I close my eyes and think of a time before I was called SCP-166, before I was in the Foundation. Before even the Convent. I remember the tales my mother told me as she braided my hair or trimmed it down. She often spoke of how she met my father, of their times together. I would ask her what was it like.
“Those days were some of the best of my long life. He was curious and easily impressed, much like that of a child,” she would often say. She would always ask what story I wanted to hear. One of the fondest memories is of one I heard multiple times, that of how they met and how they grew to be acquainted.
“As you may have noticed, Dearest, my appearance changes with the seasons of our home. In summer, I am as you see me now: tall and a young woman. In fall, I am crippled and mature. Winter, frail and elderly. Finally in spring, you see me as young as yourself; an infant waiting to grow older. Over the many years of my life, I had grown bored of this constant existence, of the people who bow and cower at my hooves, who bask in my presence and adhere to my every word.
“It had become tiresome and dull. I wished for something new, something to bring me excitement. As I made that wish on a full moon below a falling star, I felt a great force move. Be it fate or some power higher than myself, I do not know. But I do know that the following morning, I found a boy sleeping underneath a tree. While he was not the first child I ever encountered, nor the last, I knew he was there by fate. As I approached him, I felt a power, not one like yours or mine, but a power nonetheless. He was destined for great things, I could tell. I awoke him and awaited for his horror and surprise upon seeing my visage. Yet he did not shirk away, nor did he flee in fear. Instead he looked at me with eyes filled with innocence and told me that I was, in his own words, ‘really pretty‘. It was the beginning of spring, thus I looked to be his age.
“Despite being told by countless others of my beauty, it was your father’s eyes that captivated me as he spoke those words. I never had seen such curiosity and wonder. Playing with him, I giggled and said my thanks. He was about to say his name when I stopped him. Names have power and I dared not to know his true name. Thus I told him, ‘We do not speak names here. I wish to call you Beloved and you will call me as Goddess’. He was confused, so I told him to think of it as a game. We did many things together that day: climbing the trees, watching the clouds go by…so many things. It was the first time in many years that I had fun.
“I was showing him a dance of the forest when he realized that the sun was starting to set. He looked worried, afraid even, and I asked him what ailed him. He told me of how he had wished to be away from his home, of how he wanted to never be with his parents again. But he had begun to have a desire to go back. He missed his own mother and father. I became angry; I did not want my fun to end, I had no desire to become a dull shell once more. I asked him if he was not happy with me, if he did not enjoy my presence. I suppose I was too forceful; he broke out in tears soon after. He cried for his family, and I began to feel that same force take hold of him. Fearing the worst, I called out and begged him to stay, or at the very least to return to me. And he said he would. He vanished soon after, and once more I was alone.
“I waited endlessly for him to return. Day after day I awaited, refusing to even eat. I had realized that for the first time ever, I was truly in love. I no longer spoke the name I gave him out of mere tease and playfulness. I called out to him, begging for him to return. It was almost a year after his departure that he returned, during the middle of a winter. But that story, Dearest, is for another day.”
And so it was, but their reunion was never a story I liked much, as few things happened. My eyes open to reveal a worker of the Foundation enter with a food cart. I smile in response.
“Your roast beef and mashed potatoes, 166, as requested. You’ve been behaving rather well recently,” the worker said. She seemed to be more talkative than most visitors I get.
“I have no desire to make myself a threat to this place or its people. I merely wish to pray in peace. I thank you for this,” I tell her in response. I clasp my hands together and give God my thanks before eating the meal provided to me.
I toss and turn in my bed, the sores being prickled and rubbed. I never had these problems when I was with Mother; back then, we slept on the grass and the soil. The snow and the leaves. If I was cold, she would warm me with her embrace and if I was hot she would call the wind upon me. These sores only came when I entered the Covent. My father had apparently told the Sisters and Abbess of this condition and they had somehow found a way to accommodate me. But in truth, I do miss those days when I merely laid on my back basking the the warmth of the sun. There was one particular day where my mother sat next to me and told me of a summer that she spent with my father.
