Archive of Our Own

At four in the morning, the emergency alert sound trumpets from his bedside end table. It doesn’t stop after two minutes, prompting him to force his hand down on the phone. He accidentally smacks himself in the face with it as he toggles with the volume control, trying to find a way to manually deactivate the ear-piercing sound.

His lock screen is dominated by a message that stretches down so far that the user has to scroll. Even using an off-colour white, it’s still so bright that his eyes sting at the sight of it. It can’t be massaged away, so he has to fight through the discomfort to read what it says.

At 1:28 AM, the SCP Foundation reported the escape attempt of SCP-26110, who is believed to currently be within a 65-mile radius of the maximum-security facility where it was kept.

SCP-26110 is a Class: Euclid specimen that poses a potential risk to the unarmed population. The whereabouts of SCP-26110 are still unknown, but a recon team has been dispatched to investigate reports of a violent attack to a gas station in the town of Andover.

Do not attempt to approach. If seen, do not make eye contact and locate the nearest body of water.

Report any potential sightings to the SCP Foundation immediately. Take caution and avoid unnecessary risks.

His sleep-addled brain only has some cylinders firing, so it can’t understand why the amygdala has picked up on a threat and made his muscles tense in anticipation of a fight. He’s too incoherent to decipher much beyond that, reading without digesting what the words mean. 

The next thing he knows, his eyelids pull down and he’s out snoring.

It’s a different story the next day, when he finds his phone beside his pillow, unplugged and down about twenty percent in battery from being turned on intermittently in the night. The message from before remains. Marked with high importance, it’s hard to ignore the pulsing red outline when it’s brighter than his chosen background.

He’d thought he dreamed it. Few things can feel so invented but turn out to be the reality, so he imagined they were lucid dreams and left it at that. Reading the warning again, he’s made fully awake by how it lacks any assurance that the situation is under control; no optimism is there to give them hope that this will be resolved or elaborated on in the next couple of days, like the report of a missing child or subject on the run would.

As is the case with most people, he turns to the internet to find answers that the authorities won’t provide. WikiLeaks has a few documents that go into depth about the experiments conducted by the SCP Foundation, attached to a profile for an item classified by the organization as “Safe” in the rung of their security hierarchy. The photo of it has less than desirable quality, shot by something older than a polaroid camera. In any case, it’s of no use to him. It’s not the one that’s reported missing, just a taste of what’s to come. 

Backlash for breaking containment is instantaneous on the media: people speculating on the news, mothers on Facebook pages saying they never felt safe. The township sets a curfew that you need special provisions to be outside during, one that Tubbo’s company offers to sign off on should he need the overtime hours. Police officers become a more common sight on the main streets; they’re tucked around buildings but it’s not to catch people speeding over the limit. They hardly spare him a glance when he’s walking his groceries to the bed of his truck. They’ve got bigger things on their mind.

There’s no sense trying to panic over nothing, he tells himself. The most he does is stock a bunker with soup and ravioli cans in case they need to go into quarantine for their protection. He fields messages from friends he hasn’t spoken to in years, telling him to stay safe. They know he’s lived alone since his parents retired to central Europe, making him more vulnerable than most. Although they mean well, none of them offer to visit. The secluded location of the backcountry must be too much for them, even if he’s only a fifteen-minutes’ drive from the main road.

It’s amazing how fast life changes. The local news channels, featuring reporters filled out with protective gear, are on a constant search for new information. They interview witnesses with less than accurate statements just to fill time in the program. The feedback loop becomes its own monster, the witness pool contaminated by hearsay that finds its way back to the people who are chosen.

Most of the reliable information he has comes secondhand from those with more technological expertise than him. According to them, the creature in question was first found in the United States, then transferred to the British Isles for containment that only the authorities here could provide. Since then, there have been difficulties proofing the facility against its teleportation, resulting in a few past incidents smothered by the government by being passed off as local criminal activity. No deaths were recorded, but that didn’t eliminate the risk that it could be possible for the SCP to intentionally or not cause pandemonium.

