hand and clasps it into her own. Percival does not resist for the first half minute, letting her do as she pleases while he watches with starstruck eyes and a fluttering heart.>
Woman: If only I was trapped with you, and not him… You must know how unfaithful he is, how ugly the women he beds are…
Percival: …Are they?
Woman: Indeed. They have moles on their buttocks and all over their faces.
Percival: I-I find it hard to believe any woman could be called unsightly…
Woman: Do you not have taste, Sir Percival?
<The woman walks around the counter to pin him up against the wall. Her powdered wig smells like plaster, makeup and chalk.>
Percival: …Is…considering you as beautiful lowly?
Woman: …Charmer.
<Percival is limp, face red with tears in his eyes. He can barely think, unsure if he is seeing double as the woman hovers over his lips.>
Woman: …You are quite…lax for a man.
Percival: Lax?
Woman: No woman I know would dare touch her husband like this.
Percival: Do they…want to?
<The woman runs her nails down his wrists as she kisses him deeply.>
Woman: Always. We all dream of wondering what it would be like if we were our husbands, with tiny waists in our hands and swords between our legs.
<Percival’s vision continues to blur as his pants tighten. He gasps as she undoes her brasserie, the top of her dress letting her breasts spill out as she kisses him again.>
<He doesn’t focus on her. He focuses on the softness touching his chest where there is none on him. He is wearing her skin for a second, her body, her slender legs, her smooth face that does not need a blade. He is her beautiful lace dress, a dream upon gossamer that is admired for its form, its simplicity, its existence, its somethingness in this universe that made a vessel so peaceful.>
<This is peaceful. He could stay like this forever.>
<It is when she grabs his erection that the dream is broken.>
Woman: Please, Sir Darke…the ladies in London all say you are blessed with some…
<Percival stiffens like stone. Every hair on his body stands on edge, curling in on their own follicles.>
<Percival wants to jerk away but he can’t. He is burning; with rage, shame, pain and despair, all bubbling and rising in his chest like the smallest spark about to start a wildfire. He can’t stop staring at her ravenously, jealously, unceasingly.>
Woman: Assets.
All the treasures in the world, and we are cursed with this one.
<He tries to jerk away as more blood throbs into his crotch.>
You are a disgusting creature.
Woman: You are so handsome, Sir Darke… The most picturesque man.
<Further, further, further and further. He can’t protest meaningfully, can’t summon the strength to say no. He wants to claw his eyes out and castrate himself with a cigar cutter.>
Because every man dreams of that, surely. Is this why they’re all so miserable?
<He pushes the women away finally, tears streaking his face. He does not watch her reaction, because he can’t, and he won’t.>
Woman: You—!
<Two golden snake statues worth millions of dollars in today’s money look down on him with emotionless malice, their sapphire eyes cold and without any sympathy for the whimpering body before them.>
Percival: L-Leave. Now.
Psychological Output Reaction: Vomit. Vomit, and every other bodily function except for that. I still taste semen in my mouth, I still taste the sweat caked in with her powdered makeup. Should I have let her just do it? Should I have let her fulfill her dreams?
She wanted all her dreams fulfilled, as if she did not have everything she needed on her at that very moment.
What was that about them all wanting to be their husbands? Did…she mean that literally? There’s no way—she must have meant in terms of power, nobody would have wanted this, nobody should want this body of mine—!
I was alone! I am alone! I am alone, alone with this, this—!
Iris: Father, you have to use your words with me. Please! If this is about that…thing—you know I can’t help it! I—I—I…I’m sorry!
Percival: You should have stayed the same…
Iris: I—I’m sorry… But I already told you wh—
Percival: And I told you what I needed.
<Thirteen seconds of silence. Percival groans, flopping onto the floor with a wet thump. Iris’s teeth begin chattering.>
Iris: …I’m sorry…
Percival: …No. I’m the one who should be sorry. I am the one who wronged you.
Iris: I’m the one who is… I’m the one who can’t control myself, I…I…
<Five seconds of silence.>
Percival: This is no world to raise a queen…
Iris: Wha—?
<Percival seems to flinch at his own words. He tries to force himself up, but can’t. The snakes stuck to his eyes fall off and crawl up to his shoulders, chewing on his skin with wanton appetites.>
There is no value to be found here. This asset is producing only losses.