“He was still young, but much older than you. In mortal terms, he was reaching his teenage years. From time to time, during his visits, I taught him how to use his magnificent power. If you ever meet him, you must ask him to show you it; even I was a tad jealous of it. But that’s not important, Dearest. That summer was an enjoyable one, as all the times I spent with my Beloved. It would also have been the last summer I would spend with him. He told me that his family was breaking and that he would not be able to stay, nor could he return again. This saddened me, but by then I had grown used to his stubbornness and refusal to stay by my side. Instead, I asked that we spend the rest of the day and night to their fullest. As always, he agreed. Together we laughed and danced and played to our hearts’ content, never giving a care to whatever it was we did. We were to spend our last moments with each other in merry and fervor.
“However, something in me yearned for more. As night over came and sleep overtook him, I did the only thing I knew would solidify our relationship: I made love with him. During the seasons of spring and summer, I am at my most fertile and while he was young, he still had seed in him. I had my followers give him an elixir beforehand, so he would see the whole event as a dream; I did not wish to hurt him by letting him know I took advantage of him. By the morning, we had said our goodbyes with many tears on my part. All the while I felt you grow in my womb, Dearest. But unlike mortal women, your growth would take longer than usual; nine years I waited to birth you. When you came into this world, I felt nothing but joy, for you are the physical incarnation of my love for your father, my Beloved. It was a summer just like this one that I had spent my last day with him, and yet I have never forgotten a single moment of it.”
I smile at how warm that day was, how the wind felt on my face. The thought comforts me enough to begin a calm rest.
The Bible teaches us to stone women for not being a virgin before marriage, but only in extreme cases as Jesus told us doing so is sinful. It also teaches us that it is wrong for an unwed man and women to have sex. My mother committed both sins, but never did I see her as a sinner, even now after learning God’s holy words. I had once discussed this with the Abbess, and she had told me that my mother’s salvation was primarily up to God and his infinite wisdom, as my mother had never confessed her sins nor had she been baptized. The idea that my mother’s soul, one of kindness and gentleness, is doomed to be in Hell just because she did not get baptized nor had the final rites done by a priest has been haunting me for years, finding comfort in the hope that God will forgive her eventually.
But perhaps he will not. Mother never believed in God, calling him “the False Father” and mocked those who believed in him. Thinking back to it, it’s not hard to see why. Mother herself was stylized as a goddess; her power was more real than that of God’s. But some part of me feels as though there is more to it all. Mother once told me that my father was something much bigger than either herself or me.
“His power was dormant; even when I taught him how to tap into it, he still refused to utilize it to the fullest. It scared him, though I could not blame him. With his power, he could hold sway over countless lives. He could alter the perceptions of life itself. If he wished it, up would be down and right would be left. It was such a great power, that I began to feel as though my dream could become a reality,” I had asked her what that dream was. Her smile was the beginning of her response. “To return mortality and this world to its former glory. To bring forth paradise once more.”
Yet we were cast out of paradise by God for our sins. Knowing what I know now, I still can’t understand what Mother had intended for us. Perhaps it is best I never do.
Power. Mother always talked about it. The power of life. The power of death. The power of sacrifice, of willpower. But the one power she talked about the least was the power of names. What she did mention, she talked briefly but extensively.
“Everything has at least two names, Dearest. The name they are given upon taking existence, and the name they are to be called. For example, every individual tree has a name, but we do not use it. Instead we use oak, or birch, or pine. Every gust has a name, but I only know those of our home. Knowing the true name of something gives you dominion over it; enables you to control it. It is how I am able to have the trees dance for us. I gave your father the exact same lesson. Even after I came to know his true name, despite my best efforts in avoiding learning it, I never spoke it. Doing so would give me control over him and I care too deeply to do so. Thus, I always refer to him as Beloved. As you will always be referred to as Dearest, my daughter. I gave you your name but never shall I speak it.
“Remember, speak the name only if you have no love for the bearer of it; if you wish no harm upon whoever or whatever it is you are about to speak, then refrain from doing so. I hold no love for my followers, thus I shall speak their true names when necessary. I hold no care for the winds thus when I desire I call them forth. Such is the way of the world.”
Perhaps the Foundation understands the power of names, as none of them use their real ones. They always speak in code, in falsehoods. 166, Bright, O5…they think I do not listen, but one day I will learn a true name. And when I do, I will have them find and end my father.
