1 suggestive joke

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|| Did it feel like immortality? ||

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Well, it could be worse.

Actually, no, it couldn't. This was Jack Bright you were talking about, you know, only one of the most important people in the foundation. Another infamous example of how eccentric the senior staff could be with the addition of immortality to boot. This was fine, perfectly fine, no problems here at all.

You loved lying to yourself.

"You've been looking for me?" you echoed hollowly.

He scowled at you. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to actually get to you? And the one time I'm not even looking for you, you're here!"

"I didn't even know you were looking for me? Like, I haven't heard about this at all."

It was possible that it was simply something that hadn't crossed your eavesdropping. Most of the lower researchers didn't really gossip about the senior staff unless it was complaining about the paperwork from property damage. You figured you would have heard something about this, at the very least.

"Seriously? I've been wanting to see you since you went by 079 to chat."

"That long ago?" You blinked, you hadn't seen hair or hide of Bright since the containment breach when you avoided his body. He wasn't here to talk about that, was he? "That was weeks ago."

"Closer to a month and a half by now."

You shrugged. "Time is an illusion. Why are you looking for me anyways?"

"Right." Bright grinned. "Let's chat, shall we?"

"In here?" You gestured to the flickering light above the two of you. The storage room was a very awkward place to talk in.

"What? No. We're taking a walk. Unless you want to continue talking here." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

You stifled a small chuckle and shook your head. "I'm good. Let's take a walk."

He gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. "Alright, then."

You tilted your head towards the door. "After you."

Bright looked left and right before exiting the room. You followed after him. You seemed to be doing that a lot recently, trailing after other people. Not that it was bad, it just reminded you of how little control you had over your life at the moment. Everything was at the hands of whatever the foundation wanted or fate.

Fate... What a bitter concept to swallow.

"So, tell me about yourself," Bright began.

"What is this, an interview?" you said dryly. "Shouldn't you have heard enough about me from other people?"

"I haven't heard anything from you though."

You hummed. "I guess."

It was different for you, you supposed. A significant portion of the people around you who you deemed as "important" were basically how you expected them to be from what you had read. Your views on them were tainted with preset expectations that were very often true. Fiction and reality had blurred for you long ago.

"Well." You adjusted your jacket. "What is there to say?"

"Favourite colour, food, show," he listed, "anything, really."

"You didn't seem like the type to care about those things." You listed the answers to his questions anyways. "Why would you want to know anyways? Are you asking because..." You trailed off as a conversation caught your attention. Two doctors, or interns maybe, were chatting.

"I think I'd want to wish for immortality or something," one said. Disapprovingly, you sighed. You weren't just going to let someone say they would want immortality without considering the consequences.

"No, you don't," you and Bright cut in at the same time.

The two of you looked at each other and nodded in mutual understanding. Bright held a hand up for a high five. You hit it as hard as you reasonably could muster at the moment. He winced. The doctors you guys interrupted visibly jumped. You thought it was hilarious how they looked like deer in headlights.

"Uh-" the one who wished for immortality stuttered. "Dr. Bright. Uh. Hello. And [----]. Hi. Yes." They coughed. "How, uh, is your day going."

"It sure is going," you replied. You died three times this morning. "Immortality sucks by the way. Don't wish for it. It's far more trouble than it's worth and usually comes with drawbacks that you won't anticipate."

"You saying from experi-" they cut themselves off at the looks you and Bright gave them. "Right. Sorry. I will be going now. Sorry."

"Think before you speak next time," Bright advised as the doctor and the person they were talking to earlier left quickly. You thought the two of you may have scared them off a little. Just a little. They'd get over it probably. You sighed as Bright fiddled with 963. Immortality. What a curse.

"So, where to?" you said, seeing how he didn't continue walking.

"What do you think about immortality?" he asked instead.

You stilled. Well, there was only so far you could go while avoiding the question. You expected it to come up, it was something of a common ground between you and him after all. Dying. Living. Dying. Living. What use was immortal life to people who did not want it? It was always those who never wished who were granted immortality.

"It's just the way it is now, isn't it?" You shrugged, an awkward movement betraying your easy tone. "Not much we can do about it. We can only learn to cope with it."

"I'm sure Glass has words to say about coping."

"Hey, you've been at this longer than I have," you said mildly. "Don't ask me how I'm dealing with pseudo-immortality."

