Maple II — The ground is poofier than I remember
SCP-8858 above Lublin; retrospectively identified
Item #: SCP-8858
Object class: Euclid
Containment procedures: SCP-8858 is anchored in place by three towers – each 2,400 meters tall – positioned in the Western Desert of Egypt. The three towers and their suspension cables require yearly maintenance to ensure their structural integrity. Satellite imagery of the region is to be censored.
Tower Alpha allows for access onto SCP-8858 for Clearance Level 2 research purposes.
Description: SCP-8858 is a cumulus cloud hovering 2,200 meters off the ground, measuring at an approximate diameter of 3 km. The object floats despite having a density of 3 g/cm^3 and an average hardness of 190HV (roughly equivalent to igneous rock). SCP-8858 has a top layer of softer material, kept in place within valleys of cloud-like bedrock. Water collects in the valleys of SCP-8858's landscape, allowing for a rich biosphere.
SCP-8858-A was a species of hominids which lived on SCP-8858. SCP-8858-A were typified by pastel pink skin, a lack of eyes, and butterfly wings. These wings were described by survivors of SCP-8858-A abduction events as displaying intricate patterns, but none have survived to the present due to their apparent flammability. Remains of SCP-8858-A specimens are available in Site 77 cold storage.
SCP-8858-B is the collective designation for all flora endemic to SCP-8858. The "soil" of SCP-8858's valleys is populated by two species of grass, classified as "Commelinid blue" and "Commelinid gold" for their respective colors. A red-colored blooming flower – classified as "Asterales crimson" – grows along the lakeshores of SCP-8858. A species of hardwood trees with dark red bark and purple leaves used to populate SCP-8858 as well, and was used by SCP-8858-A for the construction of basic housing, primarily treehouses.
Several other species of SCP-8858-B are presumed to have existed, but are considered extinct. Common rats were accidentally introduced to SCP-8858 in 2004, and seeds of poa (meadow-grass, or bluegrass) inadvertently took root in 2012. The invasive species are expected to outcompete and destroy endemic grasses within six years.
SCP-8858 traced historic path
Behavior: The history of SCP-8858 has been traced back to 1954, when it was floating above Edinbrough, Scotland. Earlier appearances in the 20th, 19th, and 18th centuries have been proposed, but are unconfirmed. From Scotland, SCP-8858 traced a path southward across Britain and on to mainland Europe, where it drifted pseudorandomly for 36 years.
In 1994, SCP-8858 moved across the Mediterranean sea onto Tunisia and Libya. From here it moved eastward into Egypt, where it was discovered in 1999. A detailed description of the known path of SCP-8858 can be found in Document 8858/C.
As SCP-8858 moved across population centers, instances of SCP-8858-A flew down towards the ground to abduct children. During these events – dubbed "feeding events" by researchers – pairs of SCP-8858-A lift a child between the age of 6 and 13 towards SCP-8858. Such children were released onto SCP-8858 for 6 to 80 hours, before being brought back down again, typically at least several kilometers away from their original location.
Due to the premature neutralization of SCP-8858-A, the nature of feeding events is still poorly understood.
Interview logs describing SCP-8858:
Interview log 8858-09
Date: 1999-10-10
Location: Tortoli, Sardinia
Interviewer: Researcher M. Simons
Interviewee: Paolo Tidu (age 17)
<BEGIN LOG>
Simons: Good afternoon, Mr. Tidu, are you aware why we apprehended you today?
Tidu: No, but I sure as hell hope it won't be for much longer.
Simons: I apologize for the delay. I had to process a few other persons.
Simons: You are here because of an incident your parents reported in 1994.
Tidu: 1994?
Tidu: Fuck, this is about the kidnapping?
Simons: Can you tell me what you remember of this event?
Tidu looked around suspiciously.
Tidu: I'm perfectly happy with my current shrink, and the medications are working. I don't want any trouble here.
Simons: We are not part of a psychiatric institution, nor are we law enforcement.
Tidu: Then what are you? Why do you want to know about my nightmares?
Simons: We catalog nightmares. And try to keep new ones from occurring.
Tidu remained silent for 25 seconds.
Simons: We currently have an incomplete picture of the events of March 2, 1994. What happened after your parents tucked you in that night?
Tidu: My parents didn't tuck me in. Don't act like you know me.
Simons: Maybe this will help you recall?
Researcher Simons opened a folder and revealed two photographs of SCP-8858's landscape. Tidu examined the images and began hyperventilating. Ten minutes of Tidu's panic and recovery expunged.
Tidu breathed in and sighed.
Tidu: I'll tell you what I remember, but you have to let me out of this place, OK?
Simons: Of course.
Tidu: I was in bed, yeah. Reading comics with a flashlight, under the covers.
Tidu: As you do at that age, right?
Simons: Right.
Tidu: It was dark. My mamma had already gone to bed. The house was silent. So when I heard my window slowly getting opened? That shit was terrifying, right?
Tidu: I shone my flashlight on my curtains… This fucking thing poked its head through.
Tidu: Pale skin folding all over its face, it didn't have eyes, just an obscured mouth with sharpened teeth.