Only one thing truly affects Tubbo, and that’s a photo from a forum post thread that allegedly captures the creature traversing a forest much like the one that surrounds his house. It resembles the beech trees lurking behind it in height alone, having the same skeletal posture as the old growth. It’s got a lack of colour on either side, save for the eyes that glow in the dim light around it. The URL hangs around in the ‘recently closed’ section of his browser history, the garbled link making it look more ominous than it has any right being.

Never look at its eyes, they say in the summary of the photo. The monotony of the black and white it uses for a skin might encourage it, as does the urge to look for a face in the unknown, but it’s one temptation that can’t be fed. It won’t end well if he does. Among every source he accesses, they all say the same thing.

He tells himself he’s not going to be a victim of conspiracy theories like most people he knows, being one to roll his eyes at the rituals people do to protect themselves that are shared on social media under the false premise of being effective. That said, he’s human. He likes to learn and he wants to know. There’s only so long he can wait in suspense before his mind takes him to new places, prompting explorations he hasn’t been able to take since he was a kid. 

The first is to go on an idle trip along the countryside, weaning the forests into billowing fields and pastures home to cows laying on their sides with their calves running about. When that strike of impulsivity gives him nothing, he goes on his own scavenge around the house, cleaning off the stack of wood he purchased from the lumber yard a few months back and did nothing with. He climbs the elbow of the house’s gutter up to the roof and takes a seat beside the chimney to shield himself from the wind. It gives him a good vantage point of the trees and the few clearings in the distance where a select few have made their homes. 

When any of them start a fire, it’s plain and visible to see from out here. They may as well be waving a white flag to any escaped convict looking for a place to hide. It’s got the perfect combination of features to be a habitat for someone who wants to stay out of the eyes of the law. So in any case, he can’t say he’s surprised when the neighbouring town gets their first scare and his life turns on its head.

Strange happenings begin to take place, piquing his suspicions enough to make him lock his doors and draw his blinds. A mound of dirt appears a few inches to the side of his driveway, the disturbed earth slumped over on one side. Considering nothing was in its place the night prior, its appearance is not something that can be explained by logical progression like erosion or deposits from some manual labour. It’s far too substantial to have been moved by one person also, even if they were equipped with a shovel and wheelbarrow. Moreover, they would have no motive. He doesn’t even cut people off in traffic, let alone do anything that would warrant harassment. It’s all very unnerving.

After that, he tries to find an explanation in the house’s history. A long long time ago the property supported a small farm, but the barn down the road has long been torn down and the animals sold. Now it’s just the one three-bedroom house on the outer edge of town, close to the forest. It comes with all of the luxuries of country living: spiders, slow internet, and a lack of delivery services; but his parents sold it to him cheap, so he can hardly complain. He’s never had anything to worry about outside of the expected maintenance costs with the house’s age, and there is no way to justify the dirt as being tangentially involved with that. He ends up back where he began: with nothing.

He considers using the dirt to fill in some holes, before deciding against putting himself in unnecessary danger. The tools in his garage shed go untouched except for the one day he wanders down there to look at his options for self-defence. It’s times like that when he wishes he took his father’s advice and inherited his toolbox. It would significantly boost his chances now to have more on hand to work with. The most he can do now is add to the gallery in his camera roll with images of the scenes outside of his house, in case a police investigation might need them.

The dirt planted there is unusually fertile, sprouting grass after only a few days that grows greener and longer than the sod one would purchase from a retailer. Its infectious hold on his property means the blooms spread up to his door, weeds breaking out of the cracks in his driveway. They won’t be deterred by his foot stomping on them, pushing themselves up higher in resistance. 

Though he never comes close to removing the dirt, there are times of weakness where it’s flattened by the wheels of his truck or trodden on when he’s moving about. The retaliation from the sender comes a week later, when a similar pile ends up in Tubbo’s backyard under no further explanation.

He thinks he sees a purple flow emanating from one of the east caves by his property. It’s something to rubberneck at when he’s driving home from a late shift at work and not an occurrence he would ever feel safe exiting the vehicle to get a closer look at. His curiosity would get the better of him if he wasn’t already convinced that something wicked was in the air. It’s certainly not something he would consider exploring during the witching hour, when the odds are greatest that something would go wrong.