Thankfully, you didn't have to deal with the clusterf*ck that was the Bright family on top of all this. Sure you had your own issues but it wasn't nearly as bad as Bright's situation.

"This hardly feels like actual immortality," Bright grumbled.

"The definition of 'immortality' is pretty broad, Doc." You wrung your hands together. "I'm standing here in front of you, aren't I? Even if no one other than me remembers my deaths, it was real to me. I saw my blood staining the floor, I felt my guts spill over my hands, I knew what was coming and it would not only be death."

Because you had died, over and over and over again. Did it feel like immortality? Did taking your final breath feel like eternity? People always think that immortality is special but when has anyone ever respected a dead man walking?

"You remember dying that clearly, huh."

"Well, you know how it is. Die a couple of times and you can start reciting every death by heart."

The fact of the matter was that both of you knew what death felt like. Even if the details, the method, were different, it was all the same. Who cared what form immortality took. Time travel, cursed amulets, inexplicable means, it was all pointless. There was a difference between living forever and never dying after all.

You and Bright were a little too similar, in your opinion.

"We're haunted by death," he said.

"We're only human, Dr. Bright." You sighed. "We're not meant to handle something like immortality."

"And yet here we are."

"Here we are," you agreed. "Eternally living yet still dying."

Silence followed after. Bit of a heavy topic for your first meeting but you know, it was good to get it done and over with. At least he didn't start discussing how you were an SCP and he was a doctor. That all came down to how he got bound to 963 after he was hired and the fact that you just got dropped into the facility at random. You wondered who really got the shorter end of the stick.

"I know you said we were taking a walk but did you actually have a destination or no?" you broke the silence with your question.

He blinked and closed his eyes to think about it. "Ah! I've got an idea."

Much like you, it appeared he was done with the topic of immortality.

"Care to grace me with what that idea is?"

"So-" Bright smiled mischievously. "Did you know you've got a conspiracy board?"

"I what-?" You choked back a laugh. "A conspiracy board? Seriously? There's nothing that confusing about me that I would need one."

"Are you sure about that?"

You could almost hear the teasing tone in his voice.

"Absolutely," you said anyways. "There is nothing about me that is confusing enough to entail a board."

"Let's go see it."

"M'kay." Why not, it sounded interesting enough.

The board was in one of the staff rooms though Bright claimed it "may have been moved off somewhere else at some point". You weren't exactly sure who started a conspiracy board but maybe they were having fun with it? You were still pretty sure you weren't supposed to be wandering about on this floor but eh, who was going to stop you or Bright. The two of you checked three different staff rooms before he finally got the right one that contained the board.

The room was pretty clean, a few tables and chairs were arranged neatly. A few cups were scattered around on the side tables. The conspiracy board in question was a corkboard that covered a good amount of one wall. Various sticky notes, pieces of paper, and photos were arranged on the board. Red string was tied between several places, as all good conspiracy boards did. A disorganized pile of extra papers was left on the table under the board, a cup with pencils and pens beside it. A pad of blue sticky notes was also on the table.

"What the f*ck," you mumbled as you took a closer look at what was written on the papers.

Your SCP file was pinned to the center of the board. You skimmed over what was written. Understandably, the file was rather short since there really wasn't much going on with you. Close beside it was a set of stapled papers. You lifted a few papers and found they all contained people who shared the same name as you. Hm, were they searching for evidence of your existence in this universe? A sticky note was stuck to the front page that said, 'doesn't exist??'.

Another set of papers was titled 'A Collection of Theories Regarding [----]'. You flipped through them too. They were pretty thorough, you were kind of impressed. Some of them were completely wrong, one mentioned alternate dimensions, another discussed the possibility of you being a reality bender (which was false), while another page said something about you being a spy. It was a funny prospect.

"I'm going to write all over this," you told Bright.

He snorted. "Go ahead."

You picked out a red pen and began defacing the board. Over the files of people who shared the same name as you, you stuck on a sticky note that said 'none of these people are me :)'. Bright leaned over your shoulder as you began to write responses to the theories. Given how thorough they were, you saw it fit to put a little bit more effort into answering them. Under the one that mentioned alternate dimensions, you wrote 'getting warmer'.

