STEP ███/███:
Finish relay.”
She was she was and I am.
Leaves and twigs and dead things crack and snap and splinter under me. They break and split and stab but I bury them long before they can hurt me.
There is no wind, but the air howls when I run. There is no sound, but the ground whimpers when I stalk. There is no light, but I see everything, everything, EVERYTHING lurking in the dark.
I can feel them. They’re close. They’re loud.
Every sense I have, every limb I operate, every tendon and muscle and bone jubilates in unison, singing to me. Like it’s the first time. Like I’ve never done it before.
It’s all so legible. It’s all so together. I can see my thoughts in front of me, like webbed nodes, leading each other, one to the other to the other to the other. Once, my thoughts were hidden deep inside an ever-heavier head, pumped with whirring and awful noise, but no longer — now they speak to me in soothing tones, in lilting sing-song tongues. It all makes sense. It all makes sense. It all makes sense.
She was she was and I am.
Shouting that way! I dash, and monoliths of wood can’t stop me. Footsteps! I double back, and jagged rocks on the ground, hungry for blood, can’t pierce me. A scent! A gorgeous, wonderful, exquisite scent. Beloved interloper of the forest, intruder among the pines, monsters, I CAN FEEL YOU.
Something wriggles inside of me. It’s them, the little selves I collect, squirming like butterflies. Which one? The frightened soldiers, who held her captive? The invaders, horrified, who’d been too MUDDLED to stay away?
The commander. The Sergeant. I can feel my blood warming at the thought of him. He makes sense right now. I can taste their fear, those two lonely boys hiding from me in the woods… they’re too far to make out everything, but I can tell. They’re invaders. They came with the commander, with those white-robed cowards, storming around in their trucks. They’ll listen to his voice.
Voice. Someone once tried to take away my voice. But they gave me hundreds instead.
I speak, I howl, I sing with many, many, many voices.
One thought leads to another leads to another leads to another. I don’t even have to keep track of it anymore.
His voice flows out of me, righteous, authoritative.
“Soldiers!” Listen. “Patrol ended!” Yes. “Regroup.” Keep close to each other. “Come together!”
Don’t move.
I have to be careful when I speak in my other voices. It is delicate. I know this, but when I run, the world turns to a blur, and my heart beats so fast, and my bones vibrate, and my muscles burst with power, and I am no longer delicate.
I remember being very delicate indeed. Conversely, I remember being frightened.
I remember white rooms, and having a throat of one voice. The world was clear as glass but my thoughts were a blur, rushing around in whirlwinds, sinking into my skin, making me tremble.
I wanted, I craved, I pleaded. I could not hunt for what I wanted, because I could not hold it. I could not savor what I had, because I could not eat it. And the three people I wanted most in the world, the three voices I prayed to in my solitude — they did not speak back to me, and they did not hear me. They were very far away.
All was silence and blinding lights. White coats and thrashing monsters.
They all thought I had forgotten. It made them feel safer. They had to imagine I was not the same, they had to focus on my blistering red skin, my jagged spine, my jaw…
They gave me names I didn’t like.
They gave me a number.
I heard…
But I know my number. I know my name. I remember everything.
She was she was and I am.
Today is my triumph. Nothing has stopped me today. I have wounds and I hurt, but I have more voices, so many more voices, and that is a happy thought. When I turn inwards, I can feel them all dancing within me, living with me, excited to come out. I would smile at them if I could — but they are buried down deep and I am not.
“We won!” the Sergeant says, coming out of my jaws, through my bloodsoaked teeth. “Homebound. Get in! We’re going.”
This place has been a blessing. I don’t quite know what happened, or why I was called here; I simply followed the things I felt. My body is stronger than I am now. When it guides me, I listen, instead of locking myself into my own head in a scramble for answers. Yes… A consequence of power, I think, is accepting some sporadic uncertainty.
Something has changed. Unrelated to me, but close to me, brushing against my soul. I felt it in the Earth. I felt it everywhere and in everything — a great tremor in the Universe, something that should not have happened. And now, panic. Panic. Panic. Fear for everyone, fear for the little gods in their little metal houses and their white coats. And in the meantime, here I am, swimming in their panic.
Swimming…
I am close to them now. The two I hunt. The little soldiers in the woods.
I feel them.
Their breathing is heavy. Their pores call out to me.
They are more careful than others have been. Perhaps they don’t care for the Sergeant? Still, I let him speak through me a few more times, prodding them. But I don’t hear movement.
I slow down.
Close to the ground I crouch, and then advance, my claws gliding under the leaves noiselessly.