Every day he makes it home, throwing off his protective gear and reflective vest into the dump that is his hallway closet. A few hours of scanning Reddit produces nothing, but he likes it that way. After long hours outside, it’s nice to have some mind-numbing nonsense to wade through. It certainly keeps his mind occupied so that he doesn’t think about what’s happening right outside of his door.

That doesn’t mean it’s any less prevalent. The worst comes when he’s turned his lights off for the night and has made a protective cocoon for himself by turning in his blankets until they’re wrapped around his body. Even the walls of cotton can’t block out the murmurings from just outside of his door, which resemble little more than nonsense. Tuning into them does nothing but make the hair on his arms stand on end. Whatever language it’s spoken in, it’s not English. The vernacular is too warped to resemble anything foreign either, from what limited exposure he’s had to it; humans don’t speak like that. It’s guttural, made from gasps and grunts and sawed-off words that never got the chance to be finished. 

He grabs an additional pillow from the unused guest bedroom and almost asphyxiates himself trying to press it down over his ears. All it accomplishes is making the blood rushing through his head sound even louder, which is not as much a comfort as he expected it to be. He likes being alive, but not so much knowing about what’s making it happen. Hearing the squelch of his insides never fails to make him nauseous. 

Caught between a rock and a hard place, he settles for splaying out on his back and pretending he can’t hear any of it. One of his co-workers, Diane, has tinnitus from not wearing proper hearing protection when she was younger. For one selfish moment, he wonders if that would be so bad considering the circumstances. Then the thought boomerangs back and makes him feel like a bad person.

Luckily, he usually ends up too tired to argue louder with himself. Those are the few moments of peace he gets in a long day. It’s too bad they’re not very restful. It’s not like he ever wakes up feeling better than he did before bed, just with a pinched nerve and eyes so heavy that he needs to pry them open with his hands.

The whispering never goes away, in his head when it’s not in his ears. He’s distracted at work, a danger to himself and his fellow employees, and if they weren’t all going through the same thing it would probably be more noticeable. Alas, he’s not the first one to almost nail his hand into a board. Old man Seamus was the first of many, after he thought he heard scuttering from a nearby bush. Tubbo was unfortunate enough to deal with the aftermath.

No one was seriously injured, but it made him look harder at that cave outcrop on the commute back home. He almost veered off into a ditch because of it, preventing a skid at the last minute with a tug on the steering wheel. The purple twinkles with laughter at the almost accident. If it could see the almost-glare that Tubbo shot at it, it would probably shine brighter.

He shifts the truck back into drive, pulling off the side of the road and turning his hazards off. He speeds back to his house, well over the limit but beyond caring. All he wants to do is get home.

Then one of his backyard hives starts swarming with no advance notice, taking over what was supposed to be a peaceful weekend with the promise of sweat and dramatic sights as the sun is blocked out by specs of beaded black. Even with his swarm preventions in place, the slatted racks aren’t doing enough to give them proper ventilation it seems. That, or something else has given them a reason to split and leave. 

He manages to salvage one with some quick thinking, which treats against the feeling of loss that comes just moments after the worst of the ordeal is over. He’d been so careful; though he’s by no means an old hand, there is enough of the practice crammed into his skull that he knows how to avoid rookie mistakes. 

He takes a seat on his doorstep with a glass of cold water in hand, trying to calm his nerves and failing. His gloves are set aside to his right, noticeably limp without hands inside to puppet them. It’s far from the ideal sight of taking a breather on a summer night with a glass of lemonade to celebrate an eventful day, but he supposes it could have been much worse. The losses will be recuperated. It won’t stop him from his casual hobby. 

What bothers him more than anything else happens to be a question that can’t be solved: what was the trigger? He cut the burr comb just a few days ago and invested in screened bottom boards with the savings from his paycheque. Genetics is one explanation but so is outside intervention, which again brings him back to the reports that the SCP Foundation has been unsuccessful at finding their escaped creature. 