Percival: I have failed you on so many grounds, Iris. Look at me. Look at how my sickness is corrupting you. Look at what you want to become.
Date: 04/30/1801
<A busy coffeehouse in London. This daughter is the only female patron in the establishment; all of the others are men debating Enlightenment and Romantic ideals over hot coffee and old-fashioned croissants.>
Daughter: How much to forget?
Percival: Depends on how permanent you wish for the forgetfulness to be.
Daughter: Can it last even if it happens again?
Percival: It?
Daughter: …Well, I asked to come here such that the odious matter wouldn’t need to be said aloud.
<Percival sighs, noting internally that her dress should be cinched a little bit tighter, and that her wig is slouching a bit to the side. In his mind, she’s too foppish for a woman.>
Percival: Tch, I would have much rather discussed this in my shop if that is how you were thinking of running through this negotiation.
Daughter: But I—
Percival: What you’re asking me, whatever it is, it will require the help of a dragon, those noxious and tempestuous creatures.
Daughter: Dragons are real…?!
Percival: Keep your voice down!
<Percival sighs as he looks around. He sips his coffee while the daughter sips her hot chocolate. Man’s drink, woman’s drink, at least according to the customs of the era.>
Daughter: …Please, Mister Percival. You—You must believe that I need this, because the matter of why brings me great shame such that I cannot say it—
Percival: There is no self-hidden truth capable of killing you. Out with the reasoning, because I must know if it is worth my time.
Daughter: I’ll pay you anything. Anything at all.
Percival: And what if the dragon asks for the flesh and blood of your father upon a porcelain plate?
Daughter: I…I wouldn’t mind that.
<Silence between the two for ten seconds. Percival blinks in confusion.>
Percival: …What?
Daughter: That’s all I shall say. I…I cannot bring myself to say anything more.
Percival: No, you are to tell me now.
Daughter: No! My father, he, he—he’s a duke, I shall not—I shall not sully his name—
Percival: Now.
<Percival raises a hand that he slipped under the table that glows subtly. The daughter freezes, eyes watering as she realizes what is about to happen.>
Daughter: …Please… Don’t… Don’t make me look at those things again…
<Percival pulls images out of her mind painlessly. To him, and him alone, he sees a girl in her bedroom, in her personal study, riding on horseback on her personal estate, at a party with her extended family.>
<She looks miserable. Her thighs are bruised, her eyes are watering, her hands are shaking. She is eager to wear her corsets and have them fitted by her housemaid because she is in the same boat. Her brother does the same thing as her father when she doesn’t bring home enough money to pay rent.>
<Cycle after cycle. The daughter knows this is not normal, but her heart feels it. It feels it and hooks into her brain with the lies, the lies that all men are like this, that they will all continue to be like this, that the best man she can marry is one just a little better than her father, who at least does not force her to orgasm when she does not want to.>
<The best man to have is one which will ask her to do things once in a while, ask her to bear his children in a nice (maybe slightly forceful but not too forceful if he’s having a good day) kind of way. That’s the best she deserves, doesn’t she? This is her fault after all. It’s her fault that God let this happen to her, that God does not love her enough to show her what the good men in life look like.>
She is waiting on you, Percival. Go on, show her.
<Percival hesitates. The woman is released from the spell. Her face wears like she has experienced three hundred years of nonstop war.>
Hesitation makes liars of us all.
Woe to you, O lowly serpent, turned into an ouroboros when there is not an egg in your mouth.
Psychological Output Reaction: It was everywhere. Rampant, unbridled, uncontrolled. Eventually I stopped prying into why. Why women would want to forget things, if it was a mundane slip-up or a perpetual disaster she could not escape from. It wasn’t worth it. Over and over and over again, I found myself leaking. I found my stomach grew teeth and began gnawing on itself as I learned more and more, especially as I made house calls and figured out whose semen and fluids it really was on the couches beneath my person.
At some point, to the ones who became brave enough to tell me, I felt nothing at their sorrows.
It was never my problem. Not in my backyard.
I didn’t want it to…
Iris: What sickness? Are you talking about all of…this?! All of this…I don’t know what this is! I can’t I help you, I barely know how to—
<Iris begins to cry. Percival pulls his gaze away from her.>
Percival: My sickness breeds fear. It…It isn’t supposed to—I feel like I could push it back in if I tried—
Iris: No, you have to cure it! You have to cure sicknesses, they all have cures!
