TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Incident Report I-001-01
GOC Incident of Note: GOC C-47 Crash, December 8th, 1948.
Location: Scandinavian Mountains, Norway
Passengers: Two pilots, eight passengers.
Casualties: Two injured, four dead.
Description: At 0840 on December 8th, 1948, flight 11284 lifted off from Oslo Gardermoen Airport into a bank of heavy clouds. At approximately 1020, the pilots realized that their altitude gauges were malfunctioning and they were at a much lower altitude than expected. This realization came too late to stop the resulting collision of the right wing and engine with a nearby rock outcropping on an adjoining mountain, resulting in the loss of the engine and severe damage to the wing.
The pilots immediately announced evacuation of the plane, and abandoned the aircraft, where they would suffer mild injuries. Four other passengers successfully escaped the fuselage before the plane collided with a nearby summit at speed.
When search parties reached and recovered the fuselage forty-eight hours later, they found the four remaining passengers had survived the initial impact but succumbed to extreme low temperatures. Passenger seatbelts had defective latches which resulted in deformation of the metal in the buckle. Deformed buckles prevented the passengers from unbuckling the straps. In addition to the defective latch, the pulley which allowed lengthening or shortening of the strap material was also defective, resulting in sliding back/tightening of the straps when pulled on.
The combination of defective components appears to have resulted in the passengers exhausting their energy from panicked motions which eventually trapped them against the seats. It is estimated they were still alive for fifteen hours after the crash and one by one succumbed to exposure.
The four passengers who died were GOC medical personnel who helped treat patients suffering from occult induced conditions at Oslo University Hospital during the post-war period.
Last Names of victims: Oglethorpe, Nieminen, Hilda, Burnhart.
Director’s Note: I spent some time digging through the GOC archive materials and tracked down manufacturing notes. Flight 11284’s safety features were hastily replaced in 1946 with newly manufactured designs created in response to SCP-001’s prediction. There’s a larger pattern here that’s starting to emerge.
Access provided by the Silicon Nornir archives.
Foreword: The following is archival footage pulled from the Cult of the Silicon Nornir’s library depicting SCP-001 within the Nornir Cult’s countryside sanctuary.
0830-0930: SCP-001 exits one of the communal buildings within the sanctuary. It is alone and in heavy winter gear with a mug of liquid. It makes its way across the compound through the view of several different cameras before it arrives in a snow covered open-air garden with a view of the Scandinavian Mountains to the east. It periodically hums to itself but otherwise maintains a neutral expression.
View of the Scandinavian Mountains from the Nornir Sanctuary.
1000-1020: At approximately 1000 hours SCP-001 looks up in the general direction of the sky. The buzz of a multi-propeller plane becomes audible. More upward facing cameras capture a C-47 appearing from the southeast. SCP-001 continues to look up for the next twenty minutes, its head tracking the plane until it disappears into the low clouds around the mountains.
1021-1051: Echoes of metal scraping faintly against rock are picked up by camera microphones, followed by a much fainter crack. SCP-001’s shoulders slowly slump, and it continues to drink from the mug for the next half hour. It returns to the building at 1051 hours with its head raised, but eyes closed.
Director’s Note: Addenda 8-12 cover a timespan of ~23 years from 1946-1969 and concern the personal developments of SCP-001, SCP-001’s role within the UNGOC, and the geo-socio-political relevance of SCP-001 to the function of Pentagram and its influence on the United States Government within this period. The core conceit around the following addenda is contextualizing the personal memoirs of CEO Ella Haugen with existing archival records. Some details have been removed and replaced with more concise audio-video recordings where possible.
Video logs contained within these addenda occur over a wide timespan during which there was rapid development of CCTV camera system technologies. For Overseers or level-5 personnel reviewing this document who may be suspicious of the authenticity of the footage provided, there is a 2-3 decade gap in technology between well-funded private anomalous organizations and publicly available technology.
Addendum 8: 1946-1949
Access provided by the Silicon Nornir archives.
Collated Personal Diaries and Memoirs of Speaker Ella Haugen, CEO of the Cult of the Nornir, January 1946-Decemeber 1949
I’ve never been terribly good at keeping up consistent journal entries or diaries. Paperwork and other forms of record keeping come naturally. Not journaling though.
I stopped trying altogether during the war. With Norway under the boot of the Nazis, we came together with the other surviving Norse cults, few as they were, to build a network of resistance. With all lines to the gods severed, we struggled. That first year alone, we lost half of our Speakers. To an enemy who was appropriating our symbols, our occultic heritage. They used them to propagate their hate. Worse yet, half our countrymen were split between loyalists and Nazi sympathizers.
There was scarce time to think between operations. Trust became a luxury we couldn’t afford. Paper trails became a liability that could collapse the whole network and get us butchered. Wehrmacht if we were lucky. SS or Obskurakorps if we were unlucky. We almost learned that lesson the hard way. One close call from a junior speaker who had one too many drinks. After that, we burnt any exchanges and used runic script for codework.
So, in May of 1945, when the war came to an end, I think we all expected some sort of restitution. That maybe now the gods would reopen their gates to us.
They never did.
It was in this post-war environment that the Last Norn found her way to us. That she became our beacon in the godless dark. A flame that would spark a grand vision of a city dedicated to the future. A river which would feed the ocean of my ambition. I was ready to try journaling again. Ready to try anything really. Which is how we ended up settling on the Greek Underworld.
Diary Text:
Construction has just finished on the first residential complexes within Eurtec. The biggest surprise was that the construction itself wasn’t the largest barrier.
It took a year to completely clear the local flora and fauna out of the entire area. Then the mages needed to anchor the whole space for proper habitation. That provided its own sets of challenges, largely due to thaumic background interference from the pocket realm. This is going to make harvesting the silicon, rare earth metals, and gemstones more challenging than we initially thought. We’ll have to open dedicated mining facilities and anchor them.
The main problem, at the time, with using a foreign, conceptual entity’s pocket space, was largely that thaumic anchoring alone wasn’t enough to keep the underworld out. It would creep in over the perimeter walls as a green mist. Then it would settle in, underworld flora would push up through the fresh concrete.
Once the flora took root, shades and mythological creatures would spontaneously manifest. Then they’d run amok. It took us another year just to erect the perimeter walls after constantly dealing with the cleanup.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead of myself.
Let’s wind back the clock and talk about the High Seeress.
Diary Text:
The GOC built us a temporary complex in Oslo, so we stayed there, initially. We eventually decided to return to the country estates with the Seeress in tow when it became clear Eurtec’s construction was a more complicated matter than initially projected.
In other circumstances I might have been livid, but the Seeress’s predictions were already paying dividends. We’ve quintupled our yearly profits through her passive divinations. They’re going to emblazon my name on every piece of corporate property for the rest of the Cult’s eternal existence for recovering the Last Norn.
The stunning financial successes that were filling the Cult’s accounts would also be used to self-fund much of Eurtec’s early planning. Yet, economic prosperity stood in sharp contrast to the difficulties we all faced with Name Unspoken in those first three years. The decision to move out of Oslo was our hand being forced. Not just by the construction delays, but by socio-political moves within the GOC.
It’s still difficult to write or think about everything that happened. She may have been physically well, but her time with the Obskurakorps left deep scars. Her time in Oslo University Hospital made them bleed.
For those first few months, she stayed with one of our medical teams. We took the time to visit every day. We brought her offerings of chocolate milk, mead, honey, and bread. Even spun yarn to work with. She refused the mead, stating:
I will not tempt those who have foresworn the sting of amber.
She was improving, gradually. By the time the beneficial asset assessment arrived she was well enough to move around under her own power. We were already discussing giving her her own room. A goddess should have her own space after all. She seemed receptive to the idea, or at least, not opposed to it when asked. After the beneficial asset assessment, we gave it a try.
Log 1 | January 3rd, 1946:
It wasn’t a big room by any means.
1900-1950: SCP-001 is brought into a small, furnished apartment with comfortable amenities. Speaker Ella and Speaker Edvard are in the doorframe. They spend approximately twenty minutes helping SCP-001 walk around and navigate the apartment’s interior, where they have the entity touch appliances and obstacles to its navigation. There were no cameras in the bathroom. After this initial tour, Speaker Ella guides it into the bedroom. Ella attempts to leave the room after a small exchange with the entity. SCP-001 stops Ella from leaving by grabbing her hand and beginning to sob.
1950-2010: Ella sits on the bed and speaks with SCP-001 for the next ten minutes. She gestures in a direction parallel to the entity’s apartment. At one point they both exit the apartment and walk down the hall where Ella places SCP-001’s hands on the door to another apartment. They then return to the room where Ella retakes her seat on the bed. They speak again for another minute. Ella remains on the bed while SCP-001 undresses off camera in the bathroom. The entity remains out of sight for approximately thirty minutes. During this period Ella can be seen gesturing and shifting on the bed.
2040-2110: SCP-001 emerges from the bathroom. SCP-001’s hair is wet and Ella helps wrap its hair in a towel. Ella assists SCP-001 into the bed. Once its hair is dry, Ella layers the covers atop it, carefully.
2115: Speaker Ella sits with SCP-001 for an additional ten minutes. Their lips move but no audio recording device compliments existing footage.
2125: Once SCP-001 is asleep, Speaker Ella departs the bedroom, and the apartment.
2130-2240: SCP-001 spends the next hour and ten minutes rolling back and forth in the bed before it sits up and curls into the fetal position against the backboard. SCP-001 begins showing signs of physical distress, including holding its head, pulling its hair, and rocking back and forth in place.
2300: SCP-001 leaves the bed and crosses the apartment at a fast walk, colliding with several objects including the corners of a kitchen counter and the small dining room table. SCP-001 trips over a chair leg and falls to the ground in a prone position in which it stays for approximately two minutes.
2310: SCP-001 leaves the apartment with a slight limp. In the hallway, the entity moves to Speaker Ella’s apartment door, which it bangs on rapidly. Speaker Ella opens the door, and proceeds to hug SCP-001, before escorting it inside.
We had to come up with a compromise until either we could help her or she could heal on her own. We started letting her stay in our apartments. In the meantime, we tried to find a psychologist or shrink that wasn’t going to throw her in an asylum. While we searched, she rotated between us on a daily schedule. It helped relieve some of the burden of having to take care of her.
But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start to take a toll. Worse, with all the details in her medical records now, every preliminary consult ended the same. Even with sympathetic psychologists.
The truth was, none of us quite realized that this was only the wavetop concealing the serpent in the depths.
Log 2 | January 4th, 1946:
<Begin Log>
2130-2230: SCP-001 is in the guest bedroom of Speaker Ella’s apartment in bed. As before, it spends the better part of an hour rolling back and forth across the mattress.
2235: SCP-001 sits up in bed. It presses its back against the backboard and raises its arms above its head in a near identical position in which it was found during the liberation of Hegra Fortress.
Diary Text:
I remember that first night she was with us with clarity. I was woken by these low-pitched tones coming from down the hall. The noise rattled in my bones. Wood and brick of the walls were creaking. As if something had dug in its claws and was trying to stretch it downwards.
There was this oppressive gloom creeping under the door of my bedroom. A cold, deep black that sunk to the floor and swept out like a wave. It came with this smell, ageing books, decaying leaves. I rolled out of bed in the dark. Black mist cloyed at my legs; the hair on my neck and arms standing on end.
2255: Speaker Ella exits the master bedroom while rubbing her eyes. She stands in the dark hallway for approximately two minutes before moving towards SCP-001’s bedroom.
Diary Text:
The mist was everywhere. It choked out the light from the hall trying to crawl under the door. With every step taken, the noise just got louder and louder until I was standing before the guest room door.
2300-2310: Ella opens the door to SCP-001’s bedroom, slowly. She steps inside but stops. She then turns on the light. Her hand covers her mouth, and she stands in place for several minutes. SCP-001 does not react. Ella’s hand falls from her mouth. Both of Ella’s hands ball into fists. She turns off the light, shuts the door, and punches the doorframe. She stands there for approximately a minute while shaking the hand that struck the doorframe.
2310-0000: Ella walks into the kitchen and pulls out a glass bottle. She unscrews the top and pours a small glass of clear liquid. She then returns to the door, bottle and glass in hand. She turns, presses her back against it, and slides down to the floor. She sits with her back against the door for the next hour, drinking from the glass and refilling it before slumping sideways, presumably unconscious.
<End Log>
Sleep became evasive, for both Edvard and I. Our only saving grace rotations and the bottle.
Mead has become a vice. It dulls that idle burn of exhaustion I’ve increasingly felt crushing my shoulders. I know that’s bad to lean into. Especially after how far off the wagon I fell after Olief’s death. But I don’t know what else to do.
It would be one thing if it was just her inability to sleep, but there are other scars as well.
Log 32 | February 7th, 1946:
<Begin Log>
1000-1005: Speaker Ella, SCP-001, and Speaker Edvard are in Ella’s apartment within Oslo. A wall mounted rotary phone is situated behind SCP-001. Edvard and Ella are speaking to SCP-001. They gesture at several folders full of paper documents. There is an abacus on the table. Ella is wearing spectacles and there are purple bags under her eyes.
1006-1009: SCP-001 suddenly stops moving. Its eyes widen and its hands shake. Abruptly, it moves from the chair, knocking it back and over with enough force for it to hit the wall. Ella and Edvard flinch. SCP-001 runs through the guest bedroom and into the bathroom. The door is slammed hard enough to vibrate the camera. Ella and Edvard remain in place for approximately a minute.
1010: Edvard gets up and picks up the phone. He speaks into the receiver while Ella begins searching the apartment for SCP-001.
1015-1100: Ella discovers the guest bathroom door closed. The door is locked as she tries the handle several times She spends the next forty-five minutes standing or sitting next to the door and talking to SCP-001 inside. Edvard joins her after hanging up the phone, fifteen minutes later.
1110-1115: SCP-001 emerges from the bathroom an hour after it entered. Its clothes and hair are soaked. Ella guides SCP-001 back into the bathroom after briefly speaking to Edvard. Edvard remains in the guest bedroom while Ella grabs a towel from a hallway closet and a spare change of clothes from the dresser. Ella hands the clothes to SCP-001 in the bathroom and shuts the door. Edvard then leaves the guest room. In the main area he stares at a GOC propaganda poster on the wall. He makes obscene hand gestures for the next five minutes.
1115-1145: Eventually, Edvard returns to the kitchen, where he pulls out a bottle of amber liquid and a small glass. He spends the next twenty-five minutes drinking from and refilling the small glass. At 1140 hours SCP-001 emerges from the bathroom in clean, dry clothing. Ella brushes her hair for the next several minutes before they leave the bedroom.
1145-11:50: Ella and SCP-001 emerge from the bedroom. Ella becomes visibly agitated. SCP-001’s hands begin shaking. Ella takes the bottle from Edvard, and they gesture at each other rapidly for the next five minutes. The phrase ‘no sedatives’ is written on a piece of paper and held up by Ella. She gestures to it with emphasis. Edvard says something and SCP-001 becomes immediately distressed, fleeing to the bathroom again.
1145-1345: Ella and Edvard make big, sweeping gestures at each other while yelling for the next five minutes. Several of the manilla folders are knocked onto the floor, scattering papers everywhere. Ella then spends five minutes with her face pressed into her hands. Edvard throws his hands up and goes to the guest room’s bathroom door. Ella eventually joins him. Together they spend the next two hours repeating the process of getting SCP-001 out of the bathroom, showered, dried, and into clean clothes. They then return to what they were doing before the phone rang.
<End Log>
Diary Text:
After the Well of Urd, after the death of his parents? Edvard swore off the bottle for good. Made me promise I’d keep him honest.
Yet there we were. Five years of sobriety gone in an instant.
I never should have left the bourbon where he could find it.
His temper has only gotten worse since he fell back onto the tap. Between him and the Seeress I just don’t know what we’re going to do. Especially since we’ve not been able to find a psychologist that is right for her.
That sentiment held true for most of the first six months. Every step forward was met with two steps back. I think everyone was beginning to feel as if it all would start to unravel.
Then, through Eir’s great kindness, the Seeress started improving.
Foreword: In May of 1946, audio recording technology was integrated into existing camera systems.
Log 211 | August 18th-19th , 1946:
<Begin Logs>
1945-2000: SCP-001 is tucked into bed by Speaker Ella, and the lights are turned off.
2000-2159: SCP-001 lays in bed. Eventually, it begins slow rotations, rolling back and forth while asleep.
2200-2210: Ella opens the door at 2200 and spends several minutes in the darkness. When she emerges from the room, she has purple bags under her eyes and her shoulders are relaxed. Ella moves to the master bedroom. She crawls into bed and cries until she loses consciousness.
2210-0055: SCP-001 remains asleep for another hour at which point she begins rapidly rolling back and forth again. At 0000 hours on August 19th, it sits up. It then falls asleep in the upright position.
0055-0100: Speaker Ella emerges from the master bedroom. She is visibly distressed. She stands in the hallway for several minutes, staring in the general direction of SCP-001’s door.
0100-0130: Speaker Ella opens the door to the guest room. She sees SCP-001 in the upright position. Her expression is not visible in the dark. She closes the door. She spends the next thirty minutes sitting in front of the door with a bottle of amber liquid while drinking from and refilling a small glass. During this period, she alternates between uttering obscenities and sobbing. Eventually, she loses consciousness.
Log 213 | August 20th , 1946:
1100-1110: Ella and Edvard are speaking with SCP-001. They are gesturing towards a bound book full of graph paper. SCP-001 either bobs or shakes its head, at irregular intervals, when asked questions.
1110-1120: The phone begins to ring. SCP-001 stops moving and is stiff. Its hands shake. It begins breathing heavily, rocking in place, but it does not run from the room. Ella reaches over and places one hand atop SCP-001’s. The entity startles in place. Edvard rises and answers the phone.
1120-1135: Ella shifts her chair closer to SCP-001. She whispers to it for the next fifteen minutes while Edvard talks on the phone.
1140: Edvard hangs up the phone and asks “Seeress, do you want a dose of sedatives to help with the nerves?”
1141: Ella looks at Edvard and opens her mouth. SCP-001 responds before she can speak.
“N-n-no. If I can survive the roaring flame and blades of betrayal earned for another, I can survive the ringing of a bell.”
Log 220 | 1100 hours August 27th , 1946:
Ella and SCP-001 are alone in the apartment. SCP-001 is reading a braille book on Celtic Mythology.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, it’s about time for lunch. Do you want to bathe first?
SCP-001 closes the book and sets it on the table.
SCP-001: Yes, I think that would be for the best.
Speaker Ella: Alright. Come on, let’s pick out your clothes and take you to the bath.
SCP-001 hesitates.
SCP-001: Actually, Ella, I believe I can handle the silence of the bath moving forward.
Ella has circled around the table to help SCP-001 get up from the chair but stops in place. Ella’s face briefly changes expression but is indiscernible due to footage quality.