Something of its power would be unlikely to mess with something as insignificant as a bee colony he tells himself. It could, but it wouldn’t. He wraps himself in convenient truths to stave the fear that he should put his house up on the market and run for the hills. It’s a coincidence. He won’t be prey to speculation that doesn’t have a single leg to stand on.

Then dead animals start showing up on his doorstep, like the fruit of a pet cat’s bounteous hunt. He uses a stick to poke at the mangled wing of what he thinks was once a bird, his heart twisted in pity for the poor thing. From what he can see, it didn’t succumb to injuries made by claw and tooth. It’s got the deformed shape of something that up and fell out of the sky.

He returns with a black garbage bag from under the kitchen sink, turning it inside-out to grab the bird so he doesn’t have to touch it. Gagging, he just barely keeps his breakfast down by turning his head to the side to spare himself the gore. It can’t stop the smell from saturating his senses, bearing a faint resemblance of rotting wood but managing to be a lot bolder about what it’s trying to signify. It’s got something in common with snapped violin strings, managing to be disappointing in its end. Similarly, something that made music has been snuffed quiet, its voice taken from a monster that can’t be escaped.

Even sealed inside of the bag, the memory of it burrows at him, scooping at his insides. He lathers his hands with so much soap that the bottle wheezes in its emptiness after ten minutes. When that doesn’t work, he removes what he’s wearing with the opposite of surgical precision and throws it into the hamper. The load is fed into the machine and dosed with detergent until his eyes sting. He sits beside the wash with his knees tucked up to his chin, rolling his tongue around in his mouth as he waits.

The offending bag is eventually left at a dumpsite. Tubbo chucks it over his head, not watching to see where it lands after the initial plunk is heard. The poor bird deserves better, but he doesn’t have it in him to give it a proper burial. 

Another night of whispering all about drives him mad. He shoves his feet into his slippers, throwing a sweater over his body to combat the worst of the cold as he treads a determined path down to the front door. The locks unbuckle with a flip of his thumb, opening the interior of his house to the outdoors.

He pokes his head around the corner: nothing out of the ordinary. A quick walk around the property reveals nothing amiss either. Just when he’s about to call it quits, a floating purple particle drifts into view on a waft of cool air. He recoils when it makes contact with his skin, popping and then sizzling.

More like it can be spotted in the necks of the old growths, which gives him an ultimatum: check it out now, or forever wonder what was out there. Any rational person would turn on their heel and find reception to call the authorities with. Tubbo was never known for being the brightest bulb in the chandelier though, particularly when it came to his own curiosity.

Against sound judgement, he follows the trail of purple specks into the heavily wooded area, only stopping to mark trees so he can find his way back (easier said than done when it’s pitch black). A lot of it feels aimless; if he didn’t know better, he would think he’s being walked in circles. Every second tree looks the same as the first. It’s a labyrinth, making him unable to differentiate up from down by the end of it. 

He makes one turn up around the bend that shouldn’t be any different from the last, only this one is the only thing standing between him and the creature, who’s placed itself not far from the overlay of roots. A gasp is wrenched out of Tubbo, whose eyes follow the seam of its body up from its unnaturally long legs to the upper half. Ignoring all he’s been told, he gives in to the need to see what cryptid has appeared out from the human imagination and into the space before him.

Their eyes touch. It’s brief, but enough to say they saw each other. Tubbo didn’t realize he’d done it until he’s looked away out of learned principle. His insides are ice cold by then.

Shakily drawing in a breath, Tubbo forces his hands down over his eyes. The relay of instructions from the broadcasts flies by, with only the bare minimum of security precautions coming back to memory. A sob gurgles in the heart of his chest as the worst-case scenarios come to mind. Gravity works against him, pushing him down to the soil so hard that his spine feels like it bends under its force. That’s the moment when his head decides it wants to get sentimental, reminding him that it’s been half a month since he called Mom, that he never returned the phone charger he took from Lani. Will they even get the closure of a body when it’s done with him?

Resisting the urge to peek through his fingers, Tubbo’s nostrils flare out to try and increase his air intake. His mouth tries to aid the endeavour by opening up, turning his breathing into rasps that scrape the surface of his tongue. The sound of flickers slices through the space in front of him, followed by the air temperature cooling.