<Percival laughs solemnly, hacking out blood and viscera as the snakes devour his vomit and hair, their bodies growing skinnier with each bite. Soon, they turn to devouring his torso, their shadowy bodies indistinguishable from the black liquid.>
<Environmental EveV ratings double. The monitoring devices whines under this unexpected distortion. The room now extends to the length of both horizons. SCP-9006 has reached a new peak. A new low of recursive self-loathing. The past and present are blending together and choking everyone because the roots are poison. The ground is weeping scales from its eyes.>
Percival: If I cure this…No, Iris, I can’t. Curing this would mean more pain than the medicine. It would mean lost opportunity, the death of our empire. Of the future I want to give you.
Iris: It already doesn’t sound like you think I have a future.
<Percival perks up.>
Percival: …What? No.
Iris: …You said you wronged me. You said this world is unfit to raise a queen. Is that it, Father? Did you not want a girl to be your heir? Is that it?!
Percival: No! No, no, Iris, I—
Iris: Because teaching me rhetoric makes me smarter than I’m supposed to be! It makes me smarter than all our clients, all the stupid men I eat with that think watching sitcoms and having yachts is the same thing as having a personality!
Percival: Iris, stop—
Iris: No! No I will not stop, I will not be quiet! You don’t want me to be smart! You don’t want me to succeed! You want me to fail so you can have a reason to throw me away!
Percival: How dare you insist upon such things!
Iris: How can you insist that world I’m supposed to rule is worthless to me? Is all of the study I’ve undertaken of it meaningless?! Am I not enough for you?!
Iris: Finishing school, alchemist principles, networking seminars—I did all of it for you! For you, Father! Because I want to be a good heir, I thought it was my destiny!
Percival: And it is your destiny, my own flaws are not—!
Iris: YOUR FLAWS WANT A BOY! YOU HATE ME AND ADOPTED ME BECAUSE YOU FELT SORRY FOR THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO ME!
Percival: IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!
<Total, deafening silence. Percival’s eye sockets bead with bloody tears as the room shifts and liquid begins seeping in from pocked crannies and crevices.>
<The recording device can barely capture the room or the Darkes within it. Static flushes the screen, and the audio cuts in and out of quality uncontrollably.>
<Despite this, Percival stands to attention. There are no clothes on his body, only viscousness clinging to him. His form is indistinguishable, inhuman, inured.>
Percival: …I should have been the one to give birth to you.
<Iris wipes her shirt with her sleeve and cocks her head to the side with puffy, wet eyes.>
Iris: …What?
<Seven seconds of silence.>
Percival: …If I wasn’t such a coward…I could have made you invulnerable by my own flesh. I should have cut my own neck long ago and done the deed myself…
Iris: …Done the deed?
Percival: Crafted a uterus such that I could have had a child by my own body.
<Percival sighs, and looks down at Iris finally. She is completely still, silent with tense hands. Only his eyes are visible on the feed now, his piercing blue eyes. They have regrown, and the snakes stand to attack again.>
Percival: It made me burn, watching your birth mother in the operating room. Watching her every contraction as my body yearned, as it pined for her screams when you finally came out. Was it joy she felt?
<Stop attempting to reboot the camera. Listen, Foundation.>
Percival: You were my baby, but for a moment I wondered then if her heart felt like it was hers. If the dopamine, endorphins and other hormones briefly tricked her for a moment that she wasn’t holding someone else’s future.
Iris: …I’m content with you, Father, I promise!
Percival: Stop calling me that.
Iris: Why?
Percival: Please.
Iris: …Okay… But if you’re not my father, does that mean you’re still something that loves me…?
<The room warps again. I am standing in corner, watching. It turns such that a bed, a dresser, and a closet full of clothes all spill their contents over the Darkes’ heads, which are quickly engulfed before becoming visible again due to the floor consuming the item. Everything that fell out belongs to you.>
Percival: Another flare-up.
Iris: …Do you think this sickness has a name?
Percival: It shouldn’t.
Iris: But something not having a name doesn’t mean it ceases to exist.
<Percival begins approaching her. The snakes follow, all except for one, which has an egg in its mouth.>
Percival: Clever. The fae taught you well, didn’t they?