Tidu's breathing became irregular again.
Tidu: That's the nightmare, alright?
Simons: What happened next?
Tidu: Do you believe me?
Simons: I believe that you believe what you're saying.
Tidu: Yeah, I had a shrink that said the same thing. That's not comforting.
Simons: And I've seen worse things myself.
Tidu spent 15 seconds stabilizing his breathing.
Tidu: It stepped through. There were two of them. Flexible bastards, they worked their way through a tiny fucking window gap.
Tidu: I can never get those wings out of my head. Spirally patterns, hypnotic, looked like oil on water.
Tidu: They grabbed my arms and dragged me out of my bed. Pulled me through the window too, fucking hurt.
Tidu: But not as much as my shoulders hurt when they lifted me up into the sky. I was too busy being terrified for my life to enjoy the view.
Tidu: I did notice getting ridiculously cold though. Especially when we reached that damn cloud, I was freezing. The wind didn't help. It was cutting through my pyjamas like knives.
Tidu: When we landed– They– They landed on top of this cloud, I know this sounds crazy, but honestly I was just glad to get some sort of solid footing at that point. It still felt… fuzzy. It held my weight but it didn't feel like it always would. I expected to fall through it any moment.
Tidu: Also the wind was insane, of course. A kid wasn't supposed to be up there and the heavens tried everything they could to blow me off.
Tidu: Didn't help that I couldn't see shit. I could vaguely see that there were a bunch of other monsters, but they kept their distance for some reason. They were ignoring me.
Tidu: One of the monsters that lifted me up there pulled me along, the other running behind me. I wasn't gonna stop them from dragging me along.
Tidu: They…
Tidu stared expressionlessly for 15 seconds.
Simons: What happened next?
Tidu: It's been five years. I was fucking twelve. I don't remember, this whole part is a blur.
Tidu sighed.
Tidu: There was another boy, probably half my age. I do remember him being surrounded by monsters. They were circling around him. I saw them close in on the kid, making screeching noises and… They just ate him. There was blood everywhere.
Tidu: You happy now? I closed my eyes and went into a fetus position. Next thing I remember they lifted me up by the arms again and brought me down and dropped me into the fucking sea.
Simons: That must've been cold.
Tidu: Freezing.
Tidu inhaled deeply.
Tidu: I'm managing my own nightmares. I carry them with me.
Tidu: Whatever it is that you do, I hope you can make sure no one else ever has to live through this again.
Simons: You don't have to worry about that.
<END LOG>
Paolo Tidu was Class-A amnestized and released. We have failed to match any missing person reports on Sardinia with the killing Tidu described.
Interview log 8858-32
Date: 1999-11-30
Location: Brno, Czech Republic
Interviewer: Researcher M. Simons
Interviewee: Eliška Cerny (age 26)
<BEGIN LOG>
Simons: Thank you for coming, Ms. Černá.
Cerny: That is Dr. Černá, thank you. I can't help but notice that this institution is not affiliated with the Meteorological Network. Why are–
Simons: I must apologize for deceiving you. Mailing you a job offer and having you come to us was much cheaper than sending in a team to detain you. I'm sure you understand the nature of budget cuts. The priority of my project sadly went way down recently.
Simons: Still, perhaps we could continue the routine of a job interview.
Simons: Why did you decide to become a meteorologist? At what age did your interest in–
Cerny: Why in the world do you think I would want to play along with this farce?
Simons: Did you look at the clouds as a ten year old and see something that drove your passion?
Cerny remained silent for twenty seconds.
Cerny: So that's what this is about.
Simons: Could you clarify?
Cerny: Could you stop acting coy? It really gets on my nerves.
Cerny: If you want to ask me something, just ask it directly. Don't dance around the topic for an hour. Yes, I saw the cloud.
Simons: We are tracing back a history of victims. Could you recount your experience with the cloud?
Cerny: Victims?
Cerny laughed.
Cerny: I guess that is a correct description. I don't think the elves saw it that way, though. Then again, neither did the animals in Alice in Wonderland consider Alice that way.
Cerny inspected her own fingernails for 40 seconds, meticulously removing grime from underneath them, before reestablishing eye-contact with Researcher Simons.
Cerny: It was a weekend day in spring. I was helping out a bit on the field. I was too young for it in retrospect, but I was just following my older siblings around. It was normal, no one cared back then. People still don't care much about this now, but I digress.
Cerny: There was a nimbostratus cloud overhead. Sometimes you could just barely see the white disc of the sun shine through the blanket of grey. I initially thought it was birds coming down. I looked up and saw the silhouette of four people with large butterfly wings coming at us. Two grabbed Jan by the arms, and two grabbed me.
Simons: Your older brother?
Cerny continued to fidget with her fingernails.
Cerny: Yes. He was twelve. The oldest of the boys. I believe he was a bit timid compared to our older sisters. Needless to say, I don't remember him too well. We were young.
Cerny: I will never forget the look on his face when we were picked up though. I just screamed, but he turned out to be a fighter. Tried to wrangle himself loose even as we were being dragged up further into the sky.