Large, smooth hands close over Tubbo’s, prying at the seal he’s made. He resists at first. It’s not a fight he was ever going to win, so he squeezes his eyes shut and lets his hands be pulled away. A rumble, similar to that of a plane engine’s, is heard as Tubbo’s face is revealed to the creature. His whole body tenses, waiting for the moment that the grip tries to bend his flesh and bone.

He can’t get a sense of what the creature’s hands look like from touch alone. They’re as cold as the surface of the earth in December and about as hard too. Long and curved, they make him feel so small as they wrap around him and bind his fingers together. Whether it’s claws or nails it has, something sharp has scratched the skin below Tubbo’s knuckle as it pokes and prods at the calloused surface. Any pain it inflicts is accidental, and it takes its time cataloguing who he is through a rigorous set of experiments.

When enough time passes and nothing has happened, Tubbo tries to free himself again by throwing his body back. Enough force is put into it that he succeeds but goes too far and feels his centre of balance leave his feet to travel up his back, bringing him down. Flailing his arms does nothing except smack into something solid that has no give, giving him a new pain to nurse in his upper wrist. 

The startled gasp that leaves him alerts the creature into action, making it swoop in to grab a handful of each shoulder. On instinct, Tubbo’s eyes fly open. It’s a slab of black in front of him, flipped into white when he’s halfway through the fall. The abrupt stop makes his insides swirl, pushing his stomach up into his throat. That’s when the purple comes into view again, belonging to none other than the creature and the divided half of one face. It doesn’t even know where to look, drawn to the quiet scream that’s forced Tubbo’s jaw open until the joints click.

One last-ditch attempt to escape has Tubbo’s hands shoving at the creature, his torso twisting until his top doesn’t match his bottom. Dirt sprays up as he sprints toward the direction of his house. Anything that isn’t directly in front of him loses its shape to the motion blur that turns trees into twigs and the ravine into flat terrain. The hurry makes it impossible to gauge the depth of where he’s about to step, resulting in a misstep that has him launching himself face-first into the root of a great oak.

His cheek is whipped by the impact, roping his face with angry red lines. The fear of dying, combined with his lack of spatial awareness, makes it hurt twice as much as it normally would. He has no immunity to the gripes of being human. It stuns him into a wounded cry, curling into himself. His ankle burns with red hot intensity.

The creature doesn’t make a sound, ending up beside him instantaneously. Tubbo hides his face in the rotting leaves. A smell that is reminiscent of the bird he had to dispose of rises up. His own bile makes him want to gag, sticky enough to act as a glue that closes up his mouth.

The hands are back, a damp dishrag over a fevering forehead. Instead of conducting Tubbo’s heat, they help cool it down. They take care not to add to his injuries by hovering just above his clothes where necessary, eventually finding the leg that’s causing Tubbo enough pain to drain his face of blood.

Tubbo’s not aware of the hand slipping under the curve of his back until he’s already being hoisted into the air. His bangs flap over his eyes, arms dangling under him like an infant’s mobile. Self-preservation takes over, making him go possum at the thought of being hurt. His gut does most of the thinking for him, cramping up. It quickly turns into a sinking feeling as his organs adjust to the change in force that’s pulled his body up eight feet in the air.

Motion adds to the uncomfortable feeling, making his throat close up to try and prevent being sick. Each limb of his takes a different direction, making it difficult for his assailant to move him. Or at least, it would if it was a human he was dealing with. The creature is not deterred by Tubbo’s legs smacking into its midsection, lifting him like he weighs only five pounds. Only by the feeling of turbulence catching in his hair does Tubbo know they’re moving somewhere--apparently without walking, as there’s no upper body movement to imply that the SCP has to move its hips or shoulders to go forward.

It’s not long of a journey before he’s placed back onto the ground, in no worse shape than he was when he first fell. Massaging his ankle, he uses his dominant hand to push the hair out of his eyes and is surprised to see the creature is nowhere in sight. He’s back where he started, in the dusty turf of his driveway and all the needed yard work it entails. Without a scratch (ignoring what was self-inflicted by his escape attempt), he’s safe and sound at home--thanks to the creature.

