NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: When Night Breaks
Flying at hypersonic speeds, I arrived at the river barge dock in less than two seconds. Hovering 50 meters above it, I wasted no time and immediately took possession of Quetzalcoatl's Authority of the Wind and acquired information about the position of every single air molecule once more.
Then, I mentally layered those millisecond snapshots and turned them into a one-second video just as I had done before.
There were several masses of meat rolling about in the trash dumping area, absolutely covered in junk. Almost appeared like they were playing. The remaining masses of molten meat were inside the door to an office on the ramp where trucks unload their trash, bumping over tables and chairs.
I opened my eyes and all the colors returned.
There's no human here. I don't need to hold back as much. I don't have to be as careful.
Then, I fell.
Smashing through a window whose shutter hasn't dropped, I immediately blasted the trash heap underneath the ramp where those garbage trucks unload their trash with a burst of plasma.
The trash burned as even ashes reignited. The closest flesh beast to me simply evaporated while those that were further away carbonized into blackened statues of themselves that crumbled to dust. None of them even had time to scream or even call out to me.
The surrounding concrete was glowing a bright red. There wasn't much of any garbage left as all the glass in the room shattered from simply being in the presence of a substance as hot as plasma.
I didn't bother breathing in the fumes that come from burning refuse.
Trash heap neutralized.
"Goddess..."
The strangest-looking meat monster I've ever seen came out from the office on one side of the garbage heap. For one, it didn't look like any amalgamation of humans. It wasn't a messed-up fusion of half a dozen humans, it was just one. Two arms, two legs, and a seriously messed up head that's just an enlarged mouth.
"Goddess join us... endless euphoria will be yours." It called out to me while I just faced it with a horrified look.
"There will be no more pain, no more conflict, no more strife, no more suffering. There will only be happiness, Goddess."
It was the most human-looking thing out there. And it's only been two and a half hours ever since Day Break. Did I somehow encounter a mix of When Day Break and The Flood? I seriously don't recall this being in the original SCP article.
A rope of fire shot out of my hands as I commanded Tohil's Authority over the flames. The creature was doused in this godly fire and instantly collapsed to the ground.
Even as the fire consumed it, that semi-human thing didn't scream. It didn't cry out in pain. It didn't do much of anything other than continue talking.
"You will join us, Goddess, for we are—"
The divine flames fully consumed that being quicker than it could finish its sentence.
Office, neutralized.
Though I should have felt joyful that there weren't any more molten masses of meat, I was unsettled.
In less than a single day these things are already capable of stitching up a semi-human form. Should I be worried they would be capable of perfectly mimicking humans?
It was a troubling thought. I could easily vet each and every human by checking their origin with the Pan-Human History me's Authority over water, but is it possible that eventually, these things are able to mask their conceptual origin?
It sounds ridiculous, but again, this is the world of SCP we are talking about here. There's an SCP that's just a bunch of autonomous Legos that hates Mega Bloks, there's an SCP of Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech where he's getting progressively tortured, and there's an SCP of an afterlife where you are tortured for the rest of eternity no matter if you were good or bad.
Safe to say the SCPverse eats logic for breakfast.
At the same time, if the SCP Foundation was having this much problem dealing with the sun, I think I'm in a canon where the Foundation isn't the all-powerful, all-containing force like how some articles, especially anything beyond the 3000s, would like you to believe.
That is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing since I don't have to deal with any of the utter mindfuck that is meta-narratives the later SCP articles like to get into, but it is a curse since this SCP Foundation is drastically weaker and thus, fewer options for recovering from what must be an XK-Class End of The World scenario.
I looked around me and saw all around this warehouse were multiple tinted windows from which sunlight could come through. That's going to be a problem. That's going to be a very major problem for the safety of this place.
I then looked down at the chutes where bulldozers would push trash down, where they'd then fall into metal containers before being shipped away.
It was almost pitch black in there. I didn't spot any flesh monsters so that place should be the safest for now.
I took off. Back to that house. All it took was less than a minute for me to clear the dock's warehouse of any corrupted humans.
I slowed down as I approached. Flying inside, I made sure that everyone was fine before leaving for that dock again.