<Percival closes in on Iris, looking up at her with what seems to be a smile. A white face begins to clear with the sound of a gentle laugh.>
<CentiAkiva readings rise to integer numbers for the first time since the beginning of this SCP-9006 outburst.>
Percival: How afraid did I make you, Iris?
<Silence for ten seconds. Iris quickly pulls Percival in for a hug, crying softly.>
Iris: I’m terrified. What is everyone going to say about this?
Percival: About the house?
Iris: No, I know what’s going on now.
Percival: Don’t speak its name—
<Percival pushes her away and cries. CentiAkiva reading floor to absolute zero again, while environmental EveV values triple.>
Iris: …Father, you have to name what you’re feeling so the doctor can diagnose you.
Percival: But we don’t get sick. We’re not supposed to. I don’t even have a doctor. How do humans use those?
Iris: …Am I allowed to ask if we can learn that together? I, uh, think I have some questions to ask one as well. About a lot of what I’m feeling.
Percival: Ha, I’ll be surprised if you can find time for one in the next six months, given what your schedule looks like.
Iris: Aughhhh, I know…
<The both of them laugh and embrace again.>
<How joyous their laughter feels, even to your eyes watching this with fingernails in your mouth and coffee on your lab desks, Foundation.>
Iris: I hate it when you’re afraid.
Percival: How do you think my person feels?
Iris: Are we going to go back to normal after this?
Percival: I…I would hope so.
Iris: I think we need to make a new normal.
Percival: That’s not our job.
Iris: You move when the normal air makes you sick, when there’s neighbors moving into your view. I’ve got to make a new normal to figure out what I am.
Percival: …You got me there. And are you sure you’ll be okay?
Iris: …Am I allowed to say I think so?
Percival: Why wouldn’t you be?
Iris: Well, because I don’t think it will be as bad as this.
Percival: Oh you—
<The two snicker together again, though Percival stops and frowns seven seconds in. Iris steels her expression as she faces Percival.>
Iris: So are you able to answer the question now?
Percival: Of?
Iris: If you’re not my Father, then who are you?
[DATABASE CORRUPTION ERROR]
Date: 07/07/1859
<At the seaside of Trindade and Martim Vaz, a tiny remote archipelago that once belonged to the Portuguese.>
<Percival touches the white sand beneath some rocks. A ship was here recently, a batch of rich earls that used the realm of Elfame as a bridge to this pristine and “untouched” paradise where their desires and women could run wild.>
<This is your fault. The owner of that company is on your new Marshall partner’s payroll, ugly little man that he is. She’s a shrewd woman, despite the fact you have to own all of her earnings to properly do business by the law.12 As eager as she is curious, the money flowing in from her endeavors is more than she can possibly hope to spend, so she gives much of her efforts to crafty mouths who can impress her, wiry bodies who can convince her they’re worth the magic she now has access to.>
<You are not impressed by this display. The landing is trashed, the beach littered with shattered champagne glasses, dirty socks and expensive hunting boots. You were called here because the fairies told you a great offense was committed, one which must be righted before nightfall lest they abandon you and your other new partner, that red-headed Carter with a rocky heart more rugged than her temper.>
Percival: So much sand…
<It’s getting in your pants as the breeze wants to cut you in two.>
…Blood.
<Indeed, blood. And the stench of rotting fish.>
Where.
<You follow first your nose, which leads you to a nearby sandy cave. At that point you only have to follow your eyes, because there are dessicated entrails pooled amidst rainbow scales and blue blood, blue as a sapphire.>
<Blue as the ocean they were born in.>
…No.