Half of his body is caked in dust and dirt, the other matted with debris from the forest floor. He doesn’t bother trying to pat himself down before he enters, much more concerned with spinning in circles trying to catch sight of where it could have gone. No purple, black, or white can be seen among the foliage swinging up above. He’s alone, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

He should call the SCP Foundation and put a bounty on the thing’s head. Just because he was spared doesn’t mean the next person will be as lucky. It’s clearly got violent tendencies, if the gifts he’s been receiving are anything to go by. Who’s to say he isn’t the next body gifted to an unsuspecting victim? The thought of it makes him arm himself with a kitchen knife, even if he doubts its effectiveness against a superhuman entity.

But it’s not like it’s doing anything. It’s certainly not going on any rampage. People are doing fine enough on their own, being crazed enough to cause their own road accidents because they’re too busy searching for SCPs and not fauna on the side of the highway. From the limited knowledge he’s gleaned, he knows what the foundation does to its creatures is not something that would pass a freshman ethics course. Their priority is to protect the general population, which means compromising the “rights” of sentient creatures to create a sense of security. No wonder the thing probably ran away at the first opportunity.

Tubbo doesn’t see it again until a few days after the first incident, when his foot has healed enough for him to go on a walk outside for some fresh air. The initial encounter has somewhat desensitized him to the potential dangers--if it wanted to kill him, it would have--and he strays out beyond what would be considered safe to stretch his legs.

It isn’t until about twenty minutes into the endeavour when his senses begin to corroborate the idea that there’s someone else close by. A quick turn of the head confirms it, as a black-and-white object shoots out of view and into the rustling bushes by the far end. On cue, his heart rate picks up with the arrival of a threat. It tells him to go home before he gets hurt.

Tubbo keeps his head down, nearly bumping into several trees by not risking the chance of them meeting eyes once again. Ploughing his way through the undergrowth is easier said than done with his nerves shot. Every twig snap makes him jump. The birds cawing above may as well be the screams of a buzzsaw meeting wood with how strong a reaction they prompt from him.

He relies on sound to gauge where the creature has ended up. It’s not reliable; he thinks there’s a crunch in the distance or the scrape of a large body against the rotting wood of a trunk and seconds later, the berry bush to the right will shake and mess with his self-awareness. Teleportation was one thing mentioned by the binge of search topics he went on and now he’s finally seeing it in action. Even knowing that, it’s jarring to not have footfalls accompany each stride it takes, making it glide across great distances without any way of knowing where it ends up.

As with most things, there’s only so long he can tolerate smacking into the understory and canopy before he gets overconfident and starts throwing around the idea of taking a quick look behind him--just to know what he’s up against. The unknown is what’s keeping him fearful and a two-second glimpse isn’t enough to say whether he should be in a more elevated state. If the creature wanted him dead, it wouldn’t be hard to manage. It’s had its chances--could’ve snapped his neck and let him decompose in the woods long ago, as gruesome as it is to think about.

Against the caution of his rapid pulse, Tubbo stops where he is and looks over his left shoulder, hair purposefully brushed in front so it’s not as obvious what he’s doing. Unsurprisingly, the monster is close by. It’s not looking at Tubbo though, its eyes are plastered to the ground. The feet and inches it’s got on Tubbo shoot its head up into the mass of intertwined branches above, crowning it with the twigs and leaves of the mature trees.

So long as Tubbo isn’t moving, it stays in place. With its arms tucked behind its back, it looks to be an exact copy of him. What starts as a silly idea proves to be real with a few tests of him sticking out his legs and waving his arms around; whatever Tubbo does, the creature will mimic. A young school-age child would do the same thing with one of their parents or older siblings, which brings a wholesome image to mind considering that he’s dealing with an SCP.

Tubbo has a bit of fun with it, walking the creature home using a variety of styles that border on ridiculous. His new companion never once gives up the game, either because it’s not aware of how dumb it looks or doesn’t care. The latter seems to be the more plausible option. It seems to know its power--knows that Tubbo knows its power--and does what it can to mitigate that fact. The distance between them is always a few feet minimum, which helps calm the feeling of perceived danger until it can be pushed away from the front of his mind. He gets to have a bit of fun with his new shadow, and laugh at how wonky it looks when the same attributes that add a horror element are also the ones making it get stuck behind bushes or grabbed by the leafy awnings just above it. It seems its height is just as much a blessing as it is a curse.