Cerny sighed.
Cerny: I won't go into the whole "survivor's guilt" thing. I'm sure you have read the reports on his death. He fell, and I was placed on the cloud. The elves acted like nothing ever happened.
Cerny: I didn't really understand what happened, at the time. I was too distracted by the sky suddenly turning deep blue, and by the landscape I was placed in.
Simons: Can you describe the environment?
Cerny: An endless expanse of white made way for a valley of blue, red, and yellow patches. The forest next to the lake was not dense, but every standing tree was covered with intricate treehouses. It was surreal. It reminded me of Peter Pan; I thought I was dragged into a dream.
Cerny: The elves – the creatures – they were dancing in a circle at the edge of the forest. Or their town, as it may have been.
Cerny: Their skin was glowing. It was faint and hard to see on the bright white backdrop of the cloud, but they were glowing.
Cerny: One of the elves that brought me there started dragging me towards the group. As we got closer, I got a better look at their faces. Or lack thereof. These were horror monsters unlike anything I had ever seen. Their heads were covered in folds of skin, but I could see their grimaces of sharp teeth.
Cerny's fidgeting with her fingernails continued throughout her story, but she suddenly ceased.
Cerny: Can you give me a pen?
Simons: Uh, of course, you want to draw something?
Simons handed her notepad and pen to Cerny. Cerny grabbed the pen.
Cerny: No, I just need something to do with my hands.
Cerny clicked several times with the pen, before slowly taking its mechanics apart and back together.
Cerny: The elves stopped dancing and faced me.
Cerny: They looked at me? No clue how they could see, but they stared. They stopped glowing too.
Cerny: I was scared out of my mind at this point. The elf that brought me there let me go, and I ran off towards the grassy plains.
Cerny: There was nothing around me but cloudy hills, a lakeside, and the odd tree. I eventually took shelter under one. Being surrounded by roots felt safer than being exposed in the open.
Cerny: I have no idea how long I hid there. It felt like hours at the time. The roots were sticky and smelled like caramel. I could only hide with my eyes closed for so long, however. At some point, I started hearing bongo music. I got up and looked back at the village.
A spring of the pen rolled off the table, and Cerny bent down to pick it up.
Cerny: They were playing games together. A few were flying around playing tag, but most of them were playing somesort of chair game with eachother. Uh, what would that be called in English, a chair dance?
Simons: I think that would be German? But I understand what you mean.
Cerny: I was parched. I remember going to the lake to drink some water from it, and it was really fresh. For some reason the coolness and purity of that water has really stuck with me. I once drank tap water in Switzerland that came close, but nothing has been quite as good.
Cerny: But I digress. I slowly moved closer to the town again, just a few steps at a time. The elves ignored me completely. They had lost interest in me, I think. They didn't glow anymore and were just doing their own thing.
Simons: Did you mingle in the game? Or get a closer look at their housing?
Cerny: For a long while I just sat at the side of the game. I was curious, but too scared to join.
Cerny: At this point I was also really worried about Jan. I was homesick.
Cerny: I think I did eat a fruit from the trees? It was too sweet, just too much. It was filling, it felt good, but it was overwhelming.
Cerny: In a way, I wish I had looked around more. I was there for most of the day, before two of the elves brought me back down to earth again.
Simons: Did you like it up there?
Cerny: It was magical, I think. But I wasn't prepared for magical.
15 seconds of silence passed.
Simons: Did you become a meteorologist to rediscover that magic?
Cerny: Maybe? I don't think one's choices are that simple.
Cerny: But since then, I have certainly spent a lot more time looking at clouds, and imagining what might be up there.
<END LOG>
Eliška Cerny was Class-A amnestized and released. Researcher Simons nominated Dr. Cerny for a future position in the Foundation.
Interview log 8858-31
Date: 2000-02-05
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Interviewer: Researcher M. Simons
Interviewees: Fiona Milne (age 54), Cameron Milne
<BEGIN LOG>
Fiona Milne: Good day, are you with the exterminators?
Simons: Good morning, I'm afraid not. Are you Mrs. Milne?
Fiona Milne: Indeed I am. Can I help you with anything? I am expecting someone to come to get rid of this hummin' raccoon any moment.
Simons: You have raccoons in Britain?
Fiona Milne: I don't know where that damn thing came from, but I want it out of my chimney.
Simons: Well, I'm afraid I'm here on different business. My organization and I are doing research on a specific cloud you may have seen?
Fiona Milne: A cloud?
Fiona Milne: Oh! Oh please, come in, come in!
Mrs. Milne led researcher Simons into her house.
Fiona Milne: It's been so many years, I never expected someone to bring it up to me.
Mrs. Milne stopped and looked at Simons.
Fiona Milne: You are not a friend of Cameron, are you? Pulling a joke on me?
Simons: I swear I have never spoken to your husband. I found you through nearly 50-year old police reports.
A smile formed on Mrs. Milne's face
Fiona Milne: We sure gave those farmers a thorough spook, suddenly landing on their roof in the middle of the night!
Fiona Milne: Please, sit down. Cameron is in his office in the other room. I'll go and get him!