I think the reason I held my father in such high regard is because Mother always spoke highly of him. She never once told a story where there was something negative. I wonder if there ever was and Mother merely forgot it or chose to ignore it. But I do know that she regretted letting him go, even though she refused to use his name to have him stay by her. As time progressed, I think his absence left a void in her that broke her apart. She would occasionally repeat stories of him without realizing it, or muttered a plea for him to return to her while she slept. I once asked what made my mother want him so much, believing it to be his power that attracted her. Mother laughed at this idea.
“At first, I was drawn to him by his innocence and eagerness to see what my own power did. But as he repeatedly returned and visited me, I became fond of his presence. But in truth, Dearest, I knew he was my fated one during a spring. We were running amongst the trees, chasing one another, when I decided to climb a tree. Unfortunately, this tree was not a young one and it did not take to me using its branches as a seat and stepping poles kindly. Had I not been distracted by your father’s attempts at finding me, I would have heard the tree’s plea to get off it. Instead, I climbed higher. Growing irritated with me, the tree severed a branch I had taken ahold of, causing me to fall. I easily could have called the winds to soften my fall were it not for my Beloved using his own power to thrust himself in the air to catch me,” my mother then laughed at the memory.
“Though, in doing so, he failed to provide any means of a soft landing for either of us. We crashed down onto the soil quite hard but it was his immediate reaction to saving me that awoke a new feeling: peace. If I was by his side and he mine, I felt peaceful. I knew that he would come to my rescue even if it were at his own risk. I felt the need to do the same. But then, the summer of the next year, he left. I suppose his constant disappearances worried his family, or perhaps he was no longer a member of that family and had a new one. Whatever the reason, I do not know. But in my heart, Dearest, I’m certain your father will return. If not by his own volition, then I’m sure something will draw him here.”
She told me that on the last winter I’d spend with her, for it was the following summer that my father murdered my mother with his own hands.
I remember it so clearly, even to this day. I hold the letter in my hand, written by the man who is my father. The people he works for, this Foundation, tried to take it from me, but I did not give it to them. I allowed them to copy it for recording purposes, but I asked with vigor to let me keep it. SCP-166 is my designation here, but I have a name. A name my mother gave to me with love and joy.
He thinks I do not know of his sin, but he is wrong. I do not tell him of the memory that haunts my nightmares even now. I close my eyes, thinking back to the last moments I spent with her. If the Sisters or the Abbess knew of her appearance, they might have called her a demon, or perhaps Satan himself. But my mother was not demon, nor could she have been Satan, for demons are wicked things and Satan is a corrupter and deceiver. But Mother was always kind, even when she was angry. And while demons smile with sinister and fiendish thoughts, Mother’s smile was filled with joy, though there were times when I could see her fury becoming unbearable, she still smiled. But one day she stopped smiling, and then things changed. She gathered those who followed her and had them prepare a ritual. Mother kept the men away from me because of my own power, and she had always said she would teach me to control it just like her. I always enjoyed watching Mother’s power, especially when she had the trees dance.
But there were people who feared my mother, who wanted to stop her power. They attacked our peaceful home, killing the many friends who played with me when Mother was busy. I miss them. Soon after, I got the first glimpse of my father, a man who Mother had always described as naïve but gentle. Yet as he stood before her after many years, I could see that he was not the man she once knew. But her eyes still showed that she loved him.
“Hello, Beloved,” Mother said to him as he approached softly, her smile wider than I had ever seen it before. Her eyes glinted like the stars and her expression was as warm as the season of spring. His face was heavy and burdened, perhaps even then he was carrying the weight of sin.
“You know why I’m here,” he said. I could hear the pain in his voice. He stood some distance, not making any attempt to get closer. “I wish it didn’t have to come to this.”
“Even now, you play the part of a pawn. Even when you see me after so long, you cannot comprehend the vastness of your potential,” Mother extended her hand out to him. “Come Beloved, stand by my side yet again. Be with me and together we can usher the new Eden. You and me, just like we always wanted.” My father lashes a hand across the air, his eyes narrowing.
“No! That was your dream, not mine. You know why I’m here, what I must do,” a scowl replaced my mother’s gentle smile. She looks at him with disappointment; as though she were his mother and had caught him in a lie.
“Your masters seek me dead. I know why they fear what they cannot comprehend. One day, Beloved, you too shall be a target in their pitiful hunt,” the smile returned. She raised her arms into the air and a gust swept across her, flapping her robes gently. “But I can change that, you know I can. Come now, do you not wish to be bedazzled by my power as you once were?”