Some of the laughter comes from nerves, that he won’t deny. Dangerous forces are at play and it’s only because of the euphoria at being alive that he doesn’t realize them to the full extent. Despite that, he doesn’t completely let down his defences. He’s shaky so much that he’d be forgiven for thinking it’s below zero outside. The sweat gathering under his arms makes it uncomfortable to have them down at his waist, making him stick them out for balance he doesn’t need. In trying to copy him, the creature’s spread arm smacks a branch, making acorns rain down on them.

Escort in tow, Tubbo safely makes it home just shy of the sun's early rays. His boots will need a good wash to remove the crust of mud that’s built up on either side from the worst of the trudge through the swamplands. He drags each one down the grit of the faded welcome mat, leaving behind two long streaks.

Though it looks interested in joining him, the creature stops by the fringes of the outcrop and stays there for as long as it takes Tubbo to get in the door. It’s the second time he’s been let go, free of harm. 

When he looks out the front window a few minutes later, it’s gone. The first thrushes begin to cry out their morning alarm, as the world goes back to being ordinary.

It’s gone, but not forgotten. The creature makes frequent appearances after that point, both at appropriate and inappropriate hours of the day. 

Sleep is an ordeal that doesn’t come easy. Tubbo’s visitor likes to stop by and make shadowplay happen on the windows, making horned apparitions that spook the sleep out of him. The low moans make him think animals are dying when in reality, it’s just an ambient noise that comes from the creature that’s no different from the cough of a car’s exhaust pipe when it’s in motion.

Tubbo considered drawing the blinds at first, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before he’d be peaking outside to be updated with what’s happening. Not a five-minute period goes by where he doesn’t have one eye pried open, trying to see if anything has come from the guest. If it’s particularly quiet, he might even stand up and peer out to “satiate” his curiosity. He uses that term loosely, only because the more he learns about the creature, the less satisfied he is.

On one such occasion, he manages to determine the creature because of a few jumping particles. It’s otherwise invisible, becoming one with the environment. Despite the wonders of the night behind it, it’s content to stare into his house, unblinking. Eldritch horrors like itself must not need to moisten their eyes.

Tubbo still has to. It’s nothing to him--so instinctual he does it without thinking. But all it takes is one blink for the creature to spawn in front of him. In less than a millisecond, it’s bounded ahead by more than a few metres of space.

The scare sends Tubbo about a foot back, where he bumps his hip into the side of his desk and doubles over in pain. 

Unperturbed, the creature watches from behind the bars of the window muntins. It doesn’t seem particularly troubled by the violent reaction of Tubbo’s, eyes sliding back and forth as they follow him around the room. Tubbo is too busy trying to calm down and deal with the ache budding in his gut to watch it for much longer.

“Jesus,” Tubbo pants, wiping his forehead with the back of his head. “Warn a guy, wouldya?”

Inches away from the pane, the creature looks on. Tubbo can tell it doesn’t breathe by the lack of fog from breath on the glass. With the glass acting as a filter, the white half of the face looks transparent.

“You’re like a ghost,” he says to himself, sleep deprivation making the words slur. “Maybe I should call ‘ya Boo.”

The newly named does not react other than a slow blink that could mean anything. Tubbo commits to it. After all, “the creature” was starting to sound redundant and derivative with how often he said it to himself.

Boo never tries to enter the house, a small courtesy that goes a long way. He rests easier knowing he won’t wake up to a room in disarray and his front door knocked down--not that it would use that as a point of entry anyway. Boo is gone by morning anyway. It’s only a few hours of the night when they’re within an acre’s distance of each other, having nothing but the features on their face to talk with. 

For what’s apparently an uncontrollable subhuman of a thing, Boo is certainly ruled by a moral conscience of sorts. The first doubts about the foundation set in for Tubbo, and they aren’t gone by the time the moon fades.