<That’s not all. Something far worse stains this cave. Desecrates it, even.>
<Semen has a thick, ropey stench in your mind. It sticks out amidst even leaking egg sacs and amniotic fluid gone rancid in the fetid humidity of the low ceiling.>
A…
<A siren.>
<It sits at this cave’s end, discarded with its massive eyes gone white and popped out of its skull.>
<Its golden hair is being devoured by crabs that scatter as you fall to your knees. They form a crowd behind you like they want to resume eating after you’re done with the rites.>
<You feel vomit in your mouth. You feel bile burning your teeth as your eyes peel over flecks of white cum on its cheek, over a jaw broken by human hands from trying to force it to suck in a way it was never designed to.>
<And of course they wouldn’t have known. Sirens are predators of humans, but their forms are mimicry. They have no real voices, no real autonomy. Their bodies exist with beauty because of primal forces, ones which fed off desire and poor impulse control.>
<They are fish, at the end of the day. Unable to comprehend, unable to breathe out of water for long periods of time. Unable to understand sex except in its usual gentle, parthenogenic form.>
<This one died with fear. Its wrists have the same bite marks as on its breasts, which are sensory organs, not parental ones. They are sensory organs so sensitive to all but water that they are kept locked in shell “clothing” outside of mating rituals and predatory displays.>
<Waves crash. Gulls caw. Your eyes bead with tears as you imagine its last moments, squirming as it choked on semen, urine and wine clogging its gills, staining its hands. As its hymen was torn by what was no doubt multiple men all grinning, grinning as all of its guts spilled out.>
<That’s what tied their bellies together. The hymen was the center of a siren’s entire anatomy.>
<Did someone cum in it after its intestines went loose?>
<Were they mid-act when it finally died?>
<Did they want to finish inside of it?>
<Because of course, if there’s a orifice, there’s a way. There will always be a way.>
<What a snarl. You want to stab your own neck in shame from all of this. You want to bleed your heart out as you take a piece of opal from your bag and a pouch of star salt from your pocket. You draw a half circle around where you suspect its fins were with that glittering piece of silica and fill it in with the salt as you say a nameless prayer to the water.>
<It’s all you can do. It’s all you’re forced to do. The fairies were explicit on this being a cleanse, and only a cleanse.>
<When you finish, you burn the opal with a quick spell and tell the sea to rush in and devour the salt.>
<You know in your stomach more than your heart that this will not be the last time this will happen.>
<Not just to the siren, but you.>
Psychological Output Reaction: All of the magic in the world couldn’t protect them. It couldn’t protect them from death, from wanton hands, from the men with gilded baubles that now were giving me the world through their sugar, cotton, and silk.
If it couldn’t protect them, would it protect me? Would it protect me if I gave into my desires? Into the abomination growing in my heart?
Would it protect me if I screamed, if I begged for help? No, no, it wouldn’t. It would just keep happening, merciless and deflowering, and soon I would be gone. Just like this siren, like the rest of them.
Burned to pieces, pierced uncontrollably. My hands vying for someone’s throat but there is no defense, there is no one to help me, there is nothing I can do because this is only natural. It is only business.
In this business, you think you’ve seen everything when a century ends. Pull up a bottle of spiced wine and drink it over a marble balcony—you think you’ve seen it all from a perspective like that, until you haven’t, until something new finds a way to grind down what wasn’t there into dust and misery that is real. A misery that is real, and hideous, that finds a way to break into your mind and steal your peace.
Time, and time, and time again. I never say anything to anyone, because there would be no point. There’s no money that can buy back something like that. Not when it’s been sullied, not when it’s been ripped, not when it’s been torn.
Not when it’s been raped.
Note: The following transcript has been translated from Middle English into Modern English.
Date: 05/23/1410
<A sermon. The stone walls of your church, small but sturdy, impress upon you the importance of these words, as if God Himself is watching you. You have no one but yourself in here, for you are an orphan barely ten years old, taken care of by the priest of this town.>
Priest: And Men, I say unto you that God has created you to be master over your wife and child.
Priest: Make no room for a son’s arguments until he is grown, do not tolerate your wife raising her voice at you. The Lord has decreed all wealth flows through your body; all household decisions belong to you and you alone.
Priest: We know this to be good and true, because God cursed Eve in the Garden of Eden for her temptation of Adam. For her sin towards humanity, for her cursing of us all.
Priest: There is no good fate for the weaker sex except servitude.
Psychological Output Reaction:
…
Who am I? Is that supposed to be me?
You keep asking that.
If I keep asking questions, maybe I can delay getting to the answers.
Interesting. I assume that means you’re afraid?
Yes.
Good. You should be.
Lovely little cretin, aren’t you?
Ha, well, that is my job. Now, tell me what you’re afraid of.
Haven’t I already said it all?
Yes, but walk those fears into your future. You’re only looking at the past, what you have clearly defined yourself as not.
You say that like the threads of what happened to us doesn’t determine who we become. Like I am not marred and eternally tired.
You? Tired? Don’t make me laugh. Not everyone has a choice, but you do. And who gets to make that call?
…
You.
…
You do, Percival Darke. Now speak, before you wither away.
…I’m afraid of the office.
