We’d been so cautious, keeping quiet, covering
up, only moving at night, but sometimes, despite all your best efforts, you just get unlucky. We made our way through what we thought was
an abandoned street, littered with broken-down cars, when those... Things had slithered out and ambushed us. Kaspar, who was always the most trigger happy
of us, panicked and opened fire with his scavenged submachine gun on the largest of the creatures. Big mistake. It didn’t slow the monster down, and only
seemed to attract more. It’d be blob city before sunrise now. But poor Kaspar wouldn’t make it that long. Fleshy tendrils wrapped around his limbs and
pulled him into the terrible mass of one of the creatures. It started reshaping around him, enveloping
him as he screamed, until the tide of flesh coursing down his throat silenced him. The whole time, the monster just kept gibbering
madness in a warped voice. “Become one, yes, let our cells bond and
our minds coagulate in the glorious shimmering light. We will all be one in daylight, pretty flower,
yes, yes, yes...” And then there were four. Me, Ellen, Darcy, and Jones. There had been more of us once, but in this
war of attrition, we always seemed to be the ones who had to lose. And if we didn’t get away from these monsters
quickly, then there wouldn’t be any of us left soon enough. We ran, ducking and weaving around the cars
as the blobs got closer. There were so many of them, all howling and
ranting, zealots for the only cause their melted excuses for minds could understand
anymore. Occasionally, we fired back, hoping to slow
them down a little - But it never worked. The guns, if anything, were a psychological
support mechanism, and something to scare off other survivors who were even more desperate
than us. When it came to the blobs, especially the
big ones, the only things you could do were run and hope. And hope’s in short supply these days. No matter how fast we ran, the blobs kept
catching up, and they didn’t seem to get tired. Knowing we couldn’t outrun them, we ran
up to one of the abandoned cars and crouched behind them, breathing raggedly. This whole stupid mission, in hopes of eventually
reaching safety, a good night’s sleep behind solid walls, and some people who actually
know what the Hell is going on. I drew my sidearm out of my pocket. Even if I didn’t make it out of here, I
wouldn’t turn into one of those monsters. Pulling back the hammer, I muttered a quiet
prayer. If there’s a God out there, he had a hell
of a lot to answer for right now. I looked to Ellen, Darcy, and Jones, and they
all had the same idea. It was a pleasure to know them all, after
everything that’d happened. We heard the blobs getting closer, their lunatic
whispers growing in volume and intensity, as they always did before they claimed one
of us. I breathed a sigh, ready to accept my fate,
knowing what I needed to do. It all seemed to be over. Until He appeared. I looked up and spotted a strange man approaching. He was dressed in an old-fashioned hessian
toga, His hair and beard frosty white. I couldn’t identify His age or race, but
those factors seemed secondary to the fact His eyes were glowing brilliant white, as
if exuding pure energy. He raised a hand, the same glowing aura of
pure white energy emanating off of it. I’d seen so many things that terrified me
in the past six months. But this... This was the first time I’d experienced
something I could call “Awe.” He walked towards us with a stillness and
confidence and said “You look like you could use a hand.” Where were you when day broke? Whoever’s left, they remember. I was in a supermarket with my wife and two
kids, just another normal day. I was worrying about bills, taxes, and whatever
we were going to have for dinner that night. If the Devil exists, I’d sell my soul to
the nasty red creep to get those worries back. Lucky for us, we were in the back half of
the store, lit entirely by artificial light. The people checking out their groceries down
front, right in front of the building’s huge, glass facade, they were the first to
go down. All these terrible drowned screams. First, the exact kind of shrieks you’d expect
from somebody starting to melt. Then, the gurgling, like a backed-up drain,
as their mouth and throat melted around the sound, choking it. Those were the first minutes of Hell on Earth. I’ve never been the smartest man. I was a roofer, back when things made sense. Never went to college, never been much for
reading, but I had intuition, and I credit that with surviving this long. My dad was in the service. Two tours in ‘Nam. He always told me when I was a kid, the guys
who didn’t make it back, they panicked. Because that’s what the enemy wants you
to do. They hope, when everything hits the fan, you’ll
break formation, forget the plan, and all start scurrying in different directions like
rats, just hoping you’ll be the one who finds a crack and gets out. That’s when they get you. When you panic, you’re giving up the birth
rite of reason and letting the animal take over. “And animals, son, are easier to kill.” When the sun went bad that day, plenty of
people in that store started running. They didn’t know what they were running
from, or where they were running to. They just wanted to put some distance between
themselves and the screaming. Every man for himself. I’d love to tell you all those people are
dead now, but in actuality, they were in for a far worse fate. They ran out of the safety and cover of the
store, putting themselves at the mercy of the light. Even as they melted, they kept running. They were blobs, slithering away, not even