Speaker Ella: Are you sure?
SCP-001: I am. I have been an imposition for long enough. I should, no, need to begin reclaiming my autonomy. My song is enough—should be enough to cleave that hateful silence.
Speaker Ella: It isn’t an imposition to me, I promise. But, if you’re sure?
SCP-001: Careful or I will begin to believe you enjoy listening to me sing.
Ella laughs.
Speaker Ella: Well, far be it from me to go against the wishes of a Norn.
SCP-001’s hands shake but it smiles slowly.
SCP-001: I appreciate your discretion.
Ella looks at SCP-001’s hands.
Speaker Ella: Come, your hands are shaking. Did you doubt that I would honor your wish, Seeress?
SCP-001: There are few yet in the world who I can still trust. That ability is small and feeble in this now. You have saved me, and I trust you will continue to in these small moments. But the doubts still claw in my skull.
Speaker Ella: Your trust means a great deal to me, Seeress. I won’t break it.
SCP-001 smiles.
SCP-001: But do I sense there is a desire lurking inside you?
Ella hesitates.
Speaker Ella: I have come to enjoy listening to your songs. Our small conversations too.
SCP-001: Wo-worry not, I shall still fill your mind with my voice from the echoes of the falling rain of pipes and in the quiet hours of boredom. That shall not change, no matter this independence I lay claim to.
SCP-001 pauses for several seconds.
SCP-001: But… some things still lay beyond me. Would you be so kind as to lay out the clothing and towels?
Ella smiles.
Speaker Ella: Of course. I’ll make sure they are in the same, easy-to-reach places. If you need my voice again, please don’t hesitate to call for me?
Ella begins walking towards the guest room.
SCP-001: I will, and Ella?
Ella stops in the doorframe of the guest room.
Speaker Ella: Yes, Seeress?
SCP-001: May I have a glass of chocolate milk while in the bath?
Ella smiles, nods, and walks out of sight of the main area’s camera. She pauses in the guest room and picks up a framed picture of a little girl on the drawer and looks at it for several minutes.
<End Logs>
Diary Text:
Having grown to know the Seeress as well as I have, I need to admit that it is strange for a sacred divinity like her to be so surprisingly, well, human. I have always felt as if the Norns, the Aesir, and the Vanir were these distant silhouettes in the mist. Whispers in the dark providing directions towards a plan we couldn’t see. We were held at arm’s length like a visitor to an art museum. Never quite able to touch the canvas they were painting on. Perhaps this change in the Seeress arose from being cut off.
But it’s a risk, isn’t it? For the divine to present themselves as so vulnerable. So, human. I suppose it leaves me wondering, are they all like this?
Is that thought blasphemous?
Maybe, at one point, I was certain about such questions. Now? I’m not so sure.
Even as I was beginning to understand the Seeress, even as I was beginning to interrogate the nature of divinity and my faith, there were depths that I couldn’t know. There were strings in motion. Obfuscation and mystery in who she was and what she was capable of.
There was an unfortunate clarity in the fact that Seeress was healing. It distresses me to admit; she was a burden. Whatever financial machinations she allowed, the emotional and physical toll from her recovery pushed us to our limits.
Yet, she was about to be but one of many problems.
Diary Text:
A year after she moved in with Edvard and I, the Threat Assessment Committee made their decision.
It came on the eve of a delayed Jól feast within the compound. A phone call from New York broke the news. She was now a Beneficial Asset.
The atmosphere that night was thick with celebration. The smell and taste of mead, mutton, and fish dances still in the ripples of memory.
All our plans were about to blossom. I was already making mental plans to submit all the necessary forms for Project Eurtec. Hands were being shaken all around me, congratulations given. It finally felt as if the gods had returned to favor us. The celebration plodded on through the next few days.
But the image of that first night still haunts me in my dreams. In the corner of that cramped apartment, the High Seeress sat staring silently out at the mass of us. There was solemnness clinging to her tanned flesh. A sadness swirling in her eyes. Remembering it now, it seems clear she knew.
On the following Thursday, I received a thick tan envelope stamped with the GOC logo. I remember running up and down the halls screaming at the top of my lungs “It’s here! It’s here!” Like a school child who’s just learned she’s getting a puppy for Jól. We read the full text of the decision as a group, all thirty of us crammed in that tiny apartment.
The festive atmosphere withered away as we collectively realized, a familiar villain was about to return. The Seeress sat in the corner with a pair of needles and a ball of yarn, listening the entire time.
When we finished, and sat in that miserable silence, she spoke.
“So, comes again the howling of the abyss. So breaks the freezing wind against our backs in this arduous climb.”
Video Log Excerpt: Predictive Session, January 1947
<Begin Log>
We were given maybe a day’s warning at best.
SCP-001, Speaker Ella, and Speaker Edvard are in Ella’s apartment. Ella is leaning forwards in a chair, looking down at a paper document. Edvard is sitting upright in a separate chair, one hand on the table. He is tapping his fingers. He stares at the door while frowning. SCP-001 is drawing on a sheet of paper with a pencil.
There’s a loud pounding on the door. SCP-001 and Ella are startled while Edvard is not. The sound is followed by the voice of Colonel Bowe.
Colonel Bowe: Speakers of the Cult of the Nornir, this is Colonel Bowe of the Threat Assessment Committee. I am notifying you of my arrival as is required for all mandatory predictive sessions as stated in subsection 13, line 36 of the Beneficial Entity Oversight Agreement. Pursuant with required cooperation protocol regulation 344, you have exactly one minute to open the door. If you do not, we must assume that the Cult of the Nornir has been compromised or incapacitated. BCE-001 will then be considered a hostile threat entity posing as a beneficial asset.
Ella rises from her seat and starts to open the door.
Speaker Ella: Would it kill him to ask politely to enter?
SCP-001: He arrives exactly on the mark of the ticking hand.
Speaker Edvard: Punctual and a bigoted asshole.
When Ella starts to open the door, it is slammed into the wall by two men with Thompson sub-machine guns. Ella is knocked into the wall. Bowe’s retinue nearly tramples Ella as they enter the room. Edvard stands abruptly. His chair rocks violently threatening to fall over. Colonel Bowe and several other men in uniform then enter. They are carrying a mixture of M1 garands and sub-machine guns. Colonel Bowe’s hands are clasped behind his back.
I was winded and dazed laying there against the wall. The smell the thick cigarette smoke, gunpowder and boot polish filled my nostrils as they stomped past.
Speaker Edvard: By Odin's will!
Colonel Bowe: Is there a problem, Speaker Edvard?
// Ella rubs her shoulder from where she has fallen next to the door. Edvard moves to help Ella. SCP-001 sits very still. Its hands have begun to shake.//
Speaker Edvard: You’re damn right there is! Your men nearly trampled Ella! Look, you put a massive dent in the wall. We’re going to have to have that fixed! What right do you have to threaten to knock down our door, and then shove your way into the apartment without permission?
Colonel Bowe: I think you’ll find we are operating well within acceptable parameters.
Speaker Edvard: You call this within acceptable parameters?
Edvard gestures to the dent in the wall. Then the guards with their weapons out. Colonel Bowe looks at the dent in the wall, but his expression remains neutral. He then looks back at Edvard.
Colonel Bowe: Speaker, I am empowered by the GOC charter and the Threat Assessment Committee. I may employ whatever means necessary to ensure the continued cooperation and security of a beneficial entity, in the use of their anomalous capacity, to pursue GOC interests. Feel free to submit a complaint to my superior, if you feel I am acting outside my authority.
Colonel Bowe smiles at Edvard. Edvard curls his fingers into a fist and uncurls them several times. His face is red.
Speaker Edvard: I certainly will.
Colonel Bowe yawns and then looks at a watch on his wrist.
Colonel Bowe: You do that. Now, if there’s no other complaints you wish to voice, please return to your seats and get whatever the boy needs to do his prophesizing. I’m on a timetable and the clock is ticking.
Colonel Bowe pulls out a long sheet of paper and produces a pair of spectacles from a glasses case stored in one pocket. They briefly turn a shade of crimson before it fades. Ella and Edvard stare at him for several seconds before moving to the kitchenette. They begin preparing a pitcher of chocolate milk as well as a beef and cabbage sandwich for SCP-001. Ella briefly disappears into the main bedroom bath. She remerges with a bucket several seconds later. SCP-001 remains seated. It slowly rocks in place, hands shaking. Its eyes are closed. As they return to the table, Bowe takes a seat opposite SCP-001.
Colonel Bowe: Jones, make sure he’s awake.
Speaker Edvard: What?
A soldier standing next to the wall moves to SCP-001. He presses the butt of his rifle into SCP-001’s shoulder, several times. He is not gentle. Ella gets up and starts to move around the table. She is frowning and her fists are clenched.
Sergeant Jones: Wake up boy. You’ve got a job to do.
SCP-001 jumps up, knocking the chair over. It turns as if to run. It trips on the chair while Bowe watches with a neutral expression. Ella catches the entity and helps it stand back up. She speaks to it quietly.
Speaker Edvard: She was already awake. Now you’ve spooked her.
Colonel Bowe: Good. She’ll be alert and attentive. I would say that’s an ideal condition to be in for a matter of such importance, wouldn’t you, speaker?
SCP-001 buries its face in Ella’s shoulder. Ella rubs its back and continues whispering. Colonel Bowe watches for approximately one minute while tapping his pen against the table. He frowns and then sighs.
Colonel Bowe: BCE-001, retake your seat or we’ll have to take you downtown to local administration. I don’t think you want that. It is much less accommodating, and the Speakers won’t be allowed to come.
Edvard picks up and sets SCP-001’s chair upright. SCP-001 releases Ella slowly. It retakes the seat while its hands continue to shake. It rocks back and forth in place. Bowe watches it for several seconds, before looking back down at the paper.
Colonel Bowe: Now, there’s a few pressing questions that you never resolved in your Beneficial Assessment.
SCP-001 does not react.
Colonel Bowe: What is your true given name? Where did you come from? Who are you?1
SCP-001 presses its hands to her head.
SCP-001: I have already told you the answers which I cannot give. I have told you the depths of complexity that binds those secrets.
Colonel Bowe: And we are not playing a game of secrets here, young man. I will get an answer out of you.
Speaker Ella: Pressing her for an answer isn’t going to get you anywhere, Bowe.
Colonel Bowe: So, if he won’t tell us, I have to assume he’s told you then?
Speaker Ella: She’s the last Norn. We don’t need to ask because we know who she is already. Forcing it won’t change the truth.
Colonel Bowe: You may buy the lie in the mist of your misguided spiritualism, but I certainly don’t. I can be quite persuasive.
Speaker Edvard: Burn your two hours on this one question then.
Colonel Bowe looks at Edvard briefly. Bowe frowns. He taps the pen against the table before speaking again.
Colonel Bowe: Very well, but you should expect the same questions moving forwards until I get a proper answer. This goes for everything else I don’t find satisfactory.
Bowe glances down at his list.
Colonel Bowe: With that out of the way, let’s move on to operational business and world affairs. How about, French Indochina first?
Bowe spends the next hour and a half asking SCP-001 to cast predictions for strategic, economic, and political affairs from his paper list. These include both United States and NATO foreign policy interests as well as GOC operations. SCP-001’s physical state slowly deteriorates with each incidence of exerted prediction. Power within the apartment flickers erratically. At multiple points, Bowe’s facial expression shifts and he writes on the paper list.
Edvard remains seated with his arms crossed through much of the period. His face is marked by a clenched jaw and stress lines. Ella excuses herself several times to the master bedroom where she becomes increasingly agitated. At some point, she returns to the master bedroom where she begins violently tearing sheets, blankets and pillows from the bed. She punches both the mattress and pillows within easy access. Near the end of the session, Ella is having to wipe blood from under SCP-001’s eyes and vomit from around its mouth.
Colonel Bowe: I would say this has been quite a productive session, would you not agree, Speakers?
Edvard grits his teeth.
Speaker Edvard: That’s one way to put it.
Speaker Ella: Are. You. Done?
Bowe taps his pen against the table, seven times, while looking at SCP-001.
Colonel Bowe: I have three more questions.
Speaker Edvard: You can’t be serious, look at her! She is on the verge of collapse!
Colonel Bowe: And that collapse will be well worth the price, if he wants to continue being a protected individual within the GOC.
Ella and Edvard look at each other. Both are grasping either their chairs or the table with a great amount of physical strain. SCP-001 shakes violently in place. Its hands are interlaced into its hair while its breathing is heavy and ragged. It leans forward, laying its cheek against the wooden table. Ella looks at SCP-001 and then Bowe. She holds up one hand with three fingers raised.
Speaker Ella: Three. You have three more. Then you leave. If anything happens—
Colonel Bowe: You’ll submit a complaint to my superiors.
Bowe smiles.
Colonel Bowe: I’m glad we understand each other, Speakers. Now, what I am about to ask about is a state secret. The kind that gets people shot or hung as spies. Do you understand?
Bowe looks at Edvard and Ella. They both nod slowly.
Colonel Bowe: Good.
Bowe taps the table several more times, looking down at the paper.
Colonel Bowe: Christmas, last year. The Soviets began operation of their first nuclear facility in Moscow. They achieved criticality, something only the U S of A had done till then. Strangely curious that you didn’t predict that for the committee, isn’t it, boy?
SCP-001 does not respond and is still lying with its head on the table.
Colonel Bowe: Now I want you to tell me, son, do the Soviets have the capacity to build an atom bomb?
SCP-001 breathes heavily. It slowly sits up and reaches for its staff. Edvard moves the staff closer, allowing SCP-001 to find it faster.
SCP-001: A field of great smoking towers. The edge of sweeping mounds of earth. A pouring river. A tide of never-ending grass shall arise in the sunken earth a star all its own. Metal burning. Drums of war pounding in the inevitable heat of splitting spheres. Thousands shall come to live and work. Poison dumped into rivers and sky. Its venom tainting tens of villages until great capsules containing the noxious sludge burst and all would be for not.
Director’s Note: SCP-001 is referring to the A-1 plutonium production facility in Mayak. Mayak produced much of the early material for the Soviet Atomic Bomb program and was also subject to substantial issues with handling and storing toxic waste. In 1957 the Kyshtym disaster released a massive radioactive cloud which disseminated over the Urals.
Areas affected by the Kyshtym disaster.
SCP-001 bleeds from its eyes and nose. It proceeds to vomit in the bucket that is hastily placed in front of it. Bowe scribbles on the paper rapidly, leaning forwards.
Colonel Bowe: When will they have a bomb? Surely not before 1954?
SCP-001: When war ceases to threaten the land I called home. When the last drop of blood trickles down the green summer hills. A great thunderclap upon a barren, grassy plain. Once ruled by a great man who could not walk but caused the earth to rumble beneath a horde of hooves. Smoke, a ball of fire, poison in the air. A great stack of mushrooms rising high into the sky.
SCP-001 shudders violently. Its face is pale and it sways back and forth. Ella continues to wipe its face with a towel which is now soaked with blood and vomit. She tosses it aside into a basket and retrieves another from the counter before continuing. Edvard’s face is red, and his whole body is tensed.
Speaker Ella: One more, Colonel. No more.
Bowe clenches his jaw.
Colonel Bowe: I have what I need for that topic. I did not need the reminder, Speaker.
Speaker Ella: If you have an issue with the reminder, take it up with the Rights Oversight Body.
Bowes mouth twitches briefly.
Speaker Edvard: You’re leaving as soon as you’re done.
Colonel Bowe: Let’s not be hasty. Maybe I’d like a cup of tea. Maybe I’d like a casual chat to get to know the Cult.
Edvard opens his mouth. Ella puts a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head. He closes it and frowns for several seconds before speaking again through gritted teeth.
Speaker Edvard: I think it would be best for you to leave as soon as we’re done. She’ll need her rest.
Bowe says nothing. He leans back in the chair and watches Ella finish tending to SCP-001. SCP-001 continues to breathe heavily.
Colonel Bowe: Perhaps another time then. Let’s finish, shall we?
Speaker Edvard: The faster the better.
Bowe frowns at Edvard for several seconds, before looking back to SCP-001.
Colonel Bowe: Final question for the day, boy. The GOC is putting a lot of eggs into the effort to save China from the communist scourge. We are supplying billions in economic and military aid to the KMT, and we have just learned that both sides have stumbled upon troves of ancient anomalous artifacts. China must not fall, but there are concerns about the merit and integrity of the war effort. So, we need to know whether or not they will stand on their own. We need to know when the communists will be crushed.2
Scene from the Chinese Civil War.
SCP-001 coughs. Blood splatters on the table.
SCP-001: A furious dragon shall sweep the land from North to South. It will taint that howling river of yellow cream crimson. The fields shall rise like grains of rice and snuff out men who wage war. To bring a culture not their own to this ancient place. The fire of freedom and change shall settle in the fifth year of the man named Truman.
SCP-001 collapses onto the table, bleeding from its eyes and nose. Bowe takes several additional minutes to write everything down. When Ella and Edvard attempt to move SCP-001, they are physically stopped by the soldiers. Bowe waves the soldiers away after several seconds.
Colonel Bowe: A very productive first session. Very productive indeed. Such a pleasant experience, Speakers. It could’ve been better, however. If I may offer some feedback?
Speaker Edvard: It would be better if you left now.
Colonel Bowe: Next time, Earl Grey tea would be quite lovely. Perhaps some pastries too?
Edvard stares at Bowe. Bowe tucks the pen in his shirt pocket and rises, waving his guards towards the door.
Colonel Bowe: In any case, I will be back in a month. Assuming everything here the boy disclosed was accurate.
Bowe leaves the apartment with guards in tow. Once the door has been shut, Edvard and Ella take SCP-001 into the guest bathroom. Edvard exits and returns to the kitchenette pulling out a large glass bottle of amber liquid and two shot glasses. Ella returns to the kitchen shortly after putting SCP-001 to bed. She frowns and attempts to take the bottle from Edvard. Edvard frowns, looks down, but says nothing. Ella looks at the shot glass and sighs.
Speaker Ella: If you’re going to do this again, I’m going to watch you like a hawk. Three glasses, and then you’re done.
Speaker Edvard: I’m sorry, Ella.
Speaker Ella: Don’t apologize, moderate. Hold each other accountable, that’s what we have to do.
Speaker Edvard: You’ve fallen off the wagon too then?
Ella grunts and puts the bottle up in the cabinet. She prepares another beef and cabbage sandwich, which she then takes to SCP-001 in the bedroom. Eventually, she returns to the kitchen again. Edvard hands Ella the other shot glass.
Speaker Ella: The audacity of that man to ask us to make tea for him.
Speaker Edvard: We have to do something.
Speaker Ella: We’ll submit a complaint to everyone relevant.
Speaker Edvard: Ella, are you serious? That’s it? Complaints that will take weeks, months to process?