For a moment, it seemed as though my father considered her offer. But he shook his head violently. “I can’t do that, you know I can’t. I have to do my job,”
“Yes, the job of the Devil,” Mother sneered, and for the first time since he arrived, she glared at him. “That is what you see yourself as, the picture you paint for those who seek to peek into your true self. The you that I alone have seen. The you that embraced me on the night of nights, with the moon and stars as our witnesses. Do you not remember that night beloved?” My father shook his head repeatedly, as though he were trying to throw out whatever thoughts were in his head.
“I always thought that was more than a dream. Damn it! Alright, now I have no doubt in my mind that I need to do my job,” he said, his words filled with betrayal and distrust. My mother tried to reason with him, but he just stepped away from her. “Stop trying to convince me to change my mind! I have my orders, and I need to carry them out!” My father’s voice was still solid as he pointed firmly to the ground, but it was clear he did not wish to be in his position.
“What you need, Beloved, it to see the fruits of that night. Dearest, come out into the light if you please,” Mother ordered, turning her head slightly in the direction of my hiding place. I obliged, and as I stepped out into view, I could see the surprise in his face. The surprise twisted into horror, then fury, then sorrow.
“Why?” He asked, his voice finally breaking. He pointed at me with his arms, his hands shaking. “Why show this to me? You know that they are looking for her too! Why did you not hide her? Why bring her out in the open?!”
“Because I wished to show you why I must do what I must. I understand your needs, and now you understand my own. Beloved, I offer you this chance: join me and together, we can bring this world into a new beginning. The three of us, together,” Mother’s voice was conveying her own sorrow. She did not wish to see my father become her enemy. And my father knew this, I could tell. He seemed to be coming to her side when a new voice came from my father’s body.
“Agent Ukulele, are we happy?” The voice startled my mother and surprised my father. The words were repeated. A moment passed, yet it seemed as though hours went by. He tore a strange thing from his chest and threw it to the ground. Mother beamed immensely as he looked to her, and she spread her arms to embrace him. I wish I could have stopped her, to prevent any of this from happening. But I do not have her power, nor do I believe I ever will. I was helpless as he walked up to her, shared in her embrace, exchange a few words with her before he closed his eyes and pulled the gun from his waist and shot my mother in the head. I wanted to scream, but Mommy always told me to stay hidden and obscure, to never shout and bring attention to myself. As he walked away from her, I did the opposite. My father then picked up the device and brought it to his face, his eyes firmly looking at me with determination as I knelt by the side of the one who birthed me.
“Agent Ukulele to task force, we are happy. Repeat: we are happy. Return to extraction point without me,” he spoke with a conviction, but his face revealed it was a front. There is a brief pause as he continued to watch me.
“Acknowledged. Returning to base command,” my father sighed before scooping me up in his arms. He brought me to the place I would call home for several years, a place I found solace and comfort, for I could see my mother within all the Sisters. But then things changed once more. And then I saw him again. He came to me when those he worked for weren’t watching. At first, I refused to look at him, and in turn he said nothing. For some time, there were no words, no actions. After a while, he stood up walked over to me. I instinctively moved away, remembering what he did to Mother, but he did not touch me. Instead he kissed my forehead and whispered me a happy birthday. He left, leaving a note in his wake. A note that I at first wanted to rip apart, but chose to read it.
Once more, I look at the crumpled piece of paper in my hand. I try to imagine a world where he did not kill my mother. If he did not, would we have been able to be a family? I had always known the love of a mother, but never of a father. Perhaps, one day, if I am ever able to forgive him there is a chance we can. A female worker of this facility comes into my room, the white coat obscuring a doctor’s uniform.
“SCP-166, your weekly phone call with the Abbess is ready,” she says. I silently thank her and walk over to the phone in her hand. She watches me, as they always do. I place the phone to my ear.
“Hello Abbess,” I say, a smile creeping on my face as I think of the place I grew up in.
“Hello child,” I hear the Abbess say, her voice familiar and soothing. “What shall we talk about today?”
I waste no time in thought. “I wish to talk about my parents, specifically my father.”
Do not edit other writers' sandboxes without permission.