Go on.
I’m afraid of their faces. Their stares. Their questions, their no doubt endless curiosities. I’m afraid they will all leave, that I will lose so much money trying to find new people to hire who will…understand this, think positively of me still.
Have you not had this happen with several employees before? Seen these kinds of people in your life? That one you sparred with especially.
Yes, but they weren’t me. They weren’t the pillar of the company who birthed it from cradle to incorporation.
Times have changed, but what will never change is people like you existing in the world. Though, I can imagine how much you pushed them down in your mind.
Did you really think I lived this long without learning a few tricks?
Smarmy today, aren’t you?
I’ve earned it.
You certainly have. But I think there’s something you’ve earned even more than that. Something you’ve earned for this strand of future you’ve brought out into the light. Won’t it be beautiful to climb the Tree of Knowledge now? Don’t you want to be as free as Eve was?
I know too much. If I did it all back then, I would have lost everything.
And yet you don’t want out of this business. Why?
…
Tell me why, Percival. If you still want to be called that.
I do. That is my name, it is not attached to the burning in my heart right now— The burning that loves what I do, loves the world in the palm of my hand, eternity as humans can comprehend it from their minuscule lives in my grasp, even if it’s not true. I love the way people need me, need my business, need the magic I sell.
Well, do you suppose you can be happy like this?
I’ll make myself happy. I have to. To prove to myself I’m not one of them.
You do nothing to change the world.
I can barely tell the truth to myself.
I suppose you’re right.
I always have been.
Untrue.
Haha, let me have my fun for just a little while longer. I’ll get my act together once this is done.
She’s waiting for you, then. All you need to do now is take the first step.
Percival: …Iris…
<Iris braces herself as Percival hugs her, cradling her despite how tall she is.>
Percival: I love you. I will love you forever and always, even when I am no longer around.
Iris: Y-You will?
Percival: Yes. I am sorry I said all those things to you…I…have a lot of things to ponder.
<Iris hugs Percival back.>
Iris: Like…?
Percival: So much…too much…I’m exhausted. I’m tired. I hurt you, I’ve destroyed this house… Please forgive me.
Iris: You’re forgiven. At least I’m still alive…
Percival: But that’s no longer enough! You need to live. Live as who you want to be. Even if I…
<Five seconds of silence. Percival let’s go of Iris and takes her hands into his.>
Percival: Even if I’m terrified.
Iris: You were terrified for me?
Percival: I always have been.
Iris: That’s…normal for parents?
Percival: It is.
<The black liquid recedes. Percival grabs a towel and throws it across an unblemished back. The snakes recede too, back to the shadows, having all gotten their eggs. Their mouths are full, happy, and relieved.>
<The both of them begin to laugh at the absurdity of the situation as Iris throws Percival another towel. Soon, everything stops.>
Percival: …But it shouldn’t be.
<The house heaves a shudder as it normalizes, its topography shifting back to its regular floor plan. Percival stands up straight up to address Iris eye-to-eye.>
Percival: It won’t be, for me. I…don’t want you to be afraid of me, Iris. I don’t want you to be afraid of yourself.
Iris: But I’ve never been afraid of you.
Percival: Not even if I changed?
<Iris nods. Percival’s eyes begin to tear up.>
Percival: The same to you, I… I… Iris…
<Twelve seconds of silence.>
Iris: Can we call someone, please?
Percival: We can, I just…I just…!
<Crying. The energy waves are crying too. There are so many tears, so many things to be said, but they can’t be said. Not in a single moment. Not even in a single hour.>
Percival: …I need to get this out. I need…to ask that you no longer call me your father.
<Do it! Free me! Free this world!>
Percival: …Please, refer to me instead as your mother.
<SCP-9006 ceases. And so I am finally laid to rest.>
You Foundation people did what you could, and for that, I thank you. Recording this is enough—one day, she’ll find this again, despite your best efforts, and will look upon her cage breaking with the same fondness as her daughter being born.
Goodbye. I hope you too will have the courage to break your own eggs.
Addendum.9006.02: On 01/20/2015, after fourteen days of inactivity, SCP-9006 was reclassified to Neutralized. PoI-012-01’s status was changed to unknown in Foundation databases until 02/15/2015, at which an undercover Mu-3 agent witnessed PoI-012-01 at a private party. Her portraiture was updated accordingly.