I ripped apart pieces of garbage trucks, excavators, and bulldozers for their metal parts. Because of my supernatural strength, I didn't need to heat up the metal to start working on it. I can just brute force everything.
And so I did. Between periodic checkups on the survivors of the old safe house every few minutes, the inside of this dock was filled with the loud groans and screams of metal tearing and being remodeled into a workable shape. Into a thin shell.
Connecting multiple pieces of metal together using plasma welding has caused me to gain a better understanding of how to properly control that volatile substance. For example, conjuring up a sesame seed-sized ball of plasma was almost effortless as it became something like muscle memory.
I stared down at the amalgamated metal shell. It was ugly. It was misshapen with hand prints— my handprints— all over it.
I wasn't looking for anything beautiful, just practical enough that they'll cover all points where sunlight can shine through.
Putting the metal shell over the window and welding its sides on, I hovered back to fully take it all in.
It was perfect.
My head then turned to look around me, and I saw just how much work was left to do.
So many windows…
I flew out through an opened garage door and checked back on the survivors. This time, I wasn't leaving the survivors alone for longer than a maximum of three minutes. Every time I did return I gained custody of Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind and checked the local neighborhood for any more flesh monsters.
I didn't find any at all. When I remarked this, Bethany must've heard me as she proclaimed how my mighty storm scared all of those things away.
I'd like to think that, no matter what that semi-human-shaped flesh thing said. Bethany's words served as a morale boost as I saw how relaxed everyone became. They're still tense of course, but at least they're much more relaxed than hours before.
I took off again. Back to the docks, I go.
Such a cycle repeated itself over the course of the afternoon, with me covering up all the windows of the warehouse with makeshift metal shutters while simultaneously checking up on the survivors.
I know that I'll probably finish faster if I solely focus on covering up the windows, or I could've transported the survivors into the room where those containers are being filled. I could've, but I fear I'd be forced to take extra precautions that not a single piece of metal falls into that chute and potentially harm someone.
I mean, seriously, when I ripped two pieces of a truck apart, one of those pieces that I threw embedded itself deep into the concrete ramp where garbage trucks dump their trash from.
It was only by dusk that I was done. The total metal required exceeded those provided by the vehicles, forcing me to use trash-filled metal containers instead.
I felt a bit bad just dumping the trash into the river, but given how all the fish have been transmuted into amalgamations of waxy flesh, I didn't give it a second thought.
I stood in the middle of this warehouse. Basked in total darkness away from the light. I made sure to weld every single door and metal shutter closed, with the only way in or out from a single garage door that garbage trucks entered and exited from.
To ensure even more safety, I used concentrated blasts of plasma to separate this dock from the rest of Manhattan. A deep trench filled with seawater surrounded this warehouse dock.
For extra security measures and to not repeat what happened last time, I even made sure to forcefully insert a container into the sewers going to this dock before applying more plasma and slagging the whole thing. The metal softened and melted, filling up the sewer pipes to ensure that nothing could get in through there.
It became a veritable fortress. This dock was a castle against those things.
This was safe. It was safe. Everyone will be safe here.
No monsters will come in.
_________
Things have clearly gone to hell. That was the only thought on the mind of Commander Sarah Hughes.
The woman stood at attention. Her entire team stood at attention as all around them, men and women in white lab coats ran around the hanger filled with cutting-edge weapons and vehicles, yelling, screaming, crying, all different expressions of the same emotion; 'distress'.
"Ah, you're finally here." A man approached them.
Sarah looked him up and down. White, blue eyes, with a very peculiar intricately designed red ruby-like jeweled pendant hanging around his neck.
This was Doctor Bright, someone who in Sarah's personal opinion should've been branded an SCP for the simple fact that he's in possession of supernatural abilities beyond the normal baseline humans.
"I'm Doctor Bright, Director of Personnel here at Site 19. As you can see, we're all in a bit of chaos here given the recent events that happened to the sun. Because of Director Krensikov being branded MIA for failing to answer any phone calls, I have just been informed by O5-3 that I am now the acting Director of Site-19." Bright's words were serious and completely unlike the jovial prankster he usually was.
No one offered any congratulations. None of the researchers around the hanger even bothered to notice Bright's announcement. It was almost like each person was in their own world.