Simons: Is your husband aware of the cloud?
Fiona Milne: Of course! I've told him all the stories many times. He always tells me I should write a book, but I always get stuck on page one. Can't handle a typewriter, just instant writer's block.
Fiona Milne: But let me just get my man, it's coffee time anyway.
Mrs. Milne left the room, and returned with Mr. Cameron and a tray of cookies two minutes later.
Fiona Milne: I put the coffee on, Miss… Oh, I never did ask you your name.
Simons: That's alright Mrs. Milne. Call me Mable.
Researcher Simons stood up and shook hands with both of the Milnes. All three sat down.
Simons: I am here to ask for your account of the events of June 14 to 17, 1954.
Cameron Milne: You've done your research. May I ask who you are?
Simons: At this point, I suppose I am a collector of stories. I have spoken with at least 26 people who have seen this cloud.
Fiona Milne: Oh, I would love to hear those stories!
Simons: I'll see if I can share some, but first, I want to hear your story, untarnished.
Simons: Can you describe your encounter, from the start? The morning of June 14?
Fiona Milne: I was walking to school. It was very warm, the sky was wholly clear. I spotted the cloud well in advance. It was imposing, singular. Like a fortress in an ocean of Celtic blue, it was beautiful even before I was lifted up there.
Fiona Milne: The fairies came for all three of us. Isla and Grace and I, we were swooped away before we knew it!
Fiona Milne: Soaring through the sky like a bird, it was exhilarating. The fairies kept giggling and it was infectuous.
Fiona Milne: A flock of ducks was flying by, and decided to fly along with us. I didn't even know they could fly so high!
Mr. Milne stood up and began walking towards the kitchen.
Cameron Milne: I will get the coffee.
Fiona Milne: And before we knew, the fairies plopped us down on their land of fog. The ducks landed beside us, and seemed just as curious of what was before us.
Fiona Milne: We didn't know where we were, we had never seen such a sight before. Mountains of white, rolling hills that looked like cotton candy! From up where we landed we could see two lakes, but I couldn't imagine how many more must've been hidden between the crevasses. The landscape felt enormous, everything was so tall.
Fiona Milne: We followed the fairies down the hill and towards this gorgeous little forest of crimson-red trees with vibrant purple leaves that really popped on the bright white backdrop. We were surrounded by a patchwork of blue and gold now, it was wonderful. Beyond anything we could have ever imagined.
Fiona Milne: In the forest was a whole town of fairies. They are odd creatures. So jolly, all smiles. They could see you without looking at you and they wanted to do nothing more than play games.
Fiona Milne: At first though, when we just arrived, they were dancing in a circle, and they were glowing.
Fiona Milne: Brighter than the sun, they were, it was such a sight to behold. It was as if they were filling up with energy. The girls and I just stood there and gasped. It was stunning.
Fiona Milne: Isla later said she looked at us and saw our own skin glow as well, just faintly.
Simons: How long did this process take?
Fiona Milne: Oh, no more than a few minutes. Before we knew it, the glowing stopped, and the fairies pulled us in and danced with us. They smiled so widely, it was infectuous. Isla later said she felt a bit creeped out by them, but I just didn't see it.
Fiona Milne: They were so… genuine with their emotions. Even moreso than us kids were, they were so carefree.
Mr. Milne returned to the living room with a tray of coffee cups, suger cubes, and milk.
Simons: Thank you.
Cameron Milne: Did she get to the part with the trees yet?
Fiona Milne: Shush!
Fiona Milne: The fairies were playing hide-and-seek; one dug her head into the sand while the others all quickly made for the forest. Naturally we joined in.
Fiona Milne: The three of us couldn't climb into the treehouses, though Grace certainly tried! She thought the tree felt a bit sticky, so she licked it! Isla was horrified, I thought the sight was hilarious.
Fiona Milne: But here's the thing, the tree tasted like sweet liquorice! I licked it myself, it was really nice. Grace tried to take a bite out of it, with less success. The mushrooms that grow on the trees are really tasty, too, and easier to bite through.
Mrs. Milne laughed.
Fiona Milne: Of course, by this point, the fairy who was "it" found us. We didn't really mind, though. The game wasn't important. Isla was pointing up at this purple fruit hanging high in the leaves – I hadn't even seen it – and the fairy brought it down for us.
Fiona Milne: It was quite like an orange on the inside, but very sweet. We called it a purple.
Researcher Simons smiled.
Simons: You remember all these details quite well.
Cameron Milne: That's my lady. She has a real knack for these things.
Cameron Milne: I always say, when you go on vacation with Fiona, you don't need to bring a camera. No point arguing with her about such things either, she's always right.
Simons: I see. Mrs. Milne, could you tell us about the wings on these creatures?
Fiona Milne: Oh, the butterfly wings? They were stunning! They made them so beautifully.
Simons: Pardon?
Fiona Milne: Well, they had these spindles of prismatic fibers, taken from the wool of their fluxies.
Simons: Fluxies?