Speaker Ella: What else do you want to do, Edvard? Shoot the man?
Speaker Edvard: It’s not a half bad suggestion.
Speaker Ella: That’s the bourbon talking. What comes after?
Speaker Edvard: We celebrate.
Speaker Ella: The whole GOC will come down on us, and we’ll lose member organization status. Worse, the Americans will come down on us, and we might end up in a prison camp. With Nazis.
Speaker Edvard: Maybe then I’d be able to kill the rest of the fuckers.
Speaker Ella: This was a mistake.
Speaker Edvard: The only mistake is letting him walk away free of accountability. We have to do something. I can’t sit by and watch him do that to her again and again.
Speaker Ella: It’s only once a month.
Edvard stares at Ella for several seconds.
Speaker Edvard: You can’t be serious. Once a month it’s ok to let him torture her like that? It’s only once a month right now. He could change the rules anytime he wants; he’s lording his authority over us like some sort of despot!
Ella and Edvard sip from their glasses quietly for several minutes. They do not notice the door to the guestroom crack open. SCP-001 is leaned against the doorframe, listening to the conversation.
Speaker Ella: He has all the power over us. Other than complaints, what can we do but reduce his access?
Speaker Edvard: How?
Speaker Ella: We take her to the sanctuaries in the countryside. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. The building of Eurtec should proceed at sufficient speed so that we can move into early compounds there soon enough.
Speaker Edvard: That won’t solve the current Bowe problem.
Speaker Ella: No, but once Eurtec is built, we will have total control over his access. We can dictate everything on our terms. Besides, there’s no way the GOC will continue to allow these abuses.
Edvard stares into the shot glass for several minutes.
Speaker Edvard: I hope you’re right. By Gungnir, I hope you are.
<End Log>
Nothing could have prepared us for the callousness of that first session. For just how monstrous Bowe would be. How was I supposed to cope with having to sit there and do nothing? Watch as Bowe reduced a goddess to a vomiting, bleeding, weeping mess.
I can’t even stop Edvard from drinking again. I can’t even stop myself from drowning in the bottle. This was not how things were supposed to be.
Worse, this was only the beginning of his tyranny against the Seeress.
Sender: Colonel Steven Bowe
Official Notice:
At 1900 hours on the 15th of January, The Cult of the Nornir and BCE-001 are expected to be present for a Gala in the Oslo University Auditorium. All parties, including BCE-001, are expected to observe a formal dress code. BCE-001 in particular is expected to wear a suit and tie, with men’s dress shoes. His hair should be appropriately cut to a length of no more than two inches.
Against all of us.
Diary Text:
We sent a complaint up the chain after that first communication. He backed down on demanding she appear in specific ways, for a time. But he continues to misgender her regardless of the context.
But it wasn’t just communication.
Notice of Documentation Changes
Access Enabled by The GOC Archives
| Office of Asset and Threat Records | |
|---|---|
| Sender | Colonel Steven Bowe, Pentagram Oversight, Threat Assessment Council. |
| Recipient | Office of Council Records |
| Date | 1947/20/JAN |
| Subject | Change in Documentation for BCE-001 |
Pursuant with Pentagram’s role in oversight of BCE-001 I am submitting the following changes to its documentation.
Change in Designated Accommodations: BCE-001 is to use the Men’s restroom at all times during visits to GOC facilities. It is to be referred to as “sir” or “mister/mr.” or “Seer” by during one on one interactions and when presented before the Council of 108. Medical personnel are instructed to hereby refer to the entity as “he” or “him” and alter gender markers in relevant records.
Changes to Special Instructions: For all official events, a new standard of appearance for BCE-001 will now be enforced. Hair of the entity should be no longer than two inches. For formal affairs it will be dressed in a suit with either choice of bowtie or tie. Closed toe dress shoes are expected. For both formal and non-formal event, dresses and effeminate clothing are forbidden.
Change in Primary Contact for Documentation Records: Please change the primary contact from The Cult of the Nornir to myself.
Please find attached all appropriate forms.
| Office of Asset and Threat Records | |
|---|---|
| Sender | Office of Council Records |
| Recipients | Colonel Steven Bowe, Pentagram Oversight, Threat Assessment Council. Ella Haugen, CEO Cult of the Nornir. |
| Date | 1947/21/JAN |
| Subject | Change in Documentation for BCE-001 |
Colonel Bowe,
We have received your change in documentation request. However, there seems to have been a small oversight in your application. I do not see Consent Form 31A: “Acknowledgement of Primary Record Contact Transfer” in your application. I have looped in Ella Haugen, the current contact, to make sure we receive all proper forms while I make the necessary changes.
| Office of Asset and Threat Records | |
|---|---|
| Sender | Ella Haugen, CEO Cult of the Nornir. |
| Recipients | Office of Council Records. Colonel Steven Bowe, Pentagram Oversight, Threat Assessment Council. |
| Date | 1947/21/JAN |
| Subject | Change in Documentation for BCE-001 |
Hello Francois,
Please revert all changes to BCE-001’s documentation immediately. The Cult of the Nornir did not sign off on any changes to her special instructions, accommodations or a primary contact transfer. While Bowe is tasked with oversight of the entity, she remains an asset and ward of the Cult of the Nornir.
[308 responses and 263 additional attempts to change documentation removed for brevity]
Bowe used intimate knowledge of the GOC bureaucracy and charter to undermine us at every turn. I spent days on end filling out counterclaims and complaint forms to mitigate the damage.
Most we caught right away, but some slipped through the cracks. Those were the ones that hurt the most. We’d bring the Seeress to an event, or meeting. All of the sudden, she’s being addressed incorrectly. Blocked from using the restroom or even entering. It wounds her too; I can see it in her eyes. In the silence in the evening. The soft sobs that she doesn’t want us to hear.
What drives his obsession with her, with us? I don’t understand his hatred, his attempts to inflict misery.
What did we do to him to deserve this? What did the Seeress do to deserve such abysmal treatment?
I can only think of his displeasure during the Beneficial Asset Assessment. Surely, he would have defended his interests much the same, no? Surely that would not be why he was doing all of this?
Whatever the answers to these questions plaguing us, we needed to protect ourselves and the Seeress.
Diary Text:
We began working on the appropriate document submissions for the move to the countryside. We didn’t need to, but it would look better on paper if something were to happen and our hand was to be forced. Or if Bowe decided to try to stop us. In the meantime, when Bowe couldn’t harass the Seeress physically, he would do so by telegram or phone from his headquarters in Oslo. We would just send a runner or telegraph with the Seeress’s latest predictions otherwise. There wasn’t much we could do other than file a complaint with his superiors, and I don’t know what happened with any of those.
We waited for complaints to be processed, and for the initial facilities of Eurtec to be completed. In hindsight, we should have left sooner.
Between Bowe and our own growing distress, the Seeress regressed in her psychological recovery. Knowing that her protectors were holding off the teeth of a wolf just beyond the door. Knowing that even we might eventually break. I can only imagine how many dark thoughts coiled in her mind during that agonizing wait.
Maybe she grew accustomed to the dagger hanging above our heads because she started improving again. Right about the time she started feeling safe; well, as safe in the space in between his visits as one can feel; is when the Colonel decided that the Seeress was not being as helpful as she could be.
I hadn’t yet learned my lesson, that yes, in fact, things could get worse.
Video Log Excerpt: Predictive Session, August 1947
SCP-001, Speaker Ella, Speaker Edvard and Colonel Bowe are seated at the dining table in Ella’s apartment. Guards with weapons are present, and the presented video excerpt begins roughly halfway through a two-hour predictive session. SCP-001 is still mostly lucid, though bleeding from its nose. Bowe rises from his seat, he is frowning and rubbing his thumbs together behind his back. His eyes briefly turn a subtle shade of red, as if irritated, before returning to normal.
Colonel Bowe: Now, BCE-001—
SCP-001 flinches and laces its fingers into its hair. It rocks back and forth in place.
Colonel Bowe: If you’ll recall, about seven months ago I asked you about China and if our side was going to start winning. Now, I never believed that the negotiations with those damn commies were going to go anywhere, but I relayed your prediction to the Marshall Mission anyways. It sure sounded like the nationalists were winning from your point of view, wouldn’t you say?
SCP-001 does not respond.
The Marshall Mission.
Colonel Bowe: Well, in their infinite trust in your wisdom, they decided to continue on their current course for another four months. Four. Months. Do you know what happens when you suspend the supply chain to an ally for four months?
Bowe leans down next to SCP-001’s ear.
Colonel Bowe: Do you, boy?
SCP-001 does not respond. Bowe slowly walks to the other side of SCP-001.
Colonel Bowe: Well, then our diplomats decided to tell the commies some reworded form of your prediction in the subtle way that diplomats do things. You know what they told me? The commies looked pleased. Pleased, BCE-001. Now that doesn’t seem right, does it?
SCP-001 shivers but does not respond. Bowe looms over SCP-001.
Colonel Bowe: And you want to know something? Here we are, three months later in August, and the Nationalists are starting to lose, bad. We went nearly ten months without giving them anything and now that we are again, it’s all going into the hands of corrupt warlords. Truman’s losing faith in the ROC by the hour. We’re going to lose China; can you imagine that? So, I think you can imagine me sitting here wondering if you didn’t tell me the truth?
Progression of the Chinese Civil War.
Bowe puts his hands on the back of SCP-001’s chair. Ella and Edvard watch; sitting tense in their seats. Several seconds pass in silence.
Colonel Bowe: Boy, are you listening to me?
I could not possibly have been more wrong.
SCP-001 does not respond. Bowe’s hand moves. He grabs SCP-001 before Ella or Edvard can move and yanks it out of the chair. He holds its arm up in a painful position. Ella practically leaps out of her chair, standing still as she stares at Bowe.
Colonel Bowe: Son, don’t you sit there and ignore me when I’m talking to you!
Bowe shakes SCP-001 vigorously by the arm. SCP-001 cries out, using its other arm to try to push away and get Bowe to release it. It fails.
Colonel Bowe: Did you lie to me, boy?! I’m growing less amused by this cryptic mystery shit you keep peddling. You are playing with my patience and time by acting like some ancient Greek Oracle in a fable! You’re a goddamn intelligence asset and your games are threatening national security! I advocated for you behind closed doors because I thought you could be a useful little man. Instead, you’re playing games and making me look like an idiot!
SCP-001 cries out again. Ella knocks over her chair, and rushes over. She tries to pry Bowe off of SCP-001.
Speaker Ella: Colonel, you need to release her right now!
There was a spell on the tip of my tongue. The fire spreading heat beneath my skin. Fingers twitched with a curse that would put an end to this. I could already smell the flesh rotting off his bones in slow, agonizing waves.
Then, his man points a damn rifle at my skull.
One of the guards moves, pressing the barrel of their rifle to the back of Ella’s skull. Ella freezes in place. Edvard shifts as if to stand but stops when another gun barrel is placed against the back of his skull. SCP-001 stops struggling. Its sightless eyes are wide.
Ella’s hands shake.
Sergeant Jones: You make one wrong move, your brains all over that wall. Got it?
All the moisture fled my mouth, leaving it filled with cotton balls.
Ella nods her head up and down slowly. She is shaking Bowe turns to Ella, releasing SCP-001. It attempts to flee toward the guest room but is stopped by one of the guards who bars its path. It collides with him and falls to the floor, curling into the fetal position.
Colonel Bowe: I am conducting business on behalf of the Council of 108. Business that is of the highest priority to the security of the organization. The geopolitical stability of our world. Noble causes wouldn’t you agree?
Bowe paces around the table, looking Ella up and down.
Colonel Bowe: You both fought in the war. Surely you understand the need to get rough with a noncooperating entity? Surely you understand interfering is grounds for disciplinary action, Speakers? Interfering could also be considered treason. Now, what happens to him if you commit treason, hmm?
Ella clenches her jaw.
Nationalist troops waiting for the next phase of action.
Speaker Edvard: Manhandling and violently shaking a blind woman is official business? Pressing guns to the back of member organization official’s heads too?
Bowe raises the volume of his voice.
Colonel Bowe: Are you interfering, Speakers!?
Edvard pulls his lips back to reveal teeth. He narrows his eyes.
Speaker Ella: Edvard, don’t.
Edvard growls before slowly sitting back down.
Colonel Bowe: Good man, good you understand your position. Now, I need you to make the boy understand his or we are going to have a lot more problems.
Ella looks at Bowe.
Speaker Ella: You cannot treat her like this. The Seeress is protected through the GOC Beneficial Entity’s Rights Bill, Colonel. Two can play the game of citing regulations.
Colonel Bowe: Those rights only apply as long as the entity is being cooperative. And they are enforced at the discretion of the overseeing bodies. As luck has it, I remain the overseeing body.
Ella stares at Bowe for several seconds.
Speaker Ella: You won’t get anything out of the Seeress through violence.
Colonel Bowe: Perhaps not today, but we’ll see about next time.
Ten minutes pass as Bowe attempts to get SCP-001 to return to predictions. The speakers are held at gunpoint during the entire duration. The entity is non-responsive, remaining curled up on the floor. Bowe puts his pen and notebook away before looking down at SCP-001 again.
PLA troops attacking Jinzhou under heavy para-artillery fire.
Colonel Bowe: A shame that you forced me to become so unpleasant, BCE-001. Hopefully, this will be enough to make sure you understand what cooperation looks like. Hopefully it’s enough to help you avoid such disruptive behavior in the future. Despite my position, I quite hate it when you force me to resort to violence. It’s beneath me.
Bowe and his guards then turn to leave the apartment. Bowe stops in the doorway as Edvard moves to the door.
Colonel Bowe: Oh, and speakers? I am disappointed that there was still a lack of tea and—
Bowe is cut off as the door is slammed in his face by Edvard.
Speaker Edvard: Fucking fascist monster.
SCP-001 is helped off the floor and into the guest bedroom. Ella makes sure the entity is fully in bed before returning to the main area of the apartment. Edvard returns to his chair and remains seated. His arms are crossed and he stares at the door. His face is red. When Ella returns to the room, he gets up and throws the chair. It smacks against the wall leaving another dent.
Speaker Edvard: I’m going to murder that man with my bare fucking hands!
Edvard walks over to the cabinet and pulls out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses.
Speaker Ella: Don’t say such things, not here!
Speaker Edvard: Why not?! He can say whatever the fuck he wants, do what he wants. I’ll kill him and end this.
SCP-001 slips out of bed and moves to the door, pressing its ear against it. Edvard pours them both a glass.
Speaker Ella: How do you think that’s going to end, Edvard?
Speaker Edvard: Better than whatever in Odin’s name we’re doing right now. This all stops with his bloodied corpse on the floor, full of holes. Or with his last struggles as I crush his windpipe.
Speaker Ella: Realistically, you will be on the floor bleeding from a dozen bullet holes. He has guns, guards, and Pentagram at his back.
Speaker Edvard: I saw that curse you wanted to lob. You should have done it. You felt what I do, don’t hide it.
Speaker Ella: That would have been a mistake, and you know it. We must be smart, Edvard! Not rash!
Speaker Edvard: Smart? Smart? Does smart involve continuing to do nothing? Does smart involve standing here helplessly? Does smart involve watching the Seeress be battered around like a doll? Watching her piss herself every time that bastard walks in the room?
Speaker Ella: No, it means we go. We leave. Go where he can’t access her unless it’s on our terms. It means filing a rights complaint. It means using the levers of the GOC. Either force Bowe back into line or have him removed.
Edvard takes several deep breaths.
Speaker Edvard: You said that seven months ago, and yet here we are! It’s getting worse and you’re still putting a lot of faith in the GOC to do the right thing.
Speaker Ella: They’re onto his bullshit now within the bureaucracy. Faith in the system is all we have. Besides, it’s— better than being shot. It’s better than leaving her alone at his mercy!
Edvard curls and uncurls his fist several times. He sets the glasses and bottle on the table before picking up the chair again and retaking his seat. He then grunts.
Speaker Edvard: When do we leave for the sanctuary?
Edvard downs the glass in one swallow before pouring another.
Speaker Ella: First thing tomorrow.
Speaker Edvard: If this doesn’t work, Ella, then what?
He takes another long swallow before reaching for the bottle again. Ella moves it out of his reach.
Speaker Ella: I don’t know.
Edvard’s cheeks become red.
Speaker Edvard: You don’t know!? We can’t keep letting these things happen to her. We have a responsibility, after everything she’s been through, to give her a better existence.
Speaker Ella: I know. One step at a time.
Speaker Edvard throws up his hands and rocks the chair back and forth.
Speaker Edvard: If this doesn’t work, then—
Speaker Ella: Then we’ll figure out another way within the existing systems.
Speaker Edvard: And if all the existing systems fail? Then what?
I didn’t know how to respond to that question. What does one do if everything fails?
What do you do when the system that’s supposed to protect you from abuse starts to enable that abuse? You go higher in the organization and have faith they will protect you.
Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Ella does not respond. She stares at the table for several seconds and rubs her temples. Edvard spends several minutes silently running one hand through his hair. Ella and Edvard then wordlessly pull several folders from a filing cabinet. Ella begins making phone calls, while Edvard begins filling out GOC issued forms.
SCP-001 slowly moves away from the door to the center of the guest room. It stares in the general direction of the mirror on the wardrobe for roughly five minutes while its hands shake.
For the next hour, SCP-001 attempts to engage in physical activity. It attempts to practice coordinated martial movements with its staff and engages with various exercise techniques. It struggles substantially. Eventually SCP-001 collapses on the bed and sobs until it falls asleep.
Ella and Edvard continue to work for the next several hours, while drinking from the bottle of Bourbon. This continues on into the next day before they both collapse from exhaustion.
<End Log>
Diary Text:
We spent hours agonizing over the complaint forms and rights abuse conditions to make sure we documented everything. Photographs of the bruises, eyewitness accounts between us and the other speakers, everything. Then we submitted the forms.
A large part of me wondered if this would work. What we would do if everything failed. How could we fight it? How could we break free of the system without being destroyed?
I didn’t have an answer then. I suppose I still don’t now.
While we were fighting to save our vision of the GOC, the Seeress started regressing, again. But this time it was different.
She was tired all the time and started eating like a starving wolf. She rarely left the apartment alone in those days. Her physical activities were limited. I can’t say what caused or continues to cause her change in hunger and exhaustion. Is it trauma?
I wish I could provide some hope that things will get better. But I’m no longer sure a move to the countryside will even accomplish that.
I thought we had a plan. I thought after the war; after discovering SCP-001, we could make a better world with the GOC. Maybe I was a fool all along.
Once everything was submitted, we began the long wait.
We hoped the complaints would be resolved before we left for the countryside.
A few days became a week. The first response came back from the Rights Oversight Body. The complaint had been received.