"Doctor, permit my rudeness but I think I speak for my team here in asking: what the hell happened?" Sarah asked, "We were on retreat but suddenly we got the call that we're required to report back."
Doctor Bright didn't look apologetic at all and instead handed Irantu a USB stick. "The details you're asking for is in that USB stick. But for now, the SCP Foundation needs you more than ever. But in general…"
A hologram appeared behind Bright, it depicted a white sun surrounded by a crimson sky, presenting on a stage of black forest.
"As of 1000 Eastern Standard Time, we have officially entered into an XK-Class End of the World scenario, Captain Hughes. The sun has gone mad, a third of our sites reporting catastrophic containment breaches, half of the O5s are unable to be contacted, the Red Right Hand is busy collecting the rest, and the only early warning we received was that of SCP-179 pointing at the sun and speaking something in French half an hour prior to everything."
Doctor Bright paused to take in a breath of air.
"Because our only on-duty researcher who could speak French at the time was in the washroom, we wasted six precious minutes searching for that researcher. When he translated the single word SCP-179 mouthed into English we found it to be the three-letter word 'ion'."
"An atom with an unequal amount of protons and electrons?" Arthur asked. He was always the curious one.
"Yes. An ion. We're not sure what 179 meant by that but we're currently combing through our database while some of our researchers try and see if it has something to do with the ions that Earth receives from the sun. Some of my colleagues are convinced that 179's brother sends out corrupted solar flares that mutate the flesh."
Bright clapped his hand and the hologram behind him changed into the scenery of a storm.
Wait, that's not just any storm, that storm covered all of New York when there wasn't a single cloud anywhere across the continental United States. More than that, the storm reached taller than any mountain, taller than any natural clouds, and in fact, tall enough to reach the very edge that differentiated the atmosphere from the vacuum of space.
"This is the image we received from our Foundation-affiliated clairvoyant Type-Blues about two hours after the event we now dubbed 'Daybreak'. Though your official mission is to head down south to check up and see whether or not Site-17 in the Bermundas is still active, I'd like to ask you as the acting Director of Site-19 to take a detour and investigate this anomaly that occurred over New York."
"Why?" Sarah asked with an eye of suspicion.
"When Daybreak occurred, plenty of Sites were caught off guard as the Foundation-wide warning didn't make it out on time. It was made even worse when our signals got corrupted. From reports sent before those Sites went down, it appears when any biological anomalies come into contact with the sun they lose their anomalous property. A reality bender could no longer change their surroundings. A Type-Blue could no longer perform any Thaumaturgy. You get the idea."
Instantly, Sarah realized what Bright was implying.
"Despite our organization's desire to see all anomalies contained, desperate time calls for desperate measures. And here, we need all hands on deck. Find whatever entity that made that storm, see if they're reasonable, and try to negotiate with them if they are. But keep most importantly keep yourselves safe. We are heavily limited in terms of resources right now and the last thing we need is any more loss of precious assets."
Bones cracked as Sarah's team grew excited. Bunch of adrenaline junkies, she thought exasperately. They've been on vacation for too long, and are now just itching to get back.
Sarah herself stayed quiet, her face so blank as to be entirely unreadable. It was a useful skill to have, especially in a negotiation like this.
After a few more seconds, the woman said, "My team and I will need good equipment. Better than average. This… whatever entity caused this is sure to be incredibly powerful. Easily a Keter-class SCP if contained with possibly half of an entire site dedicated just to them."
Bright nodded, knowing beforehand that Captain Hughes was going to ask for such a thing, "Of course, and you shall receive them. I'm opening Site-19's experimental and para tech vault for your team. Experimental Argus-IV Situational Awareness System, Mark-VI Counter-Thaumaturgical Warding Implant, 3-X-mini Particle Disruptor, Cryo Grenades captured and reversed engineered from Prometheus Lab, Micro L.T.D.., the full roster. Inside that USB stick is a full list of the equipment you'll be getting and how to use it. Good luck, Captain Hughes."
That was incredibly generous of Doctor Bright. Even her team was never really allowed to be in contact with so much anomalous technology all at once.
He must be really desperate.
Hughes turned around and faced a heavily armored APC. She smirked, "We don't need luck."
On her back was the symbol of a single snake eating its tail.