Fiona Milne: Oh, that's just what we called them. They are a bit like bunnies, but they are basically just big soft fuzzballs. Their fur is always in flux between all the colors, just so fluffy, just grazing the grass between the trees. They were really nice warm pillows during the night. We slept so well up there.
Fiona Milne: Grace wanted to bring one back home, but that wasn't possible of course.
Simons: The creatures lifted you back home after three days there?
Fiona Milne: Yes. On the third day, they were doing their dance again. The girls and I watched them. They were… They are so majestic. You wouldn't think it, based on how they usually act, but they perfectly followed the rhythm, each and every one of them. There was a wave-like motion to their movement, like they were dancing in canon. Watching their wings open and close rhythmically, it was mesmerizing.
Fiona Milne: And when their skin started to glow again, you could just see them fill up with energy. They thrived as we watched them, it was truly wonderful.
The doorbell rang.
Fiona Milne: Oh, that must be the exterminator.
<END LOG>
Researcher Simons left shortly after the arrival of the third party. No evidence of "fluxies" was discovered on SCP-8858; they are assumed to have been destroyed.
SCP-8858, photographed near Alexandria
Discovery log:
On August 12, 1999, Maroc Air Flight 334 took off from Marrakesh Menara Airport bound for Cairo International Airport.
At 18:22 UTC+02:00, Flight 334 descended in preparation for landing, and collided with SCP-8858 from above. All occupants died in the crash, and the ensuing wildfires neutralized all instances of SCP-8858-A. Furthermore, the wildfires annihilated the endemic biosphere.
Foundation operatives mobilized immediately upon the disappearance of Flight 334, and standard "Missing Plane" protocol was initiated. SCP-8858 was successfully contained three months later.
Addendum 01
Journal of Dr. Eliška Cerny
2014/05/04
Day 1 of Project Cumulus, to revisit SCP-8858. I am extremely lucky to have been able to pick this up as a dedicated research project. Of course, SCP-8858 has been the subject of various essays by junior researchers, focusing on material science, ecology, and anthropology. I had done my own dissertation on SCP-8858's meteorological behavior when I was originally recruited by the Foundation. Being able to do a full literature review and thorough examination of the cloud's topography is important to me.
Having the full set of Simons' interviews made available to me has been very valuable. It certainly brought my own memories of SCP-8858 into focus. I of course have no memory of ever meeting researcher Simons, so reading back my interview with her was surreal. If only because I do not recognize myself in it. I did take the chance to fix my name in the old logs.
2014/05/05
The Worn Shoes or The Twelve Dancing Princesses is a folktale first documented by Grimm, about twelve princesses who sneak off each night to make merry.
I have this very vivid childhood memory of reading this story and wondering not where the princesses are going out to dance, but why they go out. Why do they walk out into the groves of gold- and diamond-leafed trees during the witching hour? Why do they play around with those princes? I suppose I was already an aromantic introvert as a child, yet this question continues to intrigue me.
2014/05/08
Reading the Philippine folk tales from Extraneous Document 8858-44, and the Chinese interview logs from 2011, I am finding the Merisis Hypothesis increasingly convincing. At the very least, I appreciate the stories. It's a good excuse to dig through Asian fairytales, regardless of whether it will lead to new discoveries.
2014/05/10
We were able to reinterview a few of the last known victims of SCP-8858-A, notably Ragheb and Farhani, who were very young when Simons originally spoke with them. I'm not surprised their original interviews did not make it into the file, but they have certainly opened up to us now. Informing them that I had met the "Jinn" myself helped. The nature of SCP-8858-A's "feeding events" are still an enigma, but I believe we can get more insight into them.
I am looking forward to contacting as many former abductees as I can. It is disheartening how some of the people Simons interviewed are no longer among us. Regardless, I will be flying to Sardinia tomorrow for my next interview.
Journal of Junior Researcher Paolo Tidu
2014/06/01
I have been asked by Eliška to keep a journal during this project, and she said it will be reviewed by upper Foundation management. My onboarding on this project and in this organization was very sudden, but for the record, I've been hired for my knowledge in ecology and because of my dissertation about bioregional mapping. I really don't think I am the most qualified person for this job – I only finally finished my studies four years ago – but I'll do my best.
2014/06/02
We drove out into the desert, a rough ride, and just reached Provisional Site 8858. I was at a loss for words when I saw it. I don't know much about construction or containment and stuff, so when I read "2,400 meter tall towers," I was like, yeah, sure. That makes sense. But seeing those behemoths rise up from the horizon was something else. I thought it was a fata morgana or something, I didn't even know until just now that this was the tallest structure on the planet. I can believe it.
It's nothing like the Dubai tower or really anything I've seen in pictures before. No glass, no offices or living spaces, it is a huge mess of girders and cables. Endless zig-zagging beams of metal stretching up into the sky, connected to eachother and to the ground kilometers apart with long cables. From a distance it doesn't look too chaotic; there's a real symmetry to this thing. But when you get closer, all the scaffolding looks like a mess. It is so huge and complicated.
But despite all of that, it couldn't really distract me from the big central object. The Cloud. Tomorrow, we're going up there.