You crossed out the sticky note that said 'God????'. Underneath it, you wrote 'once again, I have nothing to do with god'. Maybe they'd get it into their head that you really were not god, or at least, not the one they would want. A few of the other papers on the board were about your interactions with other SCPs. You scribbled more responses about them. While most of your interactions with other SCPs were dubious at best, the papers analyzing them were rather impressive.

"The things connecting on here aren't exactly close to the truth," you hummed as you corrected another section. "But they're not as far off the mark as it could've been."

"Really?" Bright was still checking out some of the other things you already wrote.

"Yeah," you confirmed. "Just a bit more and I think they'll be able to piece it together. It's really not as difficult as they think it is."

You glanced at the note that said 'no info on 001 from [----] yet'. Bright followed your gaze. Perhaps, out of curiosity, he asked, "What do you think of SCP 001?"

Without skipping a beat, you replied, "Which one?"

He looked at you. You looked back and smiled. "Come now, just because I said it isn't difficult doesn't mean it isn't a little bit complicated. It's not like this topic is above your paygrade."

"There's always something new with you." Bright chuckled.

"You can't expect me to talk about 001 without mentioning the fact that there are multiple, can you?" You scribbled a little note under the 001 paper. "That's the unique thing about 001."

He made a faint hum of curiosity. "Which one do you think is true?"

"Well, that depends, doesn't it? Some can't possibly be true because they haven't happened-" such as When Day Breaks. "-while others require other things to be confirmed as fact before they can be considered true. Really, any number of them can be the real one the same way none of them can be true."

That last part was a lie.

"You have one you know is real, don't you," he stated like it was a fact.

"I'll give you a hint," you indulged. "There is a direct connection between me and a specific 001. That one is the one that is certain to be true, no matter what. I'm sure that given everything I've said, you'll be able to figure out which one."

You were, of course, speaking of S. Andrew Swann's proposal, The Database. It was a very meta file that described your universe, the one that created SCPs. It didn't matter if any of the other SCP 001s were true, the only constant in the universe was that The Database would always be true. It was quite literally impossible for it not to be.

Though... if you were in this universe now, you wondered how real you were. This universe was meant to be fictional but you were here anyway. Ah. Maybe it would be best not to go down this train of thought, you'd drive yourself crazy. You shook your head.

"I think I've written enough on here." You took a step away from the conspiracy board. "I probably shouldn't stay up here too long."

Perhaps picking up on how you didn't want to say more about 001 at the moment, he didn't press the topic. Instead, he nodded. "Well, there's one last place to go."

You tilted your head questioningly. "Where?"

"You'll see. It's downstairs and you look like you need it."

Sure, that wasn't suspicious at all.

"Alright," you agreed anyway since you were never good at making good life decisions anyways.

Apparently, Bright didn't know how to navigate Site-17 either since he got lost twice while trying to find the main elevator. You were starting to think the foundation intentionally never gave any of their employees a reliable method to get around the place. Either that or the place got remodelled so often that people never bothered to figure out the directions.

No incidents occurred as the two of you went down to the Light Containment Zone. Along the way, Bright pointed out things that had happened around the areas you passed through. Through these stories, you learned 2 things. One, the people here were very very stupid and two, they were also very very smart.

Eventually, Bright found the place he wanted to bring you. The poster outside the room showed a photo of SCP 999 along with all the usual poster stuff. Well, you wanted to get around to seeing 999 eventually so this was pretty convenient actually. Bright swiped his keycard through the scanner and the door opened up.

The basic room was as expected. The difference with this one was the multitude of toys scattered around as if the room was more for a child than an SCP. Well, that wasn't too far off from the truth if you considered how 999 was. Something, something, 999 might be a child of the Scarlet King, might not be, it depended on what was canon.

An orange blob leaped to you as the door silently closed behind you. Your first thought was, 'Oh, that's cute'. Your second thought was, 'Oh, I feel happy'. The mild euphoria that bubbled beneath your skin felt better than anything you had done the entire time you had been in this universe. 999 gurgled softly as it climbed over you.

You weren't quite sure why but you almost wanted to cry.

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New SCPs in this chapter:

SCP 001 - S. Andrew Swann's Proposal

SCP 001 - S. D. Locke's Proposal

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Published: May 31, 2022

Word count: 2,778

Death Counter: 15

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Also, the twst brain rot is real, I started another WIP because I don't have self-control apparently.

Thanks for reading!