I can see them now. A man stands, metal death-bringer in hand, pointed near where I hide… a ways behind him, another, hands shaking. Two. Similar height. Similar eyes. Similar scent…
Scent…
The soldier closest to me sweeps the trees with his scope. He passes over me several times, but I do not blame him for his inattention — there are worse failings to have.
Their scent…
I recognize it.
I recognize it.
Strangers they are not, but brothers. And only one of them is a soldier. He is aiming at me.
I wonder: would he aim at me if he knew my names?
I could speak to him. My eldest voice is one I have not used in a long time. It would be a joy.
The brother, standing some distance behind him… his sorrow, I can smell. Layers of fear dilute it, but it is there.
The brothers. We were four once. The soldier and I, and his brother and… and my sister. Charlie. Charlie. Charlie.
The brothers whose voices I wished for, those long eons in darkness.
The soldier… Once, in a muddled mind and among blurred thoughts, he stood sharp and clear against the chaos.
And now they both remind me of her. Dear, sweet sister. Charlie…
How I would love to speak in your voice.
I will take you with me, out of mourning, out of pain. I will look inwards and find you dancing in peace. You look for me, but you think of my skin, and my hair, and my hands. Think instead of my eyes. Think instead of my smile. Think instead of my voice.
She was, she was, but only I am.
ONE MORE PART OF IT ALL
STEP ███/███:
Report success.
“Mark,” Philip whispered. “What’s happening?”
Still nothing. He saw nothing.
His eyes told him to calm down. His mind urged him to continue towards the truck. His bones rattled, begging him to squeeze the trigger and blindly sweep over the forest. But somehow, he stood still.
“Mark,” Philip said again.
“Shush.”
The bushes moved again. He swiveled, tracking the movement — better this time, actually. He still couldn’t see the thing dashing around them. But bullets might find it.
“A boar?” Philip asked. But from his voice, Mark could tell he didn’t believe that. Just like he didn’t believe it either.
The world is made of patterns. If you’ve seen something a dozen times before, and you know steps one through ten, then odds are when you see steps one, two, and three, you can see step four coming. That had kept Mark alive. That had kept Mark moving forwards. That had kept Mark sane — no matter where he was. The Chaos Insurgency had begun to break from those rules — in odd, little ways, their patterns were not right. They were too perfect, or too random.
But randomness is rarer than people say. If something looks random, it may just be part of a larger pattern that they don’t yet understand.
That knowledge electrified Philip; recognizing patterns was euphoria to him. But to Mark, recognizing patterns was breathing. Not in the sense that he was particularly talented at doing so — but because he was always afflicted with a silent, assassin anxiety that whispered that if he ever stopped, he would choke, collapse, and die.
The Chaos Insurgency was the very first part of a pattern he’d never seen before. A very, very large pattern, hooded in the Earth, hiding from everything. The other parts of it were locked away — behind metal walls and lab coats.
But Mark knew of one more thing. All the soldiers of the CI knew of one more part of it all — the light above the anglerfish.
Philip wavered next to him a little. “Fuck, Mark…” He’d figured it out too, it seemed. “It’s one of them.”
The dead leaves on the floor rattled again, and Mark imagined claws like scythes raking them. Bushes trembled in the still night and Mark imagined a face overflowing with eyes, staring at him. Movement again, to the right, and Mark —
— pulled the fucking trigger.
The quiet and black night came alive. Philip’s hands flew to his ears in shock. For a moment, in the lightning-like light of the rifle, Mark could see his brother’s face clear as day, scrunched up in fear.
The bullets ripped into the trees in front of them, tearing into bark — Mark strained to see what they hit. He thought he saw something, a dark shape, momentarily slowed — but the next instant it was gone.
“F… fuck, man,” Philip groaned.
Mark glanced at him. “Next time, shoot with me.”
“What? I… I can barely aim.”
“Phil,” Mark said. “I trust you. Shoot with me.”
His brother raised his weapon, and waited.
Movement. Mark traced it with his gun, but didn’t fire. It was testing him, he knew. His ammo was limited— he couldn’t just empty rounds into the empty darkness over and over. He had to wait. Wait until… until it came closer.
Philip shook, but followed his movements. Mark wanted to glance at him. But he couldn’t. He had to stay —
Sound. Something was —
Bullets erupted from Mark’s rifle, and then Philip’s, burrowing into — into a thing. In the brief moments the bullets lit it up, Mark gasped.
A claw on a tree, pulling it forwards. Flesh so red, it looked like the forest was bleeding. Eyes fixed, fixed, unmoving, on them.
The bullets… it didn’t… it wasn’t… it felt nothing, nothing, it just… continued —
But when the dust settled, it had vanished again.
Mark glanced at Philip.