knowing that the thing they were running from had already gotten them. It all happened so fast, but I can remember
every single detail. You can judge me if you like. I don’t care anymore. If I could have spoken reason to those terrified
people that day, hand on my heart, I would have. But one of man’s greatest design flaws is
that God made fear the master of reason. Nothing I could’ve said that day would’ve
changed anything. The only ones I could hope to save were my
family, so that’s exactly what I did. We grabbed what we could, stayed away from
windows, and made our way to the nearest supply closet. We were in there for hours, and we didn’t
come out until things were actually quiet. Which, coincidentally, happened to be at night. When we stepped outside of the store, we saw
the carnage that must’ve unfolded over the past few hours. Windows smashed. Cars driven into storefronts and abandoned. Slithering blobs of former-people on the ground. In the space of a few hours, the world had
truly and irrevocably changed. No matter what happened, even if we survived,
we knew there would never be a “normal” as we’d known it before ever again. The same message was playing on every TV,
radio, and computer. A logo I didn’t quite recognize, along with
an overlay that read, “An Important Message from the SCP Foundation.” It explained, in an eternally looping, robotic
voice, that they were superseding the control of all world governments to protect humanity
from this new and terrifying threat. In short, the sun had turned against us. In some scenarios, survival is a curse. In those early days and weeks, you wouldn’t
believe the number of times I started to envy the dead. People who’d been wiped off the mortal coil
by diseases and car crashes and random acts of violence in the days before Day Broke,
they had no idea how good they had it. Little by little, in this terrible new world,
death became a kind of luxury. Because melting under the fiery gaze of the
sun? That wasn’t death. Not even close. They seemed harmless at first. Tragic, pitiful, really. The voices on the TV even told us that, to
avoid starvation, we could eat small parts of the melted. But, over time, the situation evolved. I don’t know when it started, or why, but
the blobs that had once been people started coagulating. They joined up, started turning into bigger
creatures, all with one mind, always screaming and talking madness in a collage of stolen
voices. These monsters existed for one purpose, and
one purpose only: Finding the people who were still normal and dragging them out into the
light to join them. They roamed the world during the night, hunting,
seeking. And given night was the only time we could
ever safely move, this created problems for all of us. We lost so many to those terrible monsters. Including my wife and both my kids. See what I mean about survival sometimes being
a curse? Especially when you’ve got people to miss. I wish they were dead, all three of them,
but I still hear them - their voices added to the chorus of a house-sized flesh monster. But I lived on, if you can call this living. I met with others, like Kaspar, Ellen, Darcy,
and Jones. All of them had lost people. You hadn’t lived this long if you hadn’t
lost people. We did all we could to keep surviving against
the odds. We spent our days in basements and abandoned
stores, and our nights dodging the flesh creatures and foraging for food. We eked out each day, taking every breath
as it came. We didn’t hope for anything. Until one day, we heard that the people at
the SCP Foundation might know how to reverse all this. They needed all the people and help they could
get at one of their bases, around twenty miles away from us. It’d only be a couple nights walk to get
there, we figured, so why not help out the cause? Safety in numbers, after all - And, truth
be told, we’d missed people. After days of hiding and nights of traveling,
we were ambushed, but you already know about that part. We lost Kaspar to one of those monsters and
got cornered behind an abandoned car. However, as the blobs got closer and closer,
that mysterious stranger with the glowing eyes appeared. He didn’t walk like the rest of us. He was bold, confident, His back straight
as a dancer’s. Like He feared nothing. Like nothing here could hurt Him. Suddenly, I felt a rumbling behind me. The car was rattling. I feared for a second that the blobs were
crawling over it to get us, but when I turned, I saw the opposite was happening. The car was rising off of the ground, free-floating. Myself and the other survivors stared in astonishment
as the stranger simply flicked His wrist. The floating car was thrown with tremendous
force at the largest of the advancing blobs. It hit the beast so hard that the top of it
simply splattered off, freezing what was left in place. Even the other blobs paused, seemingly astonished. We all turned to the stranger, still standing
firm. “Stand behind me if you wish to live,”
He said. There was something both passionate and commanding
about His voice. It was impossible to hear Him and not heed
His words. All of us stood up and ran behind the stranger,
as He lifted both hands. Debris climbed into the air. Cars, rocks, broken glass. The blobs were beginning to coagulate again,
but this time, the stranger wasn’t going to let them get the upper hand again. With a slight nod, everything He’d raised
flew at the blobs with the force of a machine gun. They were decimated. The bigger ones, cut apart. The smaller one fleeing to avoid the onslaught. After months of running from these monsters,
I don’t think any sight could have been more satisfying. When the creatures were gone, the stranger