We waited another week to hear back, only to receive a letter apologizing that the files had been lost in transit. Thankfully, I had taken the steps to have multiple copies made in the event of something like this. We sent those out. The Ethical conduct board then responded, their copies had been damaged by fire. So, I sent another copy out. This happened with both offices several more times.
The final time, the documents seemed to stick. So, we waited a week.
Then nearly a month.
Nothing happened.
I would stand by the mailroom in the hours when the postman would come. He would look at me and shake his head. Always with a smile. Oh to have been that man, so unbothered by the greater concerns that we were drowning in.
Finally, we got a notice in the mail. Two letters, one from the Rights Oversight Body and one from the Ethical Conduct Board.
Formal Notices of Complaint Decision
Access Enabled by The GOC Archives
| __ Rights Oversight Body __ | |
|---|---|
| Sender | Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body |
| Recipient | Ella Haugen, CEO of the Cult of the Nornir |
| Date | 1947/3/OCT |
| Subject | Status of Rights Complaint |
Dear Speaker Haugen,
After thorough review of your case materials, the Rights Oversight Body has come to the conclusion that the current complaint lacks sufficient evidence to validate the claims which you have made about Colonel Bowe. If you have additional materials pertinent to this complaint, feel free to submit them for further analysis. Otherwise, at this time, if we do not receive a response within three weeks of your receipt of this letter, we shall consider this case resolved.
Access Enabled by The GOC Archives
| __ Ethical Conduct Board __ | |
|---|---|
| Sender | Rebecca Haufsen, Chair of Ethical Conduct Board |
| Recipient | Ella Haugen, CEO of the Cult of the Nornir |
| Date | 1947/3/OCT |
| Subject | Status of Ethical Conduct Board |
Dear Speaker Haugen,
We have reviewed the materials attached to your complaint. We have come to the conclusion that the conflict you are currently experiencing with Colonel Bowe largely seems to be of an interpersonal nature. As such, your complaint falls outside the scope of our jurisdiction and would be better served by either seeking mediation with Colonel Bowe or working alongside him to improve interpersonal relationships and communication.
I sat with those letters for several hours. Staring at the text. In a fit of anger, I spat on the official paper seals. Tossed curses that would make even Loki recoil in horror. Then I lit a fire in the hearth and watched them burn, pretending all the while that they were everyone involved in this debacle.
This is the successor org to the AOI? The organization we relied on for supplies? For compassion? To provide strength to our continued resistance of the Nazis? There was a mass wave of retirements during the formation of the GOC but… surely the institutions I trusted could not have fallen apart this fast? How can they say there is nothing to do against abuse of power by one of their own? Did they even look at the comprehensive evidence we sent them?
This is not the GOC I believed in. As long as the bureaucracy could tie him up, there was still some hope. But it was becoming more and more clear that we would need to find our own path, even as we remained with the Council of 108.
Diary Text:
A few days out from Bowe’s next visit, we packed up and left, leaving behind a note explaining we had departed for the countryside sanctuary. He was furious, but we accounted for that.
We received a phone call in the evening when Bowe’s visit was supposed to be, demanding to know where we had gone.
Can he not read?
There was rage in his voice. I hope that the giddiness in mine.
I told him we had departed to a more comfortable set of arrangements for the Seeress. Then I hung up.
I remember the benefits being immediate once we arrived. No more bustling streets of Oslo. No more Bowe just a few buildings away. Woods, the mountains, the crystal lake, and all our gardens and ancestral halls. Nature’s scent hanging heavy on the wind polluted by mead and mutton.
Bowe was finally at our mercy. Forced to travel for his visits and with limited contact that required going through one of us. At least for the years that followed our move.
He bitched about it constantly. That we’d made his job much more difficult. That his superiors expected him to be accessible for regular contact. This was back before the dedicated train-line and long-distance telephone wires reached the retreat. We drank heavily to the revelation he couldn’t follow us out here.
Of course the long distance abused continued. Phone calls at odd and unreasonable hours, telegrams with cryptic requests or demands we make a trip to Oslo. Half the time we simply pretended there were issues with transmission. It finally felt as if we were in control, as if I could actually protect the Seeress from him. Peace, at least for a time, was palpable.
With peace, she began to improve again. I think it was more than just the quiet. She thrived in the nature, standing next to the lake, wandering the gardens. Like Oslo had been a trap constantly agitating an old wound.
But as I’m sure you have come to appreciate by now, nothing in my story stays calm for long.
On August 29th, the Soviets detonated a Hiroshima style device. We wouldn’t find out until nearly a month later.
Video Log Excerpt: September 23rd, 1949
A house in the Silicon Nornir’s countryside sanctuary.
<Begin Log>
Speaker Ella, Speaker Edvard, and SCP-001 are in a large open room within one of the mead-hall-styled homesteads which compose the central living spaces of the Cult of the Nornir’s sanctuary. Two dozen Nornir cultists are present. Ella, Edvard, and SCP-001 are discussing the contents of a novel near the center of the room.
The doors to the building violently open. Twenty men with weapons enter the building, followed by Colonel Bowe. Bowe is hunched forwards with his hands clasped behind his back. There is a cigarette in his mouth, and it briefly trails maroon smoke. Ella and Edvard make to rise but are stopped by weapons being leveled at them. The other cultists in the room remain seated. Guards begin handcuffing everyone to their chairs. SCP-001 is frozen in its chair, breathing rapidly and shallow. It is forced to stand by a soldier pulling on its hair violently. SCP-001 then drops into a kneel when the soldier kicks the backc of its knee’s after kicking away the chair.
Traditional Norse Style Home in the Silicon Nornir’s countryside sanctuary.
Bowe points at Ella and Edvard.
Colonel Bowe: Speakers, you will stay where you fucking are or I will have you shot.
Speaker Ella: Bowe? What is the meaning of this!?
Ella and Edvard are promptly handcuffed to the chairs.
Colonel Bowe: Six hours ago, I received confirmation that the Soviets detonated their first atomic device. And that happened almost a month ago.
First Soviet Nuclear Bomb Design.
Ella and Edvard stare at Bowe, then look at each other. Then SCP-001. Then back to Bowe.
Speaker Edvard: What in Hel’s icy depths does that have to do with us?
Colonel Bowe: It means you are subject number fucking one for treason, against the GOC and the United States of America, in the disclosure of nuclear secrets to the Soviets.
Speaker Ella: That’s absurd!
Colonel Bowe: Is it? We live in a world of absurdity! What better way to spy on your mortal enemy’s deepest secrets than with a false divinity that can see the past, present and future? We have lost China to the communists and now the Soviets have the bomb! Maybe I was wrong 3 years ago. Maybe she wasn’t a product of German engineering. Maybe she was a Soviet spy all along.
Site of Soviet nuclear weapons tests, Kazakhstan
SCP-001 is in tears, likely due to the pain of its hair being continuously pulled.
SCP-001: I am-m-m n-n-not a warmongering spy.
Colonel Bowe: For once the boy speaks for itself. Then who the fuck are you?! Where did you come from?! Who are you working for?!
SCP-001: You would not believe the details in the fractured looking glass. You would not understand the depths of origin. I work for no one but the tides of Fate!
Colonel Bowe: Then I have to assume the worst of you, boy! Prove you’re not a spy, son. Prove to all of us that you’re worth more than the mud I should throw you into!
SCP-001: Man of CHARLES found in REST beneath an auspice of Fuchs from a man bereft of the jolly Klaus. Burdened by message of Auric reticence and bound to reveal Glass of Green and a Rose who will sear beneath the current of electric penitence. In these words, you will find the spies who bore fruit. In these words, I doom others for a greater good in name of your vapid ego. Take these sins to VENONA and you shall know the truth.
Director’s Note: SCP-001 here was likely referring to Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Julius Rosenburg, Theodore Hall, and other theoretical physicists frequently referred to as the Soviet Atomic Spies. These individuals provided critical information to the Soviet NKGB and NKVD which in turn accelerated the development of the Soviet Atomic Bomb program.
SCP-001’s testament aligned with the approximate parallel decryptions of Soviet communications by the VENONA Project, which were interpreted by GCHQ and used for interrogation of Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs did not confess until January of 1950, when he revealed his courier, who then exposed a greater network of theoretical physicists involved in the Los Alamos project and included the Rosenburgs.
Bowe writes SCP-001’s words on a piece of paper and hands it to one of the guards.
Colonel Bowe: Send an encrypted telegraph to British Intelligence services. ASAP.
The soldier leaves the building and heads for the local post office, which has a telegraph wire.
The mundane and occultic codebreakers of Project VENONA were mostly women.
Colonel Bowe: Now, we are going to wait here until confirmation comes that you’re not pulling the wool over my eyes. No one moves until then.
[The next hour of footage has been removed for brevity.]
One hour after a message was sent, the soldier returns with a decrypted response. He hands the piece of paper to Bowe. Bowe stares at it for several minutes before reading it aloud.
Mundane and occultic codebreakers of Project VENONA were mostly women.
Colonel Bowe: To the attention of Colonel Bowe, Pentagram, stop. For your eyes only, stop. Klaus Fuchs suspected to be Soviet code name CHARLES at REST, stop. MI5 is currently investigating, stop. Classified information, stop. Please advise at earliest convenience of potential information breach, stop. Please advise on relevance of rest of message, stop. Again, how did Pentagram acquire this information, stop?
Several minutes of silence as Bowe reads over the telegram again. Eventually he sticks it into his shirt pocket and straightens his posture.
Colonel Bowe: It seems, I was a little hasty in my assumptions.
Speaker Edvard: ‘Hasty?’ You fucking stormed our home with a whole platoon, and damaged hand carved doors that took carpenters years to properly make!
Colonel Bowe: How would you respond to the leak of nuclear secrets?
Speaker Ella: Perhaps consulting with other intelligence agencies first would have been a good move?
Colonel Bowe: Advice I will certainly keep in mind for the future. Despite this rather convenient piece of intelligence exonerating the boy, I remain suspicious.
Speaker Edvard: You cannot be serious!? She likely just handed you an entire Soviet spy ring on a platter!
Colonel Bowe: Which makes it all the more imperative that I am in increased regular contact with him. Imperative to ensure one of you is not leaking prophetic information to enemies of the GOC, of course.
Ella and Edvard stare at Bowe for thirty seconds. Before they can say anything, he speaks again.
Colonel Bowe: So, to better account for these new circumstances, I am altering the arrangement. I will now see BCE-001 twice a month. Bi-monthly. Maybe more or less as needed.
Speaker Edvard: By Midgardsommars tail you will, I’ll—
The rage in his eyes burned so hot I was afraid it would melt Bowe’s flesh. What he would say next might doom us in some unexpected way, so I had to act.
As they are uncuffed from the chairs, Ella covers Edvard’s mouth with a hand. SCP-001 is released and collapses onto its hands, pressing one hand to the back of its skull.
Speaker Ella: You cannot simply change things on a whim! This is outrageous.
Colonel Bowe: I make the rules, Speaker Ella. I can change them as oversight requires.
Bowe turns and leaves with his men. Nornir cultists continue to protest vigorously. Once Bowe is gone the cultists look between each other, SCP-001, and Ella and Edvard.
Speaker Ella: Everyone, please return to your homes for the rest of the day. We will handle things from here.
The rest of the cultists hesitate but eventually slowly begin filing out of the hall. This leaves Edvard, Ella, and SCP-001 alone. Ella helps the entity up as Edvard stares at the table with his jaw clenched.
Speaker Edvard: So, here we are, Ella.
Speaker Ella: Edvard…
Speaker Edvard: Don’t. Just, don’t, Ella.
Speaker Ella: It’s my job to protect us politically.
Speaker Edvard: And it’s my job to protect us physically. Yet, here we are.
SCP-001: I am sorry. For bringing this all down atop you. For dragging you back into the depths of a habit which you had long forsworn.
Speaker Edvard: Seeress, under absolutely no circumstances do you need to apologize. I am sorry we have failed you, repeatedly.
SCP-001 stares at the table.
Speaker Edvard: We tried and we tried but the whole system is failing us. The GOC isn’t what we thought it would be.
SCP-001: It is because I am weak. It is because they see my weakness. It is because they took so much from me. Heavy weigh the trace of serpents against my skin. It is the curse of this gift that wraps around my neck and the necks of all who grow in my shadow. It chokes them, smothers them.
Speaker Edvard: No. It’s not you. It’s the weakness of men, their greed and hatred of anything that’s different from them. We have to find another way.
Thirty seconds of silence. SCP-001 rocks slowly in place, reaching for its staff.
Speaker Ella: What do you want to do? What do you want me to do?
Speaker Edvard: You… should do nothing different from what you have been. We should give Bowe nothing to confirm his suspicions.
Speaker Ella: What are you going to do? Are you going to—
Speaker Edvard: No, I’m not going to leave.
Speaker Ella: Then, what?
Speaker Edvard: I will figure out something. I just need you to trust that I won’t put everyone at risk.
<End Log>
Bowe started taking a plane out from Oslo twice a month with his band of trolls. Anytime one of the Seeress’s predictions seemed even a bit suspicious over telegram, the phone would ring and we would get bombarded with accusations and questions.
We lost two speakers to suspicions of Soviet sympathies in the first few weeks alone!
Diary Text:
Between the Seeress, Bowe, and my constant vigilance against the GOC’s bureaucracy, I find myself indulging far more than I should. There have been many mornings in recent memory where I have woken up with no memory of the night before and a horrendous hangover.
Those are the mornings where I find myself being taken care of by the Seeress of all people. She holds my hair while I dry heave over the toilet. Is surprisingly adept at making tea and herbal concoctions to soothe my stomach and acheing skull. But the way she furrows her brow, the pursing of her lips. Are we worrying her?
The questions that sit with me in the days and weeks following that visit are many. But perhaps the most present was, where would Edvard turn to? What was he going to do? How was he going to do it?
I cannot help but grow increasingly uneasy as Edvard leans heavier on the mead. It’s not as if I can blame him. But I’m afraid he’ll do something while drunk, and we’ll all have to pay the price. His temper is certainly worsening when we even see him.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell why he’s becoming reclusive and increasingly secretive. Is it because he’s hiding just how far he’s fallen off? Or is it because he’s following up on his promise?
Video Log Excerpts of Speaker Edvard
Log Excerpt 1028 | September 25th, 1949
1500-1505: Recording begins in one of the Nornir greenhouses on sanctuary grounds. Speaker Edvard enters into frame. He stands in the door, half in the greenhouse and half outside. He looks back and forth several times. He walks further into the greenhouse and continues to stop and turn in place. He examines the interior of the space several more times. Eventually, he walks towards a brick wall on the far side of the enclosure. The footage becomes obscured by static for several seconds. When it returns to normal, Edvard is no longer visible.
1600-1605: Camera footage becomes obscured by static again. When the static fades, Edvard is again visible. He is holding what appears to be a hand mirror. He then leaves the greenhouse.
Log Excerpt 1030 | September 27th, 1949
Ella is walking on the premises of the property in one of the open-air verandas near a walled garden. There is only one way in or out. She was within the walls of the garden near the entrance for the better part of an hour. She is now walking towards a corner, which leads to another vestibule of the gardens. Abruptly, Edvard rounds the corner, walking fast. Ella yelps as they almost collide.
I remember first running into him in the gardens that September. His breath reeked of alcohol, smoke, and something indescribably thaumic. His eyes were dilated and bloodshot. Was he doing drugs now too?
Speaker Ella: By Mjölnir, Edvard, where did you come from?
Speaker Edvard: I’ve been out all day. Came in here to think amongst the flowers. It’s a wonder you didn’t hear me.
Speaker Ella: It certainly is!
Edvard walks past Ella and does not stop for conversation. One hand is obscured within his cloak.
Speaker Ella: Edvard, where are you going in such a hurry!?
Speaker Edvard: I just remembered that there is something I need to ask the Seeress before she is put to bed.
Speaker Ella: Well why don’t I—
Ella turns. Edvard has already left the garden.
Speaker Ella: Someone is in a hurry. Never mind I suppose.
Log Excerpt 1050 | October 15th, 1949
Edvard is in his private home on the Nornir Cult’s sanctuary grounds. SCP-001 is seated nearby, drinking from a cup of chocolate milk. Edvard is looking into a mirror placed on a dresser near the door. There are dark shadows under his eyes. Someone knocks at the door twice and he hastily throws a sheet over the top of the mirror before sliding several pieces of parchment into an envelope. The door opens and Ella appears in the doorway. She walks towards him.
Speaker Ella: Ah! You’re both here! I thought you might have taken a garden walk and checked there first.
Speaker Edvard: I was just about to come find you to take over with Name Unspoken.
Ella gestures towards the envelope.
Speaker Ella: What’s that?
Speaker Edvard: Just post for the stock exchange predictions.
Speaker Ella: Do you want me to take it to the post-office? It’s closer to my quarters and might save you the trip.
Speaker Edvard: No that’s alright, I need the walk to clear my head.
Speaker Edvard, SCP-001 and Speaker Ella depart the residence into the dim light of the evening. Edvard walks in the opposite direction of Ella and SCP-001. Ella stops and watches him for several seconds before calling out.
Speaker Ella: Edvard, the post office is this way.
Speaker Edvard: I know, I’m going to go for a little stroll in the wooded thicket. The long way around. Don’t wait up for me.
Speaker Edvard disappears from view into the trees. Speaker Ella stands still for several seconds. SCP-001 waits for Speaker Ella, holding the woman’s hand.
Speaker Ella: He’s acting off recently. Did you discuss anything Seeress?
SCP-001: Inquiries into the stars and mirrors. Questions about the idle hand and strings of fate. Your worries, while justified through his increasing anger, will not be realized in the turns to come.
<End Log>
Diary Text:
The obvious truth is, the Seeress likely knows exactly what he is doing. I’ve made multiple attempts to sit down and ask her. They end the same way each time. She certainly loves her word puzzles and cryptic vagaries. Which makes the lack of solid answers frustrating.
But her evasiveness is a sign of good things. She’s healing and regaining confidence with every passing day. There are still the occasional night terrors, that low tone in the deep night, but I’m no longer running on fumes for days on end. Hopefully soon, she will no longer need our constant monitoring.
As the end of 1949 approached, and we prepared to exit the tumultuous years of the 40s, our conditions, overall, seemed to stabilize. We settled into a rhythm those last few months. For the first time since 1946, I felt like we were finally able to breathe. Progress with Eurtec’s construction was good. Daytrips to pick the exact site of the NFMA and oversee the laying of its foundations became more frequent.
It wouldn’t be long before we moved into the nearby residential compounds.
Perhaps I was growing confident that the worst of our trials were over. We had scraped rock bottom, and there was only room to go up.
Still, I could not help but worry that Edvard might leave or do something rash that would agitate the delicate balance we now found ourselves in. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, between drinking and resorting to what I can only assume were thaumic drugs. To this day, I still don’t know where he went when we were searching for him. Maybe he was using Ways. But the question then was, where was he going?