His brother didn’t even move. He just stood, feet planted, saying nothing. He looked at Mark for a split second, and his mouth shook itself open.
“Shots fired!” The Sergeant’s voice again. “Shots fired!”
Philip stumbled backwards. So did Mark.
And then, another voice came out of the trees.
But it wasn’t the Sergeant’s.
“Mark?” it whispered.
Mark froze.
Philip glanced around wildly. “Is that —”
“Mark,” it said. “Is that you?”
Mark didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
“I need your help, Mark.” The voice slithered around him, directionless. “I need you to say something, Mark. I need you to speak to me, Mark.”
“No,” Mark breathed.
“You’re so tired, Mark. You used to tell me all about it. You used to like being carried, but you lied. Do you remember? Do you remember?” The voice grew hushed. “Do you remember?”
How did they…? Despite everything, Mark’s rifle wavered, shaking, lowering ever so slightly.
“What are you?” Mark whispered.
“I am,” it said.
“It’s not her,” Philip said.
Mark didn’t answer. The encroaching familiarity, the voice, he… he was tired. And it could be…
Its eyes flashed in his mind.
Mark raised his rifle again.
“Do you remember?” it asked again.
“Mark,” Philip said. “We have to go.”
“Phil,” the voice said suddenly. “Phil?”
Philip closed his eyes. “We have to go.”
“Where’s Charlie?” the voice asked. “Where’s Charlie? Where’s Charlie? I miss her. She misses me.”
“I don’t know,” Philip mumbled. “I lost her.”
“I’ll find her,” the voice said… happily? “I’ll find her. Very soon. Then we can go. We can go, all four of us, we can go.”
The voice was off, just like the Sergeant’s had been. But…
“Harper?” Mark asked.
The forest stood still. Then wind blew across his face, and the trees recoiled, and dead leaves curled around his legs.
“You remember,” the voice said.
A streak of red lashed out from the woods.
Mark tried to aim, but his guard was down and he was too late — his leg split open with pain and he collapsed.
Behind him, Philip screamed.
Mark twisted in the ground, seeing his leg — his mangled, twisted, horrible leg, shred apart in moments — and tried to raise his rifle. But it slipped out of his hands.
Philip’s headless body collapsed in front of him.
The impact with the ground caused blood to spurt from his neck into Mark’s face. He didn’t even make for his rifle.
The creature, blocking out the night sky, crouched over him, soundless.
“I’ll remember, too,” it said. “I will remember everything.”
EPILOGUE
Very far away from those woods, a watch ticked.
She stared at it. Without its incessant clicking, it’d be hard to tell that any time had passed at all.
“Thank you, Charlie.” Looking up, the interrogator smiled softly at her. “That will be all for now. I need to convene with my associates before I ask any more questions. Would you like some water? Or perhaps something to eat?”
“No.” Charlie didn’t meet his eyes. Arms still crossed, she stared at the table between them, blinking. “No. After all this, I’m just… I’m tired.”
“I understand,” he said. Standing up, he collected his clipboard, and his mug.
Charlie’s eyes turned upwards at him as he left. “I can leave?”
“Of course.”
Charlie nodded slowly.
The doctor turned away, and he was moments before exiting the room. But he paused for a moment, eyes on his clipboard. He flipped a page, then flipped it back. His hand fell to the inside of his lab coat, and something clicked.
“I do have a final question,” the doctor said, “if you don’t mind.”
Charlie stared up at him. “About Harper?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Dr. Olson sat back down, placing his clipboard before him, and taking a sip from his mug. “There’s been a recent development.”
“With Harper.”
He ignored her. “I assume you’re familiar with the Chaos Insurgency, yes?”
Charlie shrugged. “I don’t have files on them or anything.”
“But you know them.”
“I know of them.” She pointed through the one-way glass behind him. “I know you don’t like each other very much.”
“The relationship is more one-sided than that,” Olson said. “But very well. And?”
“And they raid you,” Charlie said. “They shoot you, you shoot them back. That sort of thing.”
“And?”
“And what about them?”
Dr. Olson tapped his pen to his clipboard absent-mindedly, then continued. “One such raid was performed on a Foundation facility, some time ago. As you so succinctly put it, they shot us, and we shot them back.”
“Well done.”
“It seemed,” he said, “that the Insurgency placed some importance on you, during that raid.”
Charlie coughed. “What?”
“Apparently.”
“I’m… not sure why they would.”
“You haven’t been in contact with any Insurgency agents in recent memory?”
“No.”
“Have you noticed being surveilled in any way by the Insurgency?”
“No. Not by the Insurgency.”
“Not the Insurgency?”