just gave a quiet sigh. He turned to us and asked if we were okay. The answer was, essentially, “About as much
as we can be.” He told us that we’d be safe as long as
we stuck with Him, and after that display, we had every reason to believe Him. We followed the stranger down the long, dark
road. He always walked in the middle, fearless,
making no attempt to hide. When we asked Him His name, He told us that
He goes by many names, but for the sake of simplicity, we could call Him Matthew. We thanked Matthew for saving us, and He gave
a sad sort of smile, and told us that He only wished He could have done more. There was something so strange about Matthew,
even beyond the fact He apparently had superpowers. I’d never met the man before and I’d be
willing to bet my right hand on that, and yet, it felt like I’d known Him my entire
life. He was so different, and yet, so incredibly
familiar. We told Him we were on our way to a nearby
SCP Foundation facility, where we were told we’d find safe haven. We asked him if he knew where to find it. Matthew told us that, in fact, He’d lived
in that very site for decades, a visitor, just dropping in. He’d had a very stressful job before, and
felt like taking a sabbatical while things ran themselves for once. “Evidently, my help was more necessary than
I imagined,” He said. Occasionally, as we walked, we’d see blobs
watching us from crevices and dark alleys on the side of the road. They seemed to watch, but, for some reason,
didn’t approach. It was the most remarkable thing. “Don’t worry,” He told us. “I’m putting up invisible shields. None of them can approach us as long as I
maintain my focus.” Of course, we’d all heard stories of remarkable
and terrifying things wandering the wasteland we used to call planet earth. You couldn’t run into other survivors and
groups without hearing whispers about the things lurking out there. Some had told of a giant, monstrous reptile
that had destroyed an entire survivor settlement in a mall out in Nevada. Others told that one of those SCP Sites was
haunted. People spoke about a ghostly man who looked
like a rotten corpse, who could walk through walls and drag people to Hell. But the things Matthew was capable of seemed
to be a whole other level. I asked Him what He was, and He told me, “Just
a humble craftsman, my son. I enjoy creating, though admittedly, my creations
seem to have gotten away from me these days.” His evasion was less funny than He seemed
to think it was. I pressed on, asking Him what exactly he’s
capable of. He shrugged, and answered that he could do
almost anything if he really put his mind to it. I asked, “So... Ultimate power?” This gave Him a chuckle. He shook His head, and said, “Let me tell
you a story. A man comes upon a maze cut into a corn field,
and decides he wants to try his luck. He spends hours getting to the center of the
maze, and there, he finds the Devil waiting for him. The Devil says, ‘Welcome to my domain. Your soul is now forfeit, unless you can complete
my challenge and win it back.’ Of course, the man agreed. The Devil said, ‘I can see everything, do
everything, and be everything. I know every inch of the universe and can
produce anything from thin air. If you want to keep your soul, name one thing
I can’t do.” Curious, I asked, “What did the man say?” Matthew smiled and said, “Get lost.” And for the first time in those long, dark
months, I actually laughed, and it was at such a stupid, corny dad joke. It’s a strange world we live in. “Point is,” Matthew continued. “There is no ‘Ultimate Power.’ Some things are denied even to God, especially
when he chooses to walk as a man on the Earth he created.” We kept walking for hours. Matthew assured us that we would get there
in time, as the rest of us got ever more anxious about the thought of the rising sun. He said he’d seen so many sunrises now that
he could time them to the second. In the meantime, we should enjoy getting to
stretch our legs a little. Even now, the city could be beautiful at night. When He led us all the way to what seemed
like an abandoned chemical plant, I could feel my heart sink. All this time, all this work, to find more
people, to find safety, only to see that this place was abandoned, too. Matthew smiled, and said, “That’s just
what they want you to think.” He snapped his fingers and the ground around
us began to rumble. The concrete shifted seamlessly and an entrance
opened up below. Heavy bulkheads shifted, revealing a sleek,
chrome hallway down into the ground. We were astonished. Matthew gestured down into the hall and we
descended. Matthew followed us, the entrance closing
behind him. “I’m just warning you,” He said, “This
may come as a bit of a shock.” We ventured deeper, passing through different
automated security checkpoints as cameras gazed down from above. Eventually, we found ourselves in what seemed
to be a central chamber. It was a hive of activity. People in normal civilians clothes. Guards in tactical gear. Scientists in lab coats. Tears filled my eyes, it was the most people
I’d seen in one place in months. A man in a lab coat wearing an extravagant
medallion approached. He was making notes on a clipboard. “Another batch of survivors. Good work, 343,” the man said. Matthew smiled and nodded. “No problem, Jack. Always happy to help.” The man with the medallion - Jack, presumably
- turned to me. “I imagine you’ve come a long way,”
he said. I nodded. “You have no idea.” Now go check out “SCP-001 - When Day Breaks”
and “Your Questions for God Answered” for more information on the anomalies featured
in today’s tale!