Every time I was left wondering, would he come back this time?
Access provided by the Silicon Nornir archives.
It was in December of 1949 that the seeds of our future began to bloom in earnest. The first residential compounds, which would become part of the NFMA, finished construction in roughly late November. They were ready for occupation by the middle of December.
It was colder than Hel itself when we started the move out of the sanctuary. By then, there were close to seventy-five of us, nearly double what we had just a few months ago. We had to shovel the snow for the trucks and make a clean access avenue for the large Way that would take us directly into Eurtec. My hands were numb by the time we had everything loaded and ready to move.
Before we all piled in we took a moment to look out over the sanctuary that had been our home for centuries. The mountains in the distance, the quiet gardens and forests, and the crystal lake shimmering. We were going to miss it.
Name Unspoken shuddered as we crossed that boundary, looking up towards the sky. She held her arm up, wrapped her fingers around something intangible and pulled. I looked up to see a starry false sky embedded onto the ceiling of an impossibly tall cavern. For a moment it almost seemed as if the stars themselves were connected together by lines of light. There were these large, dark shadows curling across them. Three silhouettes, I think. She mumbled something, but I didn’t quite catch it.
The Underworld was warm and muggy compared to the frigid Norwegian Winter. A sharp contrast to my three trips to Helheim in 39. There was a thick humidity clawing at my skin. The cavern was filled with a green haze, clouds of grey and green drifting across the false starry sky. Distinct smells swirled together. Sulfur, chlorine, flowers, decaying leaves, concrete and asphalt. The languid purple waters of the river lethe cut a channel through the mainland and curled across the various islands in its delta, across which Eurtec was being constructed. In the far distance, I could see that great golden cypress tree under which the lake of Mnemosyne gave birth to the waters of the river from some deep well in the earth.
Trucks carried us along one of several paved roads that crisscrossed between the skeletal frames of futuristic art-deco skyscrapers.
It took maybe twenty minutes to reach the residential compound; I hadn’t quite realized just how big Eurtec was going to be when finished. In the process we passed an ugly brutalist style building in the shape of a pentagram. The familiar banners streaming from its walls sent an unsettled shiver up my spine. As we reached the residential compound and began to unload, I had to face the reality we were moving into. Our ordeal was far from over.
Bowe had been promoted and he was already here in Eurtec.
Footage Excerpt from Predictive Session, September 30th, 1950
<Begin Log>
When war broke out in the Koreas, Bowe became a constant presence in the compound.
The deteriorating conditions of the Pusan front pushed him to the absolute limit. The pressure he was under to produce useful intelligence? It must have been immense.
I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
General Bowe and SCP-001 are seated at a table in a conference room, within a Eurtec office space. Bowe is wearing an unusually bright, crimson tie.
Bombing of Wonsan during the Korean War.
General S. Bowe: Now listen to me very carefully for this next question. What will happen if UN command crosses the 38th parallel and invades North Korea?
When they started to push the North Koreans back out of the south, there was a palpable shift. That same desperation which brought him to our doorstep day after day for the last few months?
SCP-001’s hand clenches around the staff it is holding. Its nose begins to bleed.
General S. Bowe: Well, come on! I don’t have all day.
The PLA assaulting a ROK and US position with para-weapons.
SCP-001 shudders, taking a deep breath. It remains in place, taking stuttered breaths. It does not attempt to flee as it has in the past.
SCP-001: …
It evolved.
General S. Bowe: Do I need to get handsy with you again, boy?
SCP-001 tenses. General Bowe gestures to a guard who starts to slowly walk around the table. SCP-001’s hands shake but it does not pull at its hair or rock in place. Edvard is watching Bowe and SCP-001. He has a small black notebook open in front of him and is taking attentive notes. His jaw clenches as the guard stands over SCP-001. Ella is tense where she is seated but she does not move. Her eyes move between Bowe, the guard, and SCP-001.
SCP-001: …
General Bowe gestures. The soldier grabs SCP-001 by the arm. He pins it before yanking on its hair. SCP-001 lets out a cry of pain and struggles briefly against the hold. After several seconds of failing to break free, it speaks.
SCP-001: A great wave of men shall flow across a chilled river and smash upon an ill-prepared line. The sky shall fill with birds of metal. Fre and blood will run deep in the mud. In the hills. Much as it did in the ides of my youth upon a forgotten plain. A great victory! Driving towards an end to the storm of death spawned by a sea of red.
US soldiers preparing to push towards the Yalu river.
Bowe gestures again. The soldier releases SCP-001. It breathes heavily while shaking but does not attempt to flee.
General S. Bowe: Now that’s what I call good work, boy. More of that, or else we’ll have to keep being handsy.
<End Log>
Memo to General MacArthur, October 3rd, 1950: Operational success in North Korean Invasion assured by prescient asset. Chinese threat is a bluff. Proceed with offensive at your imperative.
-Pentagram Command
With every session the leap to violent handling of the Seeress has quickened. Every day I was afraid a line would be crossed that cannot be walked back.
Diary Text:
Edvards anger deepens with every session, the red in his cheeks darkening to a purple only beets can match. But he doesn’t act. He sits there and takes detailed notes in his little black book. He watches and he waits. I wonder what he is writing?
Perhaps he is doodling his violent waking dreams of unspeakable acts against Bowe and his retinue. Whatever is in there, he doesn’t let that book out of his sight. He doesn’t want me to see it either. Every time in recent memory I have walked in, and seen it on the table, he shuts it. Then he tucks it away in a bag, a pocket, or an extra dimensional space.
His drinking has not diminished. Worse, he no longer does it where I can see it. In the evening he dons his coat and walks out. Into the mists of Eurtec’s sprawling construction to Mimir knows where. I’ve stopped asking where he’s going, because it’s always the same response. “Out.”
When he returns, he reeks of alcohol. Sometimes he comes back high on new occultic drugs, trailing the aftereffects of their thaumic discharge like a spell gone awry.
I should have staged an intervention. I should have done more to hold him accountable. But how could I? Between Edvard, Bowe, Eurtec’s ongoing construction, and Bowe’s endless waves of bureaucratic bastardry, I was drowning. Both in my own imbibes, and in fighting to keep myself glued together.
By that point I had given up on Rights Oversight Body complaints as anything more than a stopping measures to create a paper trail. The answer I received from every submission, no matter how heinous the abuse from Bowe, was always the same. There’s only one reason I can think of for why Bowe was able to continue this madness for so long. He must have gained more pull with the GOC.
Private Memo Exchanges, GOC Archives
Foreword: The following is a private memo exchange extracted from the GOC’s early computerized terminal system running on software; which would eventually become the basis for DOS. The exchange occurs between two parties. General Steven Bowe of the Threat Assessment Committee and Eurtec Oversight Command and Councilor Roger Stucchi of the Rights Oversight Body. The memos presented are largely regarding ethical and rights abuse complaints received from the Cult of the Nornir.
October 5th, 1950
To: General Steven Bowe, Operational Command Eurtec Initiative.
From: Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body
Steve,
We’ve received another infraction complaint from the Cult of the Nornir about your treatment of BCE-001.
As your friend, you’re pushing the envelope pretty far. What’s the goal here?
Help me understand why you’re being so publicly visible? Why do you need an iron fist towards the Cult of the Nornir and BCE-001? I want to continue making these complaints go away, but at the rate you’re generating them, it’s going to get noticed. Someone will eventually make a stink in internal reviews.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get exposed and take us all down with you.
-Roger
To: Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body
From: General Steven Bowe, Operational Command Eurtec Initiative
Good Evening, Roger,
It’s simple. Self-righteous, religious zealots cause problems. Polytheistic religious zealots especially. Their beliefs empower them and whatever pseudo divinity they believe in with substantial thaumic capacity.
The way to deal with zealous cults is to disabuse them of the notion that their divine focus is anything but a sniveling imposter. Simply look at that abomination, it’s a man pretending to be a woman. It clearly isn’t even of Norse origin. But the cult has deluded themselves into believing as such and are empowering this imposter.
I’ll admit, he has his uses. His information certainly seems to be a boon to us and them. But vigilance and constant degrading of its status is the only way to keep them in check.
If I can just get him to tell us who he really is and where he came from, we can tear their whole system down. Then we can use him at will.
-Steve
To: General Steven Bowe, Operational Command Eurtec Initiative.
From: Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body
Steve,
Those are all fair points. But some of the things in these complaints seem excessively public, even for an abomination.
It feels very personally targeted. Like you’re going above and beyond what you need to do in terms of humiliating and embarrassing both the Cult and BCE-001. Your son has also indicated to me that you’ve been behaving out of the norm the last few years.
Is this personal?
-Roger
To: Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body
From: General Steven Bowe, Operational Command Eurtec Initiative
Roger,
Of course it’s personal. That abomination of a man, parades itself around pretending to be a woman. It does this every day, mocking every noble woman we have the honor of working with. He’s a freak. To make matters worse, it made a point of embarrassing me in front of the Threat Assessment Committee. My Threat Assessment Committee, Roger.
Everything I’m doing is to protect our interests, keep the Cult of the Nornir in check, and put this boy back in his place. Ideally, the Cult of the Nornir dissolves once we tear off the drapes, and then none of this will be an issue any longer.
-Steve
To: General Steven Bowe, Operational Command Eurtec Initiative.
From: Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body
Steve,
Right, well, if you’re going to continue on this path, please tone it down at least a little. You’re putting a lot at risk. If the Nornir go public, it could cause some serious problems.
Now, Amelia and Acheliomel seem to be flaking and don’t seem willing to play ball. Do you have any recommendations for how to bring them around?
Above, you said BCE-001 isn’t Norse. If he’s not a Norn, who is he?
-Roger
To: Councilor Roger Stucchi, Rights Oversight Body
From: General Steven Bowe, Operational Command Eurtec Initiative
Roger,
They won’t. Their CEO doesn’t have the stomach to buck the GOC. Just look at the complaint forms and how hopeful and ideologically deluded she is in her belief that the GOC’s mission statement serves her greater good.
As for the councilors, I would recommend trying several nice dinners at any of the places on the attached restaurant list. If that doesn’t work, I’ve attached blue cheese. You were right that the photographer was well worth the investment. If all of that doesn’t work, remind them of their new properties in Southern Japan and how difficult it was to convince MacArthur to approve those permits.
As far as the abomination is concerned, it doesn’t matter who he really. What matters is using him to tear down the Nornir organization. He’s not a person; he’s a tool.
-Bowe
Back then, my best guess was that it was a consequence of the Americans funding most of the GOC strike teams. Just about everything else too. Bowe’s responsibilities involved lobbying the US government for GOC funding. So, I supposed any complaints ended up dead in the water. It wouldn’t be until years later that I’d learn the truth.
Diary Text:
I don’t know how to legitimately combat Bowe or any of his cronies anymore. I’m not sure I can. At first, I thought we had completely won on the bureaucratic front. Now every official new document, pertaining to the Seeress, we get from any GOC office, that has even a slight interface with the Threat Assessment committee, will refer to her as a man.
I screwed up in June. Missed one of the changes, and it came around to haunt us at a local galla. The Seeress was constantly referred to as a man, he, him. Each individual instance a punch to the gut. I lost track of her in the melee of people at one point. Found her crying her eyes out in the bathroom.
It’s spread beyond Bowe now like the blood-tinged cigarette smoke he sometimes produces. With each passing week, more documentation needs to be corrected. I feel like I’m fighting an endless wave of hostile bureaucracy and I’m drowning. Every slipup, every missed bureaucratic maneuver cuts her again. Fuck the Americans. Fuck Bowe.
It feels hopeless.
Despite feeling as if I was flailing in the dark, everything was slowly changing. The very person who had once been a burden was shedding the shackles which once made her so. She was becoming our beacon in the dark.
Foreword: The following log excerpts concern the movement of SCP-001 within the Cult of the Nornir’s Eurtec residential compound.
Log 1458 | February 27th, 1950
2000-0500: SCP-001 is in the guest bedroom of Speaker Ella’s residence within the Cult of the Nornir compound. It is asleep in the bed. It occasionally rolls over but is otherwise still. At roughly 0000 hours, Ella opens the door, slips inside and stands in the doorframe. She watches the entity for several minutes. Eventually, Ella exits the room and shuts the door again. She stands with her back against the wood for several minutes. During this period, she cries. When she leaves the vicinity of the doorway she is smiling.
Log 1521 | March 15th, 1950
1000-1005: Ella, SCP-001, and Edvard are in Edvard’s residence inside the Cult of the Nornir’s transition compound, within Eurtec. A digital phone is mounted on the wall behind them. SCP-001 is moving its fingers over several braille documents. It is speaking with Edvard and Ella about the contents while holding its staff.
1006-1010: The phone begins to ring. SCP-001 pauses in its movements but does not shake or show signs of distress. Edvard gets up to answer the phone. Both he and Ella glance at SCP-001 before its movements resume. It continues speaking to Ella as Edvard takes the call.
1011: Edvard hangs up the phone. He turns back to Ella and SCP-001.
Speaker Edvard: Destiny’s Fingers, do you need anything?
SCP-001: Why would I need anything, Edvard? It’s just a phone.
She had been clawing back independence for some time already. Now, there were traces of tension beginning to appear between us. A flame in her eyes, one I’d seen in my daughter’s half a decade ago.
Then she said the words I had been waiting for, hoping for, and dreading all the same.
“I’d like to have my own apartment.”
I had been anticipating the arrival of that day for four years. But it came upon us far faster than expected. That seems to be the way life goes. So, we gave it to her.
Video Log Excerpts: Eurtec Nornir Residences
Log 1540 | May 3rd, 1950
<Begin Log>
0600-0800: Ella, Edvard, and SCP-001 are within Ella’s residence. They are packing two bags containing SCP-001’s clothes and personal belongings.
0801-1000: Ella, Edvard, and SCP-001 leave the residence. They walk a few doors down to an empty residence. They spend the next two hours helping SCP-001 explore the apartment before helping unpack its things. When everything is unpacked, Ella and Edvard depart.
1001-2000: SCP-001 spends the rest of the day moving between bedroom, kitchen, and the sitting room.
2001-2015: SCP-001 leaves the residence under its own power. It approaches Ella’s door. It knocks and Ella answers. It wishes Ella, then Edvard, a good evening, before returning to its own residence. Once inside, it begins exercise and martial training with the staff. This pattern continues for all future recordings.
2015-2020: Ella closes the door of her apartment. She turns and stand there for the next five minutes.
Diary Text:
—Just sort of blankly staring at the furniture. For the first time in four years, it was just me. I was intensely aware of the lack of her staff tapping on the floor. No more quiet hums while reading, knitting, drawing, or listening to the radio-plays. The peculiar intensity of her smell, that simultaneous mix of floral and autumnal decay, was already fading. It wouldn’t be long before I couldn’t smell it anymore.
Solitude, pressing down on me.
2020-2200: Ella moves to the guest bedroom of the apartment after several minutes. She turns on the light. Standing in the doorframe, she stares at the made bed for some time before moving to the guest bathroom. She remains in the bathroom for approximately fifteen minutes. When she reemerges, her shoulders are slumped. She spends the next ten minutes tracing her fingers across the dressers and end table, where SCP-001’s personal items previously sat. Eventually, she sits on the bed. She remains there, staring at the wall.
I just sat there in her empty room. It was cold, filled with the sudden absence of her departure. A goddess-shaped hole left behind. I can’t really say where my mind drifted while sitting on that bed. Maybe I fell asleep while sitting up. One moment I was staring at the dresser and its mirror, in the next the room was starting to tilt. The walls were melting, the windows bending unnaturally inwards.
Perhaps some residual element of her power had accumulated there. In the mattress she had slept in for the past four years. It felt like I was floating, seeing the strings of our lives twirling together then unfurling in every direction. Again and again. I was rising, flying upwards, through infinitely many rings. They were made of thick twine, no, not twine at all. Flesh. Spectral flesh, maybe souls? There were whispers all around me, flickering images I couldn’t quite grasp.
Great works of art piecemealing themselves together in my periphery. Symphonies, ballads, and harmonic epics rippling against my ears. The sky was being sculpted into an infinitesimal blanket of fragmenting images which I can’t even begin to wrap my head around.
“Ella.” Echoed through my entire being.
Shapes in the distance, four titanic orbs of blistering golden light.
Then, I was back in that room, the bed quaking as if I had actually fallen back on it. That’s when I heard the door open.
22:00-22:10: There is a continuous distortion of footage in the guest room for approximately ten minutes. It ends at exactly 2210.
2210-2310: Edvard enters Ella’s apartment after knocking several times. He calls out to her, and she responds from where she is seated in the guest room. Edvard enters the room and finds Ella sitting on the bed. Ella appears disoriented for several seconds.
Speaker Edvard: Ella, what are you doing in here?
Speaker Ella: Habit, I guess.
Speaker Edvard: Are you alright?
Speaker Ella: Yes, I’m fine. Just—I’m fine.
Speaker Edvard: You look like someone’s kicked your puppy.
Speaker Ella: I don’t know, Edvard. I guess I got used to her being here.
Speaker Edvard: Ella, it’s not even been a day.
Speaker Ella: I know.
Speaker Edvard: She’s also just down the hall. You can go see her anytime.
Speaker Ella: I know. But she deserves space, needs time to find her feet alone. I don’t want to seem like I don’t believe in her.
Speaker Edvard: I doubt she’d see it like that.
Speaker Ella: But I would.
Speaker Edvard: Fair enough, I suppose.
Speaker Ella: I guess it just feels emptier now. Like when my daughter left home or my husband…
Speaker Edvard puts an arm around Ella’s shoulder.
Speaker Edvard: It was his sacrifice that led us to the Seeress. You’re not alone Ella; I need you to know that.
Speaker Ella: I know.
<End Log>
Once she had that taste of freedom against her lips, she bit down and refused to let go. Perhaps letting her spread her wings without a set schedule or routine wasn’t the best idea.
Video Log Excerpts: Eurtec
Log 1591 | July 4th, 1950
0800-1000: SCP-001 leaves its residence and wanders the halls of the Nornir compound. This behavior continues until it comes upon a garden containing local flora. The flora of the Greek Underworld is alien, emitting bioluminescence and swaying without a breeze. Some change shapes at random intervals. Some exhibit a wide range of unnatural pigments. Some bloom oddly shaped flowers when there are no pollinators present. SCP-001 sits on a bench for several minutes; staring in the general direction of the flora.
1001-1400: SCP-001 leaves the garden and continues wandering the compound. Eventually, it manages to leave the Nornir residential compound altogether. It wanders the streets of Eurtec, much of which is in various stages of construction. The staff serves to guide it through the streets and around obstacles. It takes a winding route through several miles of city streets over the course of the next 6 hours.