Recording from Site 8858 elevator Alpha
2014/06/03
Tidu: Woah.
Cerny: It is fast, isn't it? I asked Geoff and he said it goes up at 40 km/h. Not the fastest elevator in the world, apparently, but going up there in just four minutes is–
Tidu: I'm not feeling very–
Tidu puts his hand before his mouth and faces the corner of the elevator
Cerny: Oh no, uh…
Cerny checks her handbag for items, dropping pens, napkins, sugar bags, and her keys on the elevator floor in the process.
Cerny: I do not have anything that could work as a barf bag I'm afraid.
Tidu: It's alright… It's alright.
Tidu breathes in and out loudly, but rhythmically. The metal tube around the elevator falls away to reveal the desert and sky outside.
Tidu's breathing accelerates.
Tidu: Oh fuck.
Tidu: Why the fuck did I agree to do this.
Cerny steps towards Tidu.
Cerny: Do I need to hit the emergency stop button?
Tidu: No, no, please.
Tidu: This is the worst part. I really… really don't like heights.
Cerny: It is… unnerving.
Tidu: It is trauma is what it is. Took me years to be kinda alright with airplanes. This just feels… way too real. I convinced myself this was a nightmare, you know?
Cerny: I always knew it was real.
Tidu: A month ago I was just a college graduate looking for a job, but then I just let myself be whisked away again. I hate, hate, hate being whisked away.
Cerny: I apologize if I pushed you into this too fast.
Tidu: I wouldn't have agreed to this if I wasn't ready to go up here again. I think.
Tidu sits down on the elevator's floor.
Tidu: I just… need a moment. And to close my eyes. God, watching the cloud come closer is actually worse than seeing the ground moving away from us.
Tidu proceeds to carry out his breathing excercises.
Cerny: I'm impressed at how calm you are staying. I can see how much this affects you… How did you…
Tidu: I've been dealing with this for basically as long as I remember. You have to learn to deal. Doesn't mean I enjoy this, though. Moments like these make me regret I quit smoking. Why aren't you shitting bricks right now?
Cerny: The flight itself, the cloud, those parts were never quite the traumatic parts for me. They were strange and, yes, scary, but it felt disconnected from reality. Honestly, it was good to be away from my life for a bit. To be alone, to just sit for a while. It was after I landed on earth again that things got really bad.
Tidu: Damn. Here all I got was a storm and a cold bath. I hate water more than heights, by the way.
Cerny: Noted.
Ten seconds of silence.
Tidu: I really would prefer if we keep talking. Distraction helps.
Cerny: Oh, uhm… If it was so terrible, why did you agree to join this project?
Tidu: I don't know. Unlike you, I never would've considered the idea of coming back to this place. Knowing that if I said "no" to you during our meeting I would never get to see the cloud again definitely had an impact on it. I never would've agreed to this if I had more time to think, but…
Tidu trails off.
Cerny: Was I so convincing?
Tidu: No, that wasn't it.
Tidu: My last psychiatrist spoke about breaking straight through your fears to control them. It's had mixed success, but going hiking in the Alps did help me. It made me feel in control.
Tidu: And when you told me the cloud was real, and that you had visited it multiple times? You did have a kind of twinkle in your eye when you told me about it.
Ten seconds of silence
Tidu: Knowing that if I didn't take your offer, I would never get another chance… That felt terrifying in its own way.
Cerny: That makes perfect sense to me. Využil jste svou jedinou šanci, your one chance.
Tidu: YOLO, right?
Cerny: I don't know what that means.
The elevator comes to a standstill, and the doors open. The bright soil of SCP-8858 is visible.
Tidu: Woah…
Cerny: Welcome to our project for the coming months.
Journal of Junior Researcher Tidu
2014/06/04
The cabin the Foundation built up here manages to be simultaneously crappy and quaint? It's pretty small, but it's three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a separate office space. The place is filled with random books, research papers, plant and soil samples, photographs, and there's even some poems lying around? The place is really lived in, and you can tell that every researcher is making the space their own. I'm glad there's a CD player here, though the selection sucks. I can only listen to "Everybody's Changing" so many times before I go mad.
Of course there's no internet connection up here, all we get is a phoneline for emergencies. It sucks, but Eliška says there's been no budget for amenities in years. I'll just have to do with trying to read Il Piccolo Principe in its original French. I do prefer sitting in the warm cabin over going outside.
I've been avoiding writing about the obvious, of course. The landscape is breathtaking. Sometimes literally. I don't remember what the landscape looked like, the lack of trees is not as unsettling to me as it is to Eliška. The cloudtop looks correct to me, and it looks threatening. At least I only sometimes feel like the terrain will swallow me whole.
We'll be going on an exploratory mission today. It is my job to map the landscape, and I'm glad I got something to focus on. It's going to be a lot of walking though. The cloud is enormous.
2014/06/06
"Learning to Fly" was alright, but fuck "Free Falling." I don't like Tom Petty, sorry dude. I'm never getting used to this place, it's cold and dry and painfully bright. But there lot of life up here. The records really missed at a lot of species. I'm even discovering new bugs up here. Makes it harder to regret coming here.