“With respect,” she said, “It’s not the Insurgency that snatched me up, put me in a box, and interrogated me.”
“You went after us, Miss Callin.”
“And you’re telling me you let me do that unsupervised?” Charlie made a tsk sound, shaking her head.
He ignored her. “Have you any object or piece of knowledge that might have drawn the Insurgency’s ire? Aside from your relationship with your sister?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Can you think of anything?”
“No. And please don’t go poking around in my head to make sure.”
"We're not wizards, Miss Callin.”
She shrugged.
“Well, these were all long shots,” Dr. Olson said, flipping another page. “Intel suggests this was the isolated work of a few agents. Does the name Mark Shane mean anything to you?”
She looked up — quicker than she meant to.
“Mark Shane?” she asked.
“Yes. Or Philip…”
“They’re brothers,” she mumbled.
“Yes, that’s it.” Dr Olson smiled. “Who are they to you?”
“Friends,” she said. “What were they doing there? They joined the Insurgency?”
“I’m afraid I have no answer for you,” Dr. Olson said, writing. He looked up. “You think it’s credible that these were just two isolated individuals looking for you?”
Fucking idiots, she thought to herself. Idiots, idiots, idiots. “Yeah.”
Dr Olson nodded again. “I think I agree. We have reason to believe the Insurgency had far more important reasons to raid that facility.”
Charlie didn’t answer. Philip might’ve, that stupid bastard, she thought. But Mark? Mark was supposed to keep Philip safe. What the hell was going through his head?
“Miss Callin. I’m going to ask you one more question — I apologize for being so insistent, but this facility that the Insurgency raided is of… considerable importance to the Foundation. I need your absolute word that what you say to me is true and accurate, so I can exonerate you of any involvement. Understood?”
She nodded, staring blankly ahead.
“When I say the words ‘Site 19,’” Dr. Olson said very, very slowly, “does that mean anything to you?”
Charlie met his gaze. “No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No, doctor.”
Dr. Olson nodded, and finally closed his clipboard. “Good. Very well. If you need anything from us, Mr. Grames will be happy to assist you.”
He started to get up.
“Doctor,” Charlie said, watching him. “Mark and Philip. Where are they now? Are they alive?” She paused, then added, “I know you… you can’t really say much. But — please.”
Dr. Olson paused for a little while. “We lost track of them during the assault. Neither of their bodies were recovered, so they may still be…”
A breath of relief escaped her. “They’re alive?”
The doctor pursed his lips. “Certainly, certainly. I see no reason… why they wouldn’t be.” He smiled at her. “Have a nice day, Miss Callin.”
The door closed.
So Mark and Philip had come after her. Despite everything, the thought did warm her up a little bit — she just had to find them, get them out of the Insurgency. They had no idea what they had just joined.
Harper was somewhere out there, too. She’d been close, right before the Foundation had picked her up. Charlie had to stay close to them — if she had any chance of finding her way into this world, it was here, and it was now.
She played the interrogation over in her head. What she did know about the Foundation is that their secrets tended to all fit into each other, locking together like puzzle pieces. And the more of the picture she had, the easier it would be to find her way around.
Harper, Mark and Philip, the Insurgency, the Foundation, and little old Charlie Callin. All related to one raid.
Maybe that was the place to start. She could figure out where to go from there later — right now she just needed a general direction, a goal, something concrete. A mystery.
So then, she thought to herself, tapping the table. What’s Site-19?
Absent-mindedly, she grabbed her cup and took a sip.
She rubbed her forehead for a moment. The room felt more sterile by the minute, the cold white light above her needling into her skin, the metal chair stabbing at her shoulder blades. Leaning back, she sighed, and… she still wanted to prod at the Foundation… but honestly, right now? Right now she actually just wanted to go home. She didn’t even —
That’s when she suddenly looked up, and blinked.
She shielded her eyes from the blinding white light on the ceiling, and glanced around, frantic. Nothing in the room had changed, but she examined it anyway. She twisted in her chair and looked under the table, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, she peered down at the contents of her cup. She narrowed her eyes at the suspiciously troubled mirror, embedded into the back wall of the room.
From the other side of it, Olson clicked his tongue and pressed a button. “Good?”
Another voice popped in, muffled by static. “Good.”
Something in his stomach tugged at him a little, but Olson rolled his shoulders, picked up his clipboard, and walked back into the room.
The girl at the table jumped slightly at seeing him enter. He smiled at her.
“Miss Callin, right?”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m Doctor Olson, of the SCP Foundation. Have you ever heard of us?”
She shook her head.
“I see.” He took a quick note, then looked back up at her, his gaze warm. “You’ve been through a traumatic event, Charlie. We’re here to help.”