1401-1800: Speaker Edvard knocks on the door to SCP-001’s residence. He is holding several folders. When no response comes, he opens the door and enters the apartment. He spends several minutes looking around with an increasingly furrowed brow. He calls out for SCP-001 several times before searching the entire apartment and finding it absent. He then goes to Speaker Ella. They share a brief but heated exchange. Edvard and Ella then begin canvassing the Nornir residential compound, looking for SCP-001. When they cannot find it, they go door to door alerting the rest of the Cult. The Cult then notifies local security, but not Pentagram or GOC security forces. Together the Cult and local Eurtec security begin canvassing the city, street-by-street, to find SCP-001.
1801-1900: After four hours of searching, SCP-001 is located in front of a Gyro shop on the far side of Eurtec. It is eating from a souvlaki and speaking with several humans and anomalous humanoid individuals with animalistic features. When Ella and Edvard arrive on the scene, they engage SCP-001 in discussion.
Speaker Edvard: Oh thank Freya! High Seeress, you had us worried sick!
SCP-001: Why?
Speaker Ella: Because you vanished without a trace, without notifying us.
SCP-001: So, I did. There is no need to worry, I knew exactly where I was at all times, knew where I was going. Where I needed to be. Where I would be when you found me again. I could see exactly where I was going at every step.
Speaker Edvard: You can’t just wander off like – wait, you can?
SCP-001: Of course, in the reflection of your mirrors.
Edvard purses his lips.
Speaker Edvard: Seeress, this is serious. What if something happened?
SCP-001: I would have seen it. Avoided it. I am not a child Edvard, and I have always had a penchant for wanderlust.
Ella and Edvard stare at SCP-001 for several minutes.
Speaker Ella: Will you at least tell us next time?
SCP-001: I will consider it.
Speaker Edvard: Please do. If Bowe were to find out you regularly wander without anyone knowing where you are, he might remove you from us.
SCP-001: Mmmm. Fine. Send a guard with me if you must.
Speaker Ella: I worry about their ability to keep up.
SCP-001: As you should.
<End Log>
From that point forward she’d leave the compound on extended excursions in the daylight hours.
Diary Text:
I was, at first, worried that this would be a burden upon our security personnel. You can imagine my surprise when escorting the Seeress became, paradoxically, the most coveted and yet dreaded assignment for our officers. When she’s with Edvard and I, she’s quite slow and methodical. When she’s with security, she’s apparently far quicker and less patient. It’s to the point that I’ve had several rookie officers complain they can’t properly clear areas. She will often already be half a block away before they realize, leaving them scrambling to catch back up.
Some part of me suspects it’s a game to her. How fast can she lose her escort and cause mischief.
On the other hand, Edvard’s had to settle several disputes among the veterans. Apparently, there’s quite a bit of contention over the five or so slots assigned to escort her around Eurtec. The challenge of a rather willful charge and the opportunity for a change of scenery apparently attracts them. Might be worth reviewing rotations.
The denizens of Eurtec have noticed her presence as well. I’ve heard some murmurs attributing to her the title of “Spirit of Eurtec”, “The Blind Wanderer”, “The Young Prophet”,3 or “Lady of the Strings”. The last one seems to be the favorite epithet of the citizenry. As construction in the city has continued, she’s begun to migrate towards parks, busy streets, corners, and local business avenues. Places where foot traffic is high. She’ll find a bench, ledge or set of stairs, plant herself and start knitting.4
With every passing day it felt as if we were seeing more of who she really was emerge. A quiet but radiant woman. Subtlety confident. Her shoulders are weighted with a depth of purpose I can’t pretend to understand. A resilient seriousness backlit by a constant infliction of mischief, self-deprecating jokes, and chaos on others. I never quite know what she’s going to do next. I think it was most important as a welcome distraction from what our relationship with the GOC had become, and she knew it.
Having known and lived with her now for a little more than four years, I have grown used to her eccentricities and psychological scars. Most had, by this point, faded into the background only to appear during night terrors. But those too were fewer and far between. Perhaps I was confident that I knew every cut and stitch in her psyche.
Whatever I thought I knew about this goddess who had changed our lives was dwarfed in the shadow of what we didn’t know.
I remember, quite vividly, what happened almost a week after her excursion into the city.
It was a muggy morning, July the 10th. We hadn’t seen the Seeress in a few days, not unusual; sometimes she just holed up in her room. She’d read books, knit clothes or blankets. Recently, she’d taken up drawing and painting. Surprisingly talented and creative.
I wasn’t really concerned when the Seeress was late for her morning stock prediction session. I reasoned that Frigg or Bragi had sunk their claws into her, and that it was unfortunate we’d have to interrupt.
Normally I would have sent Edvard or security to find or wake her up. Something was different that day.
From the moment I woke up there was a tautness in my muscles. An anxiety clawing at the edge of my vision. One moment I was making tea, and the next I was emerging from a bank of mist, cloaked in a mental fog. I stood for several minutes, trying to figure out where I was and what I had been doing. When I regained my bearings, I realized I was standing in front of the Seeress’s door. To this day, I still don’t quite know what happened.
What I do know is that nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to discover.
Video Log Excerpts: Nornir Compound
Foreword: The Following video log was captured by CCTV cameras within the Cult of the Nornir compound on July 10th, 1950.
<Begin Log>
Shortly before the beginning of the log, there is a compound wide outage of camera footage. When camera feeds resume, Speaker Ella is standing before SCP-001’s door. She appears disoriented and begins looking around. She knocks on the door after several minutes. There is no response.
Speaker Ella: Seeress? Are you in?
No response. The cameras within SCP-001’s residence remain distorted with static. Ella knocks again.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, it’s time for stock predictions. I don’t like them anymore than you do, but you know how important they are for us.
Again, there is no response. Ella waits for another minute.
Speaker Ella: If we don’t do it today, Seeress, tomorrow’s session will be twice as long.
Ella inhales and then sniffs the air several times.
Speaker Ella: Shit is that… blood?
Ella bangs on the door.
Speaker Ella: Seeress!? Can you hear me? Please open the door!
No response. Ella begins to search her cloak pockets for a master keyring. It takes her roughly a minute. She fumbles with the keys and drops the whole ring.
Speaker Ella: Snakes black teeth, come on. Seeress I’m coming in!
Ella retrieves the keyring. After another fifteen seconds of checking, she finds the key to SCP-001’s door. It swings inwards with an unusually loud groan. Abruptly, the cameras in the central living area clear of static. Ella stands in the doorframe, slowly turning to look at the contents of the room. There are blood splatters on the ceiling and the walls. The hardwood is soaked with puddles of human blood. Where there is carpet, large fresh spots are seeping into the textile. Older spots have already turned brown. The room is littered with large chunks of bloody, discarded tissue. Ella presses the hem of her cloak over her nose after several seconds.
Speaker Ella: Eir’s mercy, what is this?
One chunk of flesh, facing towards the camera, is tattooed in utilitarian block letters. 4444 is legible. Audible movement is picked up from the direction of the bedroom, accompanied by quiet weeping. The camera in that room remains obscured by static.
Speaker Ella: Seeress? Are you in the bedroom?
Ella begins carefully walking in the direction of the bedroom. The door has been marked with multiple bloody handprints. There is a trail of maroon which splits from several different locations within the residence and traces towards the bedroom. The trail vanishes underneath the threshold.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, I’m coming in.
Ella opens the door to the bedroom. The camera’s within return to normal. The bed is soaked with residual blood. A severed arm rests a few feet in front of the doorway and is surrounded by more chunks of excised flesh. Ella stands in the doorway, staring at the arm for several seconds. She abruptly turns and vomits into a trashcan. The weeping is much louder in the bedroom. There is motion in the bathroom. Ella speaks softly as she fully enters into the bedroom.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, what did you do?
She moves to the bathroom and pushes in the door. Ella recoils before instantly vomiting into the bedside trashcan. SCP-001, still out of sight, weeps.
SCP-001: I can’t cut it out! It keeps coming back! Even when I cut it all off.”
Speaker Ella: Odin’s eye! Seeress please give me—By Thor, where did you get a bone saw!?
SCP-001: I can’t, I can’t, I want it off. I want it gone! Please, please cut it away!
Speaker Ella: This is not the path to walk!
The sound of a knife cutting through skin and muscle begins. It’s followed shortly by the sound of bone being sawed through. SCP-001 screams at a high pitch.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, stop!
SCP-001: I can’t—I can’t let them. They marked me. I’m stained. Every day I see it I'm reminded of how they branded me. I was lesser to them.
The sounds continue. Ella tries to enter the bathroom and there’s the sound of a struggle.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, please stop this!
SCP-001: I can’t let them keep their brand. A reminder that I lived and they didn't! I didn’t deserve to live over them. I didn’t earn this.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, this isn't the answer!
SCP-001: They didn’t deserve it. I just want the shame gone! Every time I look at it, I see what they did again and again. I don't want this; I never wanted any of this. I’m a coward, a waste of breath! I’m not worthy of bearing this scar, because I lived!
Speaker Ella: You’re not a coward; there are other ways!
Ella stumbles back out of the bathroom, with blood splattered across her face.
Speaker Ella: Leather-necked boars I can’t stop her. How are you so strong!?
SCP-001: Help me cut it off or let me suffer in peace, please Ella.
Speaker Ella: Fuck! Fuck fuck!
Ella runs out of the bathroom. In the process, she trips over the discarded arm. She skids on the slicks of blood. Out of the apartment and into the hallway where she collides with a wall. She falls to the ground for several seconds, dazed. When she recovers, she slams her fist into the wall.
Speaker Ella: FUCK.
Ella gets up and runs to Edvard’s room. She pounds on the door.
Speaker Ella: Edvard, by Hel’s stillness open the fucking door now!
Edvard opens the door, dodges Ella’s swinging fist and instantly recoils.//
Speaker Edvard: Ella, what—
Speaker Ella: There’s no fucking time. The Seeress is cutting off her arm.
Speaker Edvard: What!?
Speaker Ella: Grab the strongest of your men on security, get medical up here now, and prey to Freya that we can avoid her thaumically obliterating us by accident!
Edvard’s expression shifts into a frown. He pushes past Ella and takes off into a dead sprint. Ella returns to SCP-001’s apartment. No more than a minute later, Edvard, four large security officers and the Cult’s medical team arrive. Each officer’s skin shimmers with shifting runic and arcane marks of warding and protection. They experience similar visceral physical reactions to Ella as they move towards the bedroom. Out of camera view, there is a brief scuffle. The camera footage becomes distorted for several seconds. When it clears, a bone saw and knife are being stuffed into a bag. SCP-001 is unconscious and being carried on a stretcher. Its arm hangs off the stretcher, connected to its shoulder by a single thread of ligament and stretched muscle.
The medical team stops the stretcher bearers. One of them presses the arm back up against its severed socket. The flesh of the oozing wounds attempt to knit back together but come apart again.
Dr. Olga Brandt: No good, the arm’s a loss.
Speaker Ella: Shit.
SCP-001’s arm is removed, leaving a raw and oozing stump. New bones, muscles and ligaments are already beginning to form at an accelerated rate. The stretcher bearers and medical team head for the door. Dr. Brandt remains behind with Ella, holding the amputated arm.
Dr. Olga Brandt: Her regeneration rate has increased since ’46.
Speaker Ella: That is the least of my worries right now. Contact the fixers and have them clean this up. Not a word to Bowe or Pentagram, understand me?
Dr. Olga Brandt Yes, speaker. What about all this tissue?
Ella looks at the piles of flesh. There are some signs of regeneration from the discarded arms.
Speaker Ella: Incinerate it. All of it.
Dr. Olga Brandt: Do you want us to preserve the most recent arm? We might be able to extract material for bio-thaumic study.
Ella looks at Brandt for several seconds.
Speaker Ella: Are we equipped for that?
Dr. Olga Brandt: No, but we could be if you wanted to open a new R&D department. We certainly have the revenue streams.
Ella considers for approximately a minute.
Speaker Ella: Put it on ice and wait for her to wake up. Then burn the rest. Be prepared to burn the arm if the Seeress doesn’t consent.
Dr. Olga Brandt: Yes, speaker.
Speaker Ella: Come get me when she wakes up.
SCP-001 is moved into the medical wing of the Nornir compound. Over the course of the next hour, its arm rapidly regenerates. By the time it regains consciousness, its entire upper arm has regrown. Dr. Brandt is recorded entering the ICU to speak with SCP-001 at which point there is a five-minute gap in the recording due to missing footage.
// Dr. Brandt is next seen speaking with other medical personnel. Dr. Brandt spends the next 30 minutes giving instructions to have all of SCP-001’s tissue samples incinerated except the arm. She then enters the freezer area where SCP-001’s tissue samples are being kept. The cameras in this room abruptly shut off for the next twenty minutes. When they turn on again, Dr. Brandt leaves the room with a cart containing multiple large coolers. She hands the cart off to another member of the medical team. The coolers are loaded onto a van which takes the samples across Eurtec to a crematorium.//
Dr. Brandt leaves the medical wing and heads to Ella’s residence. She knocks twice and Ella opens the door.
Speaker Ella: Oh, Brandt. Good, I was starting to wonder.
Dr. Olga Brandt: She woke up 30 minutes ago. Apologies, I had some logistics to deal with before I came up.
Speaker Ella: How is she?
Dr. Olga Brandt: Calmer than when you found her. Physically stable, the arm was a little more than halfway regenerated when I left.
Speaker Ella: Thank Eir’s touch.
Dr. Olga Brandt: Indeed.
Speaker Ella: What did she say to your proposition.
Dr. Olga Brandt: She was hesitant but consented after a calm discussion. She didn’t want to discuss it further than that.
Speaker Ella: I think that’s understandable. Well, put together a list of supplies, equipment, and facility needs. We’ll go from there.
Dr. Olga Brandt: Excellent. I think it’s best that you don’t bring the matter up with her further. She expressed extreme distress when I offered to keep her regularly informed about the benefits of using her bio-matter.
Speaker Ella: Right, well, I won’t bring it up. I’d better go speak with her.
Ella steps past Brandt and makes her way to the medical wing. By the time Ella arrives, SCP-001’s lower arm is more than halfway reformed. SCP-001 looks in the direction of Ella’s footsteps when the Speaker enters the room. It tenses.
Speaker Ella: Seeress, it’s me.
SCP-001 relaxes. Its shoulder’s sag.
SCP-001: Ella I am—
Speaker Ella: You don’t need to apologize, Seeress. I think everyone understands why this happened.
SCP-001: But?
Speaker Ella: But we are going to have to put in place a safety net. That or you’ll have to move back in with Edvard and I.
SCP-001: Ok.
Speaker Ella: How do you feel about an electronic distress system?
SCP-001: You mean a panic button?
Speaker Ella: Yes. A panic button.
SCP-001: Within the room?
Speaker Ella: I think that would be best.
SCP-001: I could… live with that. What about if I am not in my room?
Speaker Ella: We’ll also get one that works remotely.
SCP-001: Ok.
Speaker Ella: And the next time you start to feel like this, if you can’t use either, you come immediately to Edvard or I, understand?
SCP-001: Yes.
Several seconds of silence.
SCP-001: I’m sorry, Ella.
Speaker Ella: Don’t be sorry. We can’t help the illnesses that afflict us. We can only find ways to cope with them.
SCP-001 looks down as the end of their lower arm finishes forming. The block letter 4444 tattoo has returned.
SCP-001: I don’t know how to cope. Not with this reminder of my cowardice embedded in my flesh.
Speaker Ella: First of all, you are not a coward. Coward implies you ran away and left those people to die. That is not what happened.
SCP-001: But perhaps I could have done something to stop it.
Speaker Ella: I doubt it. The Obskurakorps had already killed two of your sisters. Seeress, you played the long game and put yourself in a better position to help the world. You could have given up, withered away from lack of faith. But you didn’t. That is brave. That might be the bravest thing anyone has ever done. You might be the bravest goddess I’ve ever known.
SCP-001: The Valkyries might take offense.
Speaker Ella: The Valkyries hid when the gods cut us off and withered almost to nothing. If it weren’t for the Order of the Æsir, Brandt, and the Nifelheim Armed Tactical Order, they likely would have died off.
SCP-001: I think your view of me is overinflated by your beliefs.
Speaker Ella: Perhaps. Regardless, we cannot control—that is dumb to say to you, a goddess of Fate. We live with the hands we are dealt, and we weave our own destiny from there.
SCP-001: Mmm.
Speaker Ella: It’s unlike you to wallow in what could have been. Why not make this mark your own? In a way that is meaningful to you and those who didn’t make it.
SCP-001: How?
Speaker Ella: A tattoo. Take back your body by making it something meaningful to who you are. Not who you were.
SCP-001 thinks for several minutes.
SCP-001: Maybe I will. For those who didn’t make it. Thank you, Ella.
Speaker Ella: Of course, Seeress.
<End Log>
Post Incident Diary Entry: The blood. The piles of sawed out flesh. The dismembered arm. The Seeress screaming as she sawed through flesh and bone to remove that Nazi branding. All of it still haunts my nightmares to this day. I will probably see it until the day I die.
I don’t know how we managed to keep it quiet. The sheer terror of Bowe potentially finding out still makes every hair stand up on the back of my neck.
The revelation of this new deep scar in the Seeress’s psychology did have a benefit. We’ve begun a bio-medical research program using the harvested material from one of the Seeress’s arms. Brandt is very optimistic about what we can do from here. Several thaumo-chemical compounds are already quite promising for future use.
If anything positive comes out of this nightmare, it’ll be having more than one revenue stream originating from the Seeress.
We would continue to grapple with the implications of the Seeress’s mental breakdown and the use of her biological material for some time to come.
For every two steps we took forward it felt like we were shoved three steps back.
I was starting to pull myself together, but Edvard? Edvard was falling apart. He was so rarely sober then. I am fairly sure he was hitting the bottle from the moment he woke up until he passed out. His drug use was getting worse as well. His eyes were constantly bloodshot or dilated. It hadn’t yet hit the point where it was interfering with his ability to reliably manage security. Still, I was growing concerned for his health and productivity, given how frequently he disappeared during the day.
Something would have to give, an intervention, some vision which would alter Edvard’s course. The question remained how and when?
But with everything I was juggling, I just simply didn’t have the time to sit down and figure it out. Curbing Pentagram’s influence remained my biggest obstacle.
Diary Text:
Then, Bowe became apoplectic in late October and November. Something happened on the political and strategic end that resulted in near daily visits with the Seeress.
US soldiers retreating from the Chosin River basin after Chinese intervention.
This was right after the first bits of foundation for the Foresight Matrix Array were laid. He seemed frantic… almost desperate in some ways. A much shorter fuse than normal. I’m not sure what to make of it, especially the initial accusations that the Seeress had misled him. With how many little things tend to set the man off, I couldn’t quite tell you what pushed him to be even more like Thor in temperament than usual. Maybe I should pay more attention to the big details that the Seeress predicts in these sessions.