Journal of Dr. Eliška Cerny
2014/06/04
The ground is poofier than I remember.
2014/06/10
My source review is reaching a fairly good point of completion. I am excited to submit my paper for SCiPnet publication. The "feeding events" have always been an enigma, and Simons leaving it unresolved botherhed me. Looking through all the interviews, and comparing with some of the forum posts that the Foundation has intercepted in the past decade, I think I finally have a clear grasp of SCP-8858-A's methods and goals.
Simply put, I believe SCP-8858-A sustained themselves on tapping into human emotions, notably the feeling of wonder and happiness in children. The ritual required to exploit this source of energy seems to have been completely harmless to the children themselves, simply revitalizing the species perhaps through psychology alone. SCP-8858-A might have technically been pistiphages, entities deriving sustenance from something akin to "belief."
All known events match this hypothesis, with the exception of Paolo Tidu's story. I don't understand what could trigger SCP-8858-A to lash out so violently. There's no other recording of behavior like that, and Paolo is adamant that this is what happened.
Unrelatedly, I have convinced a few people at the Department of Surveillance and Reconnaissance to give the Merisis Hypothesis another go! I am certain that imagery technology has advanced enough since 2006 to determine this conclusively.
2014/06/11
Paolo is really opening up. It's good to see how the work seems to invigorate him. It is only when we approach a lake that he gets particularly antsy, which is of course a problem, as they are the most ecologically interesting areas. Still, it is good to see him identify sub-biomes and even describe the way that the landscape has recovered from the wildfire.
Talking about what this environment used to be like is oddly fulfilling. Nostalgic even, eventhough most of our "memories" are other people's stories. I've tried to remember what the fruit tasted like, what the trees smelled like, but I just can't. I don't have an eidetic memory. I can't even really remember the color of the elves' skin, or the exact way their faces were laid out. Talking about that clearly unnerves Paolo, though.
Instead, I tell him about fairy tales and literature. Recounting The Snow Queen from memory is interesting and Paolo seems to relate to Kaj. I think he does appreciate it, but I can't quite relate to his interest in electronic music and video games in turn. His productivity went up since we've brought some Prodigy CDs up from the surface, but it's probably not good for him to spend every evening working with headphones on.
Sunsets on the cloudtops are indescribably brilliant.
Recording from Dr. Cerny's badge camera
2014/06/14
Junior Researcher Tidu is seen inspecting a red flowering plant within a field of golden grass. More such plants are seen behind him, as well as hills of cloud-matter in the distance.
Tidu: This species seems to be unique to this valley.
Cerny: Haven't we seen these before? The lavendel type?
Tidu: They're probably related, but it would be a different subspecies from the red lavandula we know. The flowers aren't contained in verticils, which is a fairly significant difference. The color is different too, I think.
Cerny: It is? I think I would describe both as a brown red.
Tidu: They're both crimson, yeah, as are most flowers up here. But they're slightly different pigments. These are actually more similar to the asteralus in the prime valley, so there's a chance these are poisonous to rodents too. I should have a closer look at their growth pattern, but…
Tidu looks over his shoulder at the larger cluster of flowers. Cerny approaches Tidu, and the change of view reveals a large lake beyond the flowerpatch.
Cerny: They seem to grow near to the water.
Tidu: Yup.
Cerny: Would you like me to take some footage of them?
Tidu sighs
Tidu: It's impossible to see gnaw marks in the videos. Also, no offense, but you can't keep your camera still if your life depended on it. It's also a full day trip to get back here if we need more data. I should have a look myself.
Cerny: The slopes here are fairly steep. Are you sure?
Tidu: I logically know I'm not going to fall in. I've been here for ten days now: the soil will hold me, the water is shallow and fresh, you're right next to me, and I can repeat these facts to myself over and over again to calm my nerves. A cigarette would've helped though.
Cerny: I'll be right next to you.
Dr. Cerny places her bag on the ground before approaching the water. As she looks around, a tall cliffside is visible to their left, wrapping around the western shore of the lake. The flowers only grow on the flatter shores, predominantly to their right.
The view turns to Junior Researcher Tidu, who is staring at the cliffside rather than the flowers or the lake.
Cerny: Paolo, what is…
Tidu: I know this place. I've been here before.
Cerny: I don't think that is possible. This is the first time we have gone this far north.
Tidu: Twenty years ago.
Cerny: You're saying… This was where you were placed down?
Tidu: I remember running away. Running along the shore of the lake, and eventually hitting a cliff wall.
Tidu takes steps towards the cliff wall.
Tidu: This is where I balled up. Until that boy touched my shoulder and helped me up.
Cerny: Why would the elves have been here? Their only town was two valleys away.
Cerny: Is this location helping you remember that night?
Tidu faces Dr. Cerny. His eyes are wide and his breathing is exeggerated but regular. He then starts walking in a south-eastern direction. Cerny follows.
Tidu: It looks really different in the light, but the kid led me this way, near that floating cloud rock over there. There was a forest lining the entirety of that side of the valley. I resisted going in that direction.
Tidu: He led me directly to a group of monsters, they were standing in a circle there. I thought it was thunder I was hearing, but no, I think some of them were playing drums.
Tidu: The kid let go and ran ahead of me. He hugged one of the monsters.
Cerny: Hugged?
Tidu: I was frozen in place. The kid put himself in the middle of the circle, and the circle started closing in on him. The drums sped up, then stopped completely. It was so silent all of the sudden.
Tidu suddenly turns around and sits down on the grass.
Tidu: Jesus, I was wrong.
Cerny: Should we leave this place? Go back to base and take a breather?
Tidu: I completely blocked this out and now I remember. I feel like an idiot. The elves glowed so brightly, it was terrifying.
Tidu: But there was giggling. Pure gleeful giggling.
Cerny: Why would there have been…
Tidu: The elves hugged the kid. He was excited. They'd throw him up in the air and have him land on top of them. They flew around with him. They made him fly.
Tidu: God do I hate those creatures, but they really were just… fine. They really did just play.
Tidu: I just made it all up.
Cerny sits down next to Tidu.
Cerny: I do not think you made anything up, Paolo. What the elves did to you was horrific, even if they did not register it as such themselves. As far as I can tell, they did not care about you. They deserted you in your time of need.
Tidu: They were just children!
Cerny: They were playful, but they knew what they were doing. If they could tell the boy was having a good time, then they could tell you were having a bad time.
Tidu: But they didn't deserve to all die.
Cerny: No one deserves to die. Do not tell me you blame yourself for this?
Tidu: I wished them to die!
An extended silence falls as the two watch over the valley.
A squeaking noise is picked up, and Tidu and Cerny suddenly turn around, to the direction of the cliffside.
Tidu: What was that?
The two researchers stand up and walk towards the direction of the noise. A violet-colored shape is visible in the golden grass before Cerny briefly turns to Tidu to sign caution. The two researchers continue to approach the shape.
Cerny: Could this be… No, it can't be?
Tidu: It's a fluxie!
Cerny leans in to inspect a mammalian-like creature, violating Unidentified Fauna Caution Protocols in doing so. The creature is round and covered in soft fur. Cerny circles it to spot its face, which is highlighted with various fur patterns. The creature does not respond to Cerny, instead mildly chewing on a straw of grass.
Cerny: Where did it come from? I thought they had all burned with the forests?
Tidu: There's no cover around for protection either. Have they been hibernating somewhere?
Cerny: You think there are more of them?
Cerny and Tidu look up as more squeaking noises are heard from the direction of the cliff. Several creatures similar to the "fluxie" are seen squeezing themselves out of a small hole in the cloud's cliffside. The researchers approach the flock slowly.
Cerny: Could this be a nesting ground?
The creatures crowd around the original instance the researchers spotted. Cerny and Tidu step back to observe the herd behavior.
Tidu: They group together. Maybe a defense mechanism? A gregarious species warding off predators?
Cerny: They are beautifully iridescent. But see the distinct patterns on their fur, they are all unique!
Cerny: Fiona Milne said that she and her friends slept with these fluxítka.
Tidu falls silent as Cerny steps closer again and begins to pet the fluxies. The creatures begin to emit a soft, harmonic purring sound as she does so.
Cerny: Úžasné… This is amazing, wonderful. They're so soft, and they're sniffing my hands. There's a certain calming energy about them. They remind me of capybara, but they are so much softer.
Soft whimpering is audible. Cerny turns around, which reveals Tidu sitting on the ground, crying softly. Cerny approaches the Junior Researcher.
Cerny: Oh no, oh no, this is no time to cry.
Tidu: I'm an imbecile. I thought they were all dead, in my mind everything up here was dead!
Cerny: Dead? This is– this place seems more alive than anywhere I have ever been.
Tidu: It can't be alive! This place was gone, I removed it. But I was, I was wrong…
The fluxies slowly group around the two researchers, rubbing their fur against them.
Cerny: Listen, Paolo: we do not control tragedies. We only have so much control over life and death, or over when we are whisked away into a new life.
Cerny: I have blamed myself for the death of my brother, but I know that I had no control over such things. I hate having no control, but I had to accept it.
Cerny: I am just… intensely happy that…
Cerny's voice breaks
Cerny: That I am able to take a part in an effort to conserve such things. That they are not completely lost yet.
Journal of Dr. Cerny
2014/06/16
I hope to soon update the main article to list SCP-8858-C, previously dubbed "fluxies", as among the extant species on SCP-8858. These boneless sacks of fluff are clearly anomalous, and therefore the focus of preservation. In general, our file on SCP-8858 is thoroughly outdated, not mentioning the many species of plant, bush, and fish that have been documented on the cloud since 1999. Paolo has some ideas to control the rat population, inspired by New Zealand's highly successful predator control program. The standard Safe Anomolous Fauna budget should easily cover these plans.
2014/06/17
I just received a report from the Department of Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and it looks like we will need to rewrite the SCP-8858 containment procedures! The Merisis Hypothesis has proven correct. Attached is a piece of satellite imagery taken over the South China Sea in 2012. I have my work cut out for me.
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