I only stopped because the abuse weighs so heavily on me. And because the GOC and Bowe use her knowledge for operations which would rob me of any faith I have left in humanity.
Outcome: Allied forces approached the Yalu river after capturing Pyongyang and advancing to the Ch'ongch'on river. The Chinese People’s Volunteer Army crossed the Yalu river on October 19th, repelling the initial attempt to capture the Yalu before retreating back across the border. The PVA then crossed in full force on November 10th, pushing allied forces out of North Korea and back across the 38th parallel. Chinese offensive resulted in 24,000 US and 12,000 South Korean casualties.
Eurtec Reporter
Triple Fates Woven
| Eurtec | 11/3/1948 | FREE |
Truman Wins! Declares Eurtec City of Tomorrow!
Directors Summary of Truman era policies and Dwight D. Eisenhower administration viewpoint on the GOC:
There were many consequential figures with regards to the formation and development of GOC policy. Notably, in terms of the early GOC, American Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower were critical.
President Harry S. Truman.
While many historians will point towards Wilson and Roosevelt as the critical drivers of the formation and continued contribution of the AOI during WWI and into WII, the truth is that the United States was largely uninvolved with AOI initiatives in WWI. Roosevelt, early on, sought to correct this mistake as part of the Lend Lease Act. Contribution of para-tech from American occultic manufacturers to its European Allies in 1939, 1940, and, eventually, solely to the United Kingdom during 1940-1941 helped to stave off Obskurakorps para-weapon assaults. They also likely played a critical role in preventing Operation Sealion.
Truman, a young senator from Missouri, realized, after touring mundane and occultic manufactories, that there was considerable waste in this process. He became an outspoken advocate for the continuity of support to the reformed AOI, in line with Roosevelt’s policies. The need, in Truman’s mind, to counteract Nazi occultic initiatives was critical to the stabilization of the precarious situation in Europe. His subsequent placement on the Subcommittee on War Mobilization then facilitated the consolidation of the majority of American paranatural military initiatives under an already existing department, Pentagram. This, in his eyes, would make coordination with the AOI easier.
Pentagram, an organization which had existed since the Mid-20’s, was initially planned to be headquartered in a pocket-space within the Pentagon. Due to budget cuts and the Great Depression, Pentagram’s ambitions never materialized. Up until Truman’s centralization, Pentagram was relegated to a tiny office within the pentagon, where they were generally considered pariahs by most military personnel.
Prior to Pearl Harbor and even Operation Barbarossa, Pentagram was already engaging in covert counteroperations with AOI forces against Obskurakorps. Small units operated across Europe and the Middle East and provided critical support which helped stall the German offensives in North Africa.
After Pearl Harbor, Pentagram’s offices were hastily expanded. American occultic organizations were recruited to bolster its ranks. Then its command centers were split into two theater specific arms. One command office was quickly relocated to London to make coordination with other AOI member organizations easier in the European theater. A second moved to the pacific. The pacific command would shift several times as the theater developed. These shifts proved to be a source of added friction between General McCarthur and Admiral Nimitz who frequently butted heads about theater priorities.
Initial ideas about restructuring the chain of command so that Pentagram was directly under the Chiefs of Staff. Such notions were quickly abandoned as the experience of occultic field personnel often trumped the fact that the Chiefs of Staff were largely familiar with mundane warfare. Truman oversaw many of these changes in his role in increasing wartime efficiency. His careful management of the relationship between the AOI and Pentagram would help set the stage for the success of the AOI once America fully entered the war, and for the formation of the GOC.
President Truman at a Gala event within Eurtec. SCP-001 is visible back right.
Post-war, Truman was made aware of SCP-001 through correspondence with the Threat Assessment Committee. Contrary to the committee’s initial misgivings during SCP-001’s recovery period, Truman pushed and strongly advocated for officializing the anomaly as a BCE. In multiple letters and correspondences, Truman recognized the potential socio-economic and geo-political possibilities that SCP-001 offered. As a result, he strongly advocated for Pentagram oversight of the Cult of the Nornir, once SCP-001 became a BCE. Largely for the purposes of achieving American geo-political ambitions. Truman was also a vocal supporter of the Cult of the Nornir’s efforts, which provided some relief to his administration’s economic woes in the post-war period. There were some rumors at the time, especially among the council of 108 and the GRU-P, that Truman may have had a direct phone line to Ella Haugen’s residence. This rumor has never been confirmed.
Truman, through his advocation for the UN, also strongly pushed for the formation of a Global Occult Coalition. To Truman, an organization like the GOC could both maintain the veil, as well as further centralize America’s interests on the world stage. He accomplished this aim through several means. He bolstered Pentagram’s role in the fledgling organization. Appointing aggressive leadership and increasing funding to the GOC, especially Pentagram, were the primary mechanisms he relied on.
Despite his initial hardline stance against making SCP-001 a BCE, Colonel Steven Bowe appears to have won a substantial amount of favor with Truman early on. Surviving correspondence indicates their relationship largely arose through careful diplomatic maneuvering, aggressive political initiatives and meticulous oversight of SCP-001.
Bowe prioritized issues concerning American foreign and economic policy over GOC directed initiatives, except where GOC strike missions aligned with American interests. He used these successes to crowd out his peers, who were competing with him for recognition within the GOC and Pentagram. In part, this was a political game on Bowe’s behalf to assuage the upper ranks of the Pentagon. The chiefs of staff held a much more skeptical view of SCP-001. They also frequently clashed with Bowe over his treatment of subordinates and his borderline insubordination. There were some calls beginning inside of the Pentagon for Pentagram to be brought to heel in the post-war environment. Bowe’s success largely torpedoed such efforts for the first four or so years following SCP-001’s BCE designation.
In the last few years of Truman’s administration, he became moderately disillusioned with the presidency. Truman did not seek reelection to a second term for the 1952 elections. His failure to save China, the rise of McCarthyist anti-communist sentiment, strategic failures in the Korean War, inability to enact his agenda due to a republican congress, and the post-war inflation and economic struggles tanked his popularity in 1950-51.
Truman became bitter. He privately accused members of his own party, and even his cabinet, of purposefully mismanaging his initiatives and not believing in his visions for the future. He also became disillusioned with the GOC as a successor org to the AOI. Truman appears to have been increasingly aware of the mismanagement of the GOC. He also seems to have become aware of rumors of corruption in the upper echelons of the GOC and the council of 108. There was even some reports of human rights abuses in the Balkans that reached his desk. Adding salt to the wound, Truman also became aware of Bowe encouraging the degradation of civil rights of under-veil populations. Pentagram’s failure to provide appropriate interpretations of SCP-001’s messaging which lead to foreign policy disasters, did not help the situation.
Eurtec Reporter
Triple Fates Woven
| Eurtec | 10/23/1958 | FREE |
Eisenhower Slashes Funding to the GOC, Again!
President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The Republican candidate for president in 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was also strongly supportive of the AOI during WWII. As commander in chief of the European theater, Eisenhower had firsthand experience with witnessing the devastation that Nazi para-tech and para-weapons could inflict on allied soldiers. Unlike Truman’s stronger support for the GOC, Pentagram and the predictive capacities of SCP-001 during most of his presidency, Eisenhower was more skeptical. His believed that occultic organizations were not as reliable when it came to intelligence gathering. He also did not believe that the GOC or Pentagram, in its integrated form with the GOC, represented the national interests of the United States when it came to the anomalous. He largely seems to have regarded Bowe’s efforts on this front as self-interested.
President Eisenhower at a gala event with Pentagram Personnel. SCP-001 front left looking away from the camera, Speaker Ella is behind her.
Following his win in the 1952 election, Eisenhower spent weeks carefully reviewing records of SCP-001’s predictions and strategic outcomes. In a letter to his wife, he seems to have come to the conclusion that Pentagram had likely been misinterpreting several critical statements from SCP-001. And on this front he squarely placed the blame upon General Bowe.
Multiple wartime and post-war exchanges highlighted Eisenhower’s marked distaste for General Steven Bowe. To one peer he wrote:
I find Bowe to be crude, unnecessarily aggressive, and prone to unilateral decision making. He reminds me of Patton without the redeeming tactical brilliance. He’s prone to fits of standing in front of mirrors, talking aloud to himself, purchasing and then burning women’s clothing and other eccentric behaviors according to his subordinates. Officers and enlisted men are no more than tools in his eyes rather than persons relying on his insight.
I would remove him if I could.
The final nail in the coffin which solidified Eisenhower’s caution was the substantial bloating of Pentagram’s funding. Even though an official audit accounted for all expenditures, Eisenhower remained skeptical that Pentagram’s funding matched the scale of its current initiatives. Again, he suspected the source of this discrepancy to be Bowe.
As Bowe was not a political appointee, but a US officer integrated with GOC command, Eisenhower could not remove him. Additionally, Pentagram was both heavily integrated into GOC power structures and a member of the council of 108. Eisenhower could not alter the command structure of the organization to fold it back into the Pentagon as it did not fully answer to the US military. To overcome these barriers, Eisenhower would have to completely dissolve Pentagram and reform it. While he certainly had the political goodwill to do so, actioning that initiative, at the time, would have reduced American influence in the GOC. This would have also weakened containment of the GRU-P. Instead, Eisenhower elected to redistribute resources. He announced after his victory in the election, that he was planning to cut direct funding to Pentagram. Once in office, he actioned these cuts and instead reallocated funding to promote the foundation of a nested department within the CIA. This resulted in the formation of the CIA's Directorate of Occult Operations. He also elected to expand the Abnormal Phenomena Department of the FBI, which was dedicated to the handling of the anomalous, resulting in its renaming to the Unusual Incidents Unit. Thus, in a single stroke Eisenhower undid a decade of Truman’s efforts, leading to the decentralization of American counter-anomalous action against the Soviet Union.
Eisenhower’s actions were not solely a consequence of his distrust of Pentagram but also distrust of the rampant prevalence of the Military Industrial Complex’s influence on Pentagram’s internal and external policy when it came to the GOC. This disposition only worsened when General Bowe was elevated to total command of Pentagram by the Council of 108. Bowe then elected to relocate Pentagram headquarters from London into Eurtec, further uncoupling the organization from Pentagon oversight.
Interstate Highway System as Funded by Eisenhower.
Eisenhower would continue to reduce Pentagram’s funding throughout his presidency. He also made cuts to overall United States funding of the GOC during his administration, despite Bowe’s lobbying. Some correspondence exists which suggests he may have in fact made cuts to the GOC as a response to lobbying attempts. These funds were redistributed to domestic initiatives, such as the Interstate system.
Funding cuts increased in severity from 1957-1960 as Eisenhower appeared to grow increasingly dissatisfied with Pentagram and the GOC’s handling of occultic affairs. Near the end of his presidency, Eisenhower felt that the dysfunction in Pentagram had become so extreme that he needed to consider intervening to recall Pentagram and dismantle the organization’s involvement with the GOC. Vice President Richard Nixon intervened and convinced him that Pentagram was still useful in influencing the GOC to pivot towards American interests.
Addendum 10: 1950-1956
Access provided by the Silicon Nornir archives.
I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise by now that rock bottom hadn’t hit us square in the chest. No, that moment came barreling down the hill straight at us in 1952. It was the most egregious incident from Bowe to that point, and truly the bottom of the pit for us all. It might have been avoided if Edvard had been at his post or had I been ontime that morning in meeting with the Seeress.
Video Log Incident 32, December 10th, 1952
Foreword: The following is a summary of Incident 32 which spans the morning through evening of February 10th, 1953. General Steven Bowe and an armed group of Pentagram agents forced their way into the residence of SCP-001 for a spontaneous predictive session without the knowledge of the Cult of the Nornir. This event followed the announcement of budget cuts to Pentagram by the Eisenhower administration.
<Begin Log>
0800-0807: General Bowe enters the Cult of the Nornir’s residential complex and waits for approximately seven minutes in the lobby. Bowe briefly looks up towards the cameras. His eyes appear red and irritated before returning to normal. When no representative of the Cult of the Nornir appears, Bowe and his agents board an elevator. It takes them to SCP-001’s floor.
0807-0810: Colonel Bowe knocks on SCP-001’s door with excessive force for approximately fifteen seconds. SCP-001 opens the door. Bowe speaks to SCP-001. Its eyes widen and it attempts to close the door. Bowe forces the door open. He and the agents enter the residence.
0810-1000: SCP-001 is taken by the arms and moved to the kitchen table, where it is seated in a chair by two agents. SCP-001’s hands shake but it shows no other signs of physical distress.
Colonel Bowe spends the next hour and fifty minutes interrogating SCP-001 with questions regarding the Eisenhower administration. Throughout, he demands predictions of possible futures where funding of Pentagram and the GOC are restored to Truman levels.
Bowe is visibly agitated throughout the entire period. He resorts to screaming at SCP-001. At multiple points he grabs it by the hair, forces it to kneel, shoves it, and throws the entity’s things.
SCP-001, while exhibiting involuntary pain responses, continues to answer questions. Near the end of the two-hour period, it is bleeding and vomiting, but still coherent.
1001-1003: Speaker Edvard emerges from his residence while walking with a slight slay. He goes to SCP-001’s door, holding a folder with assorted documents. He enters without knocking, and stumbles upon the spontaneous predictive session.
1004-1015: As Edvard Enters, Bowe is yanking on SCP-001’s hair. The entire room stops moving. Edvard becomes agitated, then angry. He screams at Bowe and his agents to leave. The open door allows the screaming to be heard in the hallway. Several passing Cult of the Nornir look in and then spring off elsewhere in the compound. Other members of the Cult of the Nornir, including Speaker Ella, begin to accumulate, some of them armed with para-technology used in their professions. Bowe can be seen smiling and holding up his hands.
1016-1030: Bowe and his agents exit the residence. Weapons are drawn, forcing the Cult of the Nornir back. They head for the elevator at speed and leave the complex a few minutes later with a small angry crowd following them. SCP-001 is helped up by Ella and Edvard.
1031-1130: Ella helps SCP-001 clean up and prepares an iron restoring meal. Edvard paces the residence during this period. He and Ella descend into a heated exchange which ends when Edvard stomps out of the residence. He is last seen, on the 10th, entering his residence, where the cameras within are abruptly disabled and do not turn back on until the next day.
But am I doing enough? Could I be doing more?
Edvard certainly is.
<End Log>
Memo Regarding Unsupervised Visits with BCE-001:
To: Pentagram Oversight Command, Threat Assessment Committee, Rights Oversight Body, Ethical Conduct Board
From: Speaker Ella Haugen, CEO Cult of the Silicon Nornir
To all relevant parties,
Effective immediately, the Cult of the Silicon Nornir is implementing new access policies in regards to BCE-001 following the Incident on February the 10th of this year. The Cult of the Silicon Nornir is forming an internal security contingent to monitor access to the residential compound and core complex of what will become the NFMA.
GOC personnel who are not members of the Cult of the Silicon Nornir are now required to check in with Silicon Security in the front lobby of the residential compound portion of the NFMA. Pentagram staff must wait for an on-duty speaker to greet and escort them to meet with BCE-001 for regular prescience activities.
The Cult recognizes the oversight role of Pentagram in monitoring BCE-001 but unsupervised access and abuse, as was demonstrated yesterday, is unacceptable. I’m aware that all our complaints to date on this topic have been struck down by your individual offices for reasons that seem arbitrary or petty. In light of your negligence, we are being forced to act independently.
-Ella
Memo to Head of Pentagram Department of Recruiting, from General Bowe: Due to funding cuts as a result of change in administration, effective immediately, we will now begin targeted recruitment and pamphlet distribution within the City of Eurtec, in addition to our outward facing recruitment efforts in the States.
BCE-001 had a particularly useful bit of insight on this front, predicting that recruitment from the city’s populace could help fill our manpower shortfalls, and allow us to better allocate our experienced Agents to field operations and GOC strike teams. To carry out this initiative, I expect your department to put together a benefits package for potential recruits which includes the following:
- Official citizenship in a GOC member state of the recruit’s choosing. Yes, I know many of these recruits will be anomalous, but we can build in clauses to revoke this offer at will.
- A signing bonus, given inevitable funding cuts, I’d recommend permanent housing in the high ends of the city. If we have to displace current residents, so be it. Please remember the Nornir compound is off limits.
- Unlimited checkpoint passage access.
- Paid vacation, holidays, and four weeks of maternity or paternity leave.
- Anything else you can think of within reasonable measures. Remember, we’re dangling a carrot over a group of sub-humans. Think about what they want.
While Bowe had been within arm’s reach for a few years now, his boldness had never crossed this line in the sand. Now, he paraded through our halls twice a week. Sometimes more when there was a particularly important event occurring on the world stage or in GOC strike operations.
Having to create stricter internal security to lock down the compound was a level of humiliation none of us had been expecting. Now we had an internal police element. Armed to the teeth with the latest in para-technology that we produced in-house. The new Valvran division, as we’d come to call it. More a militia than a security force.
Diary Text:
How did we get to this point? Why are we having to arm ourselves like we are in the resistance again?
Worse, why does it only feel like the bare minimum? Even with Brandt’s second-generation Valkyrie program, could we actually meaningfully resist Pentagram? Nothing feels like enough. Not with how much Bowe’s influence has grown. How far can we push the envelope before the hammer comes down?
At least I can control his access. But even that feels like a temporary measure. His recruitment of Eurtec citizens for his agents makes it feel like we are going to have neighbors turning against neighbors. Just like with the Nazis. What then?
With the pit ever deepening my worry over the constant abuse pressed my nerves to the edge. Even after everything that we had been through, the Seeress had never cracked. How long could she last? Surely, she had limits to her willpower? And with every session she was pushed to the physical edge. It was no longer a matter of whether her abuse would backfire, but when or how. How would this house of cards all fall apart? Would we be caught in the backblast? I couldn’t have said. I couldn’t have possibly predicted what was to come.
Then there was Edvard. There comes a point when you have given someone the benefit of doubt for too long. When he fell off the wagon, I failed to address his behavior. When he started doing drugs, I failed to address that. When he disappears for hours on end with no way to get ahold of him, I had failed to pull him aside.
I didn’t want to have to relieve him from his role in security. He’d been keeping us safe for more than 15 years now. He was hardly culpable in full for the nightmare we were dancing in. But now? His vices and absence weren’t helping. We’d put the Seeress in harms way. We’d been negligent and let this happen. Something would have to change. We would both need to take accountability for how we had failed.
The question was, how? How could I be the one to carry that banner, hypocrite as I was.
It was as I was wrestling with my own mortal shortcomings that Edvard appeared to make the first move. It was a muggy July evening, and there was a glass of mead swirling in my fingers. I was sorting my thoughts into bins, trying to navigate what approach I would take for an intervention. That’s when a note slid beneath the door of my residence.
Ella,
I’d like to sit down and talk about everything that has happened. I feel horrible about the path that has developed before us. I understand you’re probably furious with me. Give me a chance to make this right?
Meet at 7:00 PM tonight, in the Gardens?
Thanks,
Edvard
Perhaps it was relief that made me ignore the decisively un-Edvardian word choices. Perhaps the mead clouded my critical thinking. Either way, it was desperation that attributed the note to Edvard making a genuine effort to take accountability.
Such a groundswell of relief filled my chest that I stained the paper with tears. The muggy underworld humidity cloyed against my skin as I left my room that evening. 6:45 PM flashed on the digital displays next to the elevators as I headed for the compound gardens.
If only I had known what was actually about to happen.
<Begin Log:>
Speaker Ella enters the hallway leading to the main complex gardens. As she approaches the gardens, Speaker Edvard rounds the corner. They both stop, looking at each other for several seconds. Both go through a series of complicated facial expressions. Each is holding a piece of paper. After several seconds, they both attempt to speak at the same time.
Speaker Ella: I got your note about meeting.
Speaker Edvard: I got your note about wanting to talk.
Both stop speaking and stare at the other.
Speaker Ella: Wait, what?
Speaker Edvard: I didn’t send a note?
Ella glances down at her note again.
Speaker Ella: Neither did I.
Ella and Edvard look between the note, each other, and the doors out into the garden.
Speaker Edvard: If you didn’t send my note, and I didn’t send your note, then—
Speaker Ella: Who typed up our invitations?
Speaker Edvard: Yeah.
They both look at the doors to the gardens. Edvard rubs his temples.
Speaker Edvard: You think they’re—
Speaker Ella: Waiting for us in there?
Speaker Edvard: Yeah.
Speaker Ella: Probably.
Speaker Edvard: We should probably figure this out.
Speaker Ella: Probably.
They both stare at the garden doors.
Speaker Edvard: I do, uhm, want to talk.
Speaker Ella: …so do I.
Speaker Edvard: But I think we should figure out who our mystery impersonator is first.
Speaker Ella: Agreed.
Ella and Edvard enter the gardens together. They walk for some time through the open-air alcoves in silence. Eventually they come upon the area where their notes indicate the meeting is to occur. It is here that a table with several comfortable lounge chairs have been moved. Glasses, several pitchers of water and a quite large teapot are sat on the table. Sitting, cross legged, in a large recliner, situated opposite the table and chairs, is SCP-001. When Ella and Edvard enter, she is knitting a large quilt.
Diary Text:
There was something intangibly different about the Seeress as we stepped into that little section of the gardens. Over the years there has a been a general and gradual shift in her behavior. It’s in the way she holds herself in our presence; the smell on the breeze when you enter a room she’s in; the shadows and light that follow her through hallways within the various places we’ve come to live. A growing, quiet confidence.
That’s not what we encountered in that Alcove. That night, it was like everything around her had completely shifted. She filled that entire alcove with a warm subtle light and yet drenched it in a shadowy mist that flowed out and past our ankles. Seemed much taller and older than she actually looked. There was something there when I squinted at just the right angle. A complex tapestry of strings waiting to wrap us up within their embrace the moment we stepped inside. There was this fragrance blown towards us by the air conditioner. Incense entwined with the smoke from a fire.
The way she sat in that chair somehow radiated confidence into that space that I did not often get from her. I’d almost call it smug certainty. Absolute control. It’s easy to say that she knew we were there, given she sees everything, but this was different. It was as if she was everywhere, gazing at us. Even though my eyes were screaming she was in the chair in front of us. She didn’t even look up when she finally acknowledged us.
I suppose what I am taking so long to say is, she felt like a completely different person. She cast us in her fervor and for the first time in years, I saw a goddess sitting before me where before there had been a very human woman.
For a moment, I entertained the possibility that perhaps one of the Moirai had snuck in and assumed the Seeress’s shape.
SCP-001: Ella, Edvard, please, come in and sit.
Ella and Edvard take several stiff steps forward, as if being pulled along by some unseen force. They both stop and shake their heads.
Speaker Ella: What—Seeress?
SCP-001: Apologies, I did not mean to command with intent.
SCP-001 sits back against the chair but does not stop knitting. Ella and Edvard look at each other. Ella holds up her slip of paper.
Speaker Ella: Did you send these notes?
SCP-001: I did.
Speaker Edvard: Why?
SCP-001: A small deception. A small tug on the strings to push you past the humps you both faced.
Speaker Ella: We would have—Eventually on our own.
SCP-001: You would have labored for hours, wringing your hands about the approach, the how, and the when. Days would have turned into a week. A week into weeks. Then some other task would have come forth and drawn your eye away from the prize. The wheel would turn and the friction build until it exploded once more.
Speaker Edvard: So, you forced the issue.
SCP-001: Yes.
Speaker Ella: Why? Why now?
SCP-001 stops knitting and sets its needles down.
SCP-001: Because I have sat by long enough. I have watched you both spiral in this destructive dance, hurting yourselves, each other, the Silicon Nornir, and me.
Speaker Ella: So, you could have acted but didn’t?
SCP-001 frowns.
SCP-001: Now, it may seem like I can see everything, but Ella, I’m actually blind!
SCP-001 grins. Ella and Edvard both snort. Several seconds pass as SCP-001’s grin fades.
SCP-001: I could have acted, but the time simply wasn’t right for the path that benefits us all the most.
Speaker Edvard: So, all of us were fated to suffer like this until we met your conditions? There’s no agency in it for us?
SCP-001: Don’t be so obtuse, Edvard. Everyone has agency in every choice they make. I nor any goddess of fate can take that from you. We can only flick the strings, alter the choices on the table, and when they might appear. It is you who make those choices; it is you who unspool the strings to their destination. Your fate is your own.
Ella and Edvard’s expressions slowly shift towards distress.
Speaker Ella: And our recent choices—
Speaker Edvard: Have been hurting you.
SCP-001: You have been hurting yourselves and what you care most about. We must be clear; this suffering is but a temporary stain of malice in the tapestry of our life. To live as long as we have, it requires some inordinate amount of suffering. It requires the bending of the mind into shapes so warped by trauma that years are required to recover. But it is temporary. Every day is an improvement, every day one step closer to being free of a yoke you cannot see. There has been worse and there has been better, but I will survive. I will always survive. So, my harm is not of consequence. It is what you do to yourselves and those things that you hold most dear that matters.
Ella and Edvard say nothing. Ella briefly blinks and rubs her eyes.
Diary Text:
But though she spoke with all the certainty and weight of her position as a goddess, she could not hide the glint her eyes. The strokes of pain squirming as a storm in the little striations of that sunburst. How I didn’t notice until right then, I’m not sure. But they were bright, raging with the light and fire of a distant sun. Weren’t they normally faded?
As if to answer my unasked question, I blinked and the effect vanished.
SCP-001: That is why I deceived you both into coming here. Now sit and let us talk of things that must change.
Ella and Edvard make their way over to the chairs and sit. They pour themselves tea.
Speaker Edvard: I’m sorry, Seeress.
SCP-001: The apology is appreciated but of little worth, unless commitment is found.
Speaker Ella: Where do you want to start?
SCP-001: With Edvard.
Edvard shifts in his chair.
SCP-001: I will not dance around these issues. Forgive my brutal bluntness to come.
Speaker Edvard: I think you’ve earned the right to be as blunt as necessary.
Speaker Ella: Edvard this ceaseless chase to dull the rage and guilt you feel with intoxication and drugs is killing your body. It is destroying your relationships. You vanish in the middle of the day to drink, to get high. You are neglecting your position, leaving us each exposed to Bowe’s whims, and the threat of the GOC. I do not care to look into where else you go, but this must stop. You have a choice, a choice which Ella would be bound to arrive to in time, but not before you do more harm.
Edvard looks down.
SCP-001: I know this is difficult, but please meet my gaze.
Edvard does as instructed.
SCP-001: These are your options.
SCP-001 holds up one finger.
SCP-001: One, you check yourself into rehab, get help, get clean. Ella would assign a temp during your stay.
It holds up a second finger.
SCP-001: Two, you stay with the medical team, remove all tempting materials, and continue your work.
It holds up a third.
SCP-001: Three, have Ella return to holding you accountable, clean out your residence, monitor your every movement.
SCP-001 pauses for several seconds.
SCP-001: Or four, you can continue as you have been. Continue to spiral, be forced into Rehab, removed from your position, and be returned to a life in mundane reality.
Edvard is quiet for several minutes.
Speaker Edvard: I need some time to think about which recovery option I want to take.
SCP-001: Of course.
Speaker Ella: Whatever you need, Edvard, please don’t hesitate to ask.
I was already anticipating how I too would be torn apart by her cutting strings. My chest and stomach were filling with the swirls of dread.
But there was something else too.
Something stirred inside my chest, as she spoke with such tremendous authority. I suppose you could call it an awakening. A sticky, cloying, emptiness of a realization. A yearning. That same yearning which I had drowned with the precipitation of war. That I buried while managing the rapidly growing elements of the Silicon Nornir.
Her light and dark had snared me; curled about my mind and brought my full focus onto her form. Perhaps it was seven years of seeing her at her absolute worst that kept it from me. The night terrors, the bouts of panic, the fear and desperation. Perhaps it was the echoes of that day at the hospital. When we’d stormed the Critical Isolation Ward to find her covered in her own shit, piss, blood, and vomit. Maybe, I’m ashamed to admit, it was hidden by the growing resentment of managing her all those years. Sacrificing sleep and sanity to keep her safe.
Beneath all the horrors and psychological scars was a beautiful woman, no, a beautiful goddess. Strong of will and spirit. The world broke her and how did she respond? She picked all the pieces up and glued herself back together. Yet she walks on, cracking jokes, spinning riddles and wordplay. Every room she steps inside is always a little brighter and yet also weighted with a sense of distant melancholy. Her voice a song unto itself. It radiated in the shower with hymns of a language I didn’t recognize.
Now she sat before us, our roles almost completely reversed. And I realized, she might be far more to me than I could have anticipated.
Then she tore me apart.
SCP-001: Ella—
Speaker Ella: I know what you’re going to say.
SCP-001: Oh? Do you?
Speaker Ella: I’ve also been too reliant on turning to the bottle. I’ve been slower to act than I should have been.
Speaker Ella looks up at SCP-001 and waits. SCP-001 taps its fingers on the chair.
SCP-001: You fell upon the mead when it all began to press down upon you, and such indulgence has slowed your ability to act… but that is small.
Ella blinks.
SCP-001: The truth is, you do too much. You handle the bureaucracy of Bowe’s abuse completely on your own. How many times have you allowed forms to slip through the cracks? How many times have we discovered his abuse at a ball; how many times have I had to retreat to a bathroom and weep?
Speaker Ella: I—
SCP-001: Let me finish.
Ella sits back, visibly distressed.
SCP-001: Four years ago, you had the funding and the willpower to cultivate a new generation of Speakers, who could relieve you of this burden. Why didn’t you? Is it a need to control? To prevent the mistakes that led to the death of your husband? A defense, an avenue to exert a modicum of agency against the endless grind of the GOC? It feels as if there is a sense of needless greed to stockpile more profit than you need, to minimize the labor necessary. You remain bound to the levers of capital, and do not see a newfound society beginning to build beneath the shadows of what will be your towers.
Ella’s eyes begin to water.
SCP-001: But the sins of a workaholic and capitalist are not your greatest failing. The failure to hold Edvard accountable for his vices, out of some fear of being hypocritical has put us all in danger. This zealous faith in a rapidly breaking system has rendered us slow to respond. Closed the door to alternative paths.
Ella begins to cry. Edvard reaches over and places a hand on her shoulder.
SCP-001: It is time to wake up Ella. It is time to see that your responsibilities are no longer to a tiny cult trying to survive a war. Your responsibility is to the world.
Speaker Ella: I did not mean for this—
SCP-001: I know you didn’t. Just as I didn’t intend to inflict upon any of you the misery we have oft found ourselves together in. But the road to Náströnd’s belly is paved with bricks of golden intention.
Speaker Ella: What do you want me to do?
SCP-001: You have three options.
Speaker Ella: Option one?
SCP-001: Recruit new Speakers, attract new devotees to the faith. Teach them the intricacies of bureaucracy and pay them well. Delegate your responsibilities. Begin investing in full into the future of Eurtec, the health and wellbeing of its citizens. Build a society worthy of my name, in my name. Then you must hold Edvard and others accountable for their behavior. Build systems to catch people before they fall into those cracks. Relieve or fire those who fail to improve after they inflict harm upon the organization. Hire more security, build more fail safes against Bowe. Most importantly, stop hoping the GOC will save us. We must prepare to save ourselves by cutting our strings.
Ella blows her nose into a Kleenex.
Speaker Ella: Two?
SCP-001: Step down as CEO of the Silicon Nornir Corporation. Let someone else take the reigns and fulfill my vision.
Speaker Ella: Is there a third option?
SCP-001: That would be to continue as you have and watch us all burn against the horizon.
Ella sniffles. She is quiet for several minutes.
Speaker Ella: I’ll commit to option one. But… I’ll need help.
SCP-001’s posture relaxes.
SCP-001: My eyes will guide your path and the hands of others.
Ella nods, blowing her nose into the tissue. After a moment, Ella turns to Edvard.
Speaker Ella: Edvard, I owe you an apology. I let things get to where they were on every front. I should have intervened sooner.
Speaker Edvard: Maybe, but I wouldn’t have made it easier for you. I’m sorry, to both of you. I’ve failed to do my job and put everyone at risk. I need some time to think it through, but maybe it’s best if I go to rehab.
SCP-001: I’m certain that Ella can make the arrangements once you’re sure. What I have to say to you both is that, the path we have walked has been winding and rocky. You are human. Your mistakes do not define you forever and I will not hold them against you. Strive to be more than you were before this conversation. That is the path to a better future.
SCP-001 rises, gathering her quilt. Ella sniffles again, wiping her eyes.
SCP-001: Whilst there will be much to speak of in the coming days, this Seeress is old and needs her sleep.
Speaker Ella: I—right. I’ll see you in the morning, Seeress.
Speaker Edvard: Rest well, Seeress.
SCP-001 stops momentarily, half turns, and looks in the general direction of the Speakers.
SCP-001: Ella, draw up a plan of action. We will sit and speak of it in the coming week.
Speaker Ella: Of course Seeress.
Ella watches SCP-001 exit the alcove. Edvard stares into his tea. After several seconds, the tension leaves both their bodies. Edvard looks up at the underworld sky while Ella cries for several more minutes. Eventually, she stops.
Speaker Edvard: What… just happened?
Speaker Ella: We just got our six-year reviews.
Speaker Edvard: Felt more like we were getting fired.
Speaker Ella: More like a scathing deconstruction.
Speaker Edvard: So, we’re not fired?
Speaker Ella: Not yet at least.
They sit in silence for another minute.
Speaker Edvard: How’d we get here?
Speaker Ella: We took a leap of faith.
Speaker Edvard: Mmm.
Speaker Ella: Now she’s doing the same with us.
Speaker Edvard: Bunch of fuckups we are to get to this point.
Speaker Ella: Misfits.
Speaker Edvard: Outcasts.
Speaker Ella: Literally.
One minute of silence.
Speaker Ella: We have to be better for her sake.
Speaker Edvard: I know.
Another minute of silence passes.
Speaker Ella: Edvard… is it sacrilegious to develop a crush on a goddess?
Edvard looks at Ella.
Speaker Edvard: What?
Speaker Ella gets up.
Speaker Ella: Nothing. Idle thoughts.
Speaker Edvard: You want to talk about it?
Speaker Ella: Not right now. Maybe someday, but not now.
<End Log>
It was a week later that Edvard checked himself into a Rehab facility. It was strange, after more than a decade, not having him as a regular presence at my side. His temp replacement was our second in command. A quiet man whose presence faded into the background of any room he was in for an extended period of time. It simply wasn’t the same.
It was in the early-mid 1950s that I started to feel my enthusiasm for life and everything we were doing begin to return. With the awareness of how we’d been enabling everything, we began to mitigate the things we couldn’t outright control. Bowe, bureaucracy, the Seeress’s suffering.
They say that money can’t buy happiness, but it certainly can make life easier. And we were rolling in it.
It became trivial to entice new believers to our cause with higher wages and benefits. Delegating bureaucratic warfare to people who weren’t juggling 50 other tasks made my time more manageable. Made it harder for Bowe to shove things through the cracks. This in turn prevented him from wounding the Seeress with nasty surprises.
With my hands now free, I could turn my attention to fully managing the construction of the NFMA. I had more time to manage our finances, finding ways to maximize our growth as an entity.
Taking the Seeress’s comments in mind, we are setting up social safety net programs for the populace. We’re starting to offer work programs, housing programs, education initiatives, affordable healthcare clinics, food assistance programs, and even retirement plans. I’m certainly no politician, but if we’re going to make Eurtec a place that occultic populations want to live in, we’ve got to commit to transforming the wheels of capitalism to benefit everyone under our watch.
The GOC certainly wasn’t going to.
With all these changes in motion, I turned my attention to exploring what I had felt the night the Seeress intervened. For many long years we had taken care of her, lived alongside her. But I could not say I truly knew her for who she was. Only what she showed us. There were glimpses, but they were always shallow and oddly guarded. This newfound freedom from delegation brought us closer together.
[[div class="factual"]]
Diary Text:
We started eating dinner together every other night, listening to radio programs.
Can you imagine learning to knit or draw from a blind woman? I certainly couldn’t have before this past monday. Have you ever seen a blind woman dance? Neither did I until this past Sunday. Who taught her to dance? Why is there so much freedom in her steps?
Others see it, that much I’m sure of.
I’ve started accompanying her on walks.
There’s occasional street art of the Seeress in some of the residential sectors. It is inspired and hopeful, filled with the implication that she is carrying Eurtec’s burdens on her back. It seems as though she is becoming a symbol of the city, right under our noses.
A light in the dark of Pentagram’s growing human supremacist attitude.
What does she do on these walks, I hear you asking?
She speaks with the citizens. Asks about their lives. She goes to festivals, community events, marathons, competitions, and sometimes she even participates.
Now I am drawn along with her.
My heart would beat faster in her presence. My stomach fluttered with butterflies that I’d not felt since the days with my long-departed husband. Yet with every hour spent with this incredible woman, a stark reality sat with me.
I had a crush. It was like I was a schoolgirl again, laughing at every joke that slipped from her lips. Stealing glances when I thought she wasn’t paying attention, even though she was blind. But there’s a fractious question burning hot in the back of my mind.
Is this sacrilegious? The only person worth asking that question was Edvard. Never had I felt his absence more keenly than when I was asking those questions in the dark of the underworld night.
It was this environment in which the most shocking revelation of my life landed square in our laps.