There were pill bugs, moths, and dormice as a kid that he begged his father to let him save from the fire pit. He used old mouldy cardboard boxes to make homes for the wild rabbits. Keeping bees was the next leg up on a history of working with animals, so it’s no surprise that a creature would tease those instincts out of him. The only issue is remembering that, unlike a wild animal, he can’t use a combination of fire gloves and steel toe boots to protect himself from any chance encounters. He’s putting his life in his hands every time he leaves his house, which is becoming quite frequent.

Boo lives up to its namesake, appearing and disappearing at will. It takes him less than a second to go from being a blip in the remote distance to his shadow in the next. Tubbo worries that one of these days it’s going to teleport in front of the truck on his commute to work and be run over, something he would caution it about if they could trade words.

The language barrier is the hardest part. When its head is turned to the side, its horns and ears concealed, and the complexion of its skin assumed to be because it’s sickly, it could pass for a human. That fact makes Tubbo want to talk to it like an equal. If Boo could talk, he could ask it what it’s doing here and if its intentions are good or bad for him.

He tries once, when Boo is visiting after work. Their routine is changing, no longer privy to the early hours of the morn. Tubbo is picking at his half-eaten sandwich from his lunch break and the mess of saran wrap it’s covered in. His appetite is about as unpredictable as his company these days, a thought that comes just a minute before Boo takes shape in front of him. Still getting used to its spontaneity, Tubbo’s posture pulls taut.

“Hi.” It’s barely louder than a whisper, and about as breathy.

It grunts. Tubbo chooses to interpret it as a greeting.

“Why do you keep coming here if all you do is stare?”

It turns its head to the side. The mouth, which he’s seen unhinge with the jaw, doesn’t open to give him something he could use as an answer.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

Its chin sets down, the nasal bridge lowered in. He can’t do much with that.

Tubbo flicks away a piece of ham, aiming for a branch knocked aside by yesterday’s winds. As he looks on, a stroke of genius hits him. He doesn’t have to rely on words. 

Grabbing the nearby stick, he starts to draw diagrams in the mushy earth. The first is a jagged series of claw marks, which he motions to Boo and then himself with. When he gets no response, he draws a crude rendition of a pine tree and points to the forest, hoping it might establish what he’s trying to say. He hopes that starting basic could evolve into a new vocabulary.

Only, Boo doesn’t care for his rough diagrams. It’s much more interested in the hand holding the stick, following it around with the same fixation that a house cat would have for a laser pointer. Tubbo’s creations go unlooked at, smeared by the sole of his shoe before the game of Pictionary can amount to anything.

Tubbo holds his hands out. The creature reciprocates by giving him one of its extremities, so long that it has to bend them at the elbow just so they reach Tubbo’s. Its hands are easily twice the size of his, with no fingernails, veins, or wrinkles on the palms when he turns them over. He remembers their cold temperature from their first encounter and pays it no heed. Today, he’s much more interested in the snakeskin-like texture that he can’t stop running his fingers over. His mother’s old purse, which had a print just like it, comes to mind; he was similarly fascinated by it as a child.

It doesn’t look or feel porous. At first, he thought it would be an advantage in the rain, when the droplets would roll right off like it was a windbreaker. Then he remembers what they’ve said its weakness is, ironically the key to life on Earth. All it takes is a drizzle and Boo is nowhere to be seen for a day or two.

Maybe that’s how the Foundation contained Boo: submerged it in a tank and filled it until he was fossilized like a fly in amber. Earth lives and breathes with the cycles of precipitation and the air that’s saturated with water; it must be a miserable existence to live in fear of it at every turn.

It could be wrong to ascribe pity to something he knows so little about, but had the thing in front of him been human his compassion would have won out by now. Tubbo is handled with care, his hand returned in one piece, and his faith in doing what’s considered the right thing somewhat shaken.

He knows better than to write anything down, but he can’t help but make detailed lists in his head about all the things he’s seen Boo do. Since giving up his spot on the company softball team and losing interest in his library of games, Boo has given Tubbo a sense of enrichment that he hasn’t had in a long time. Tubbo has a mystery he can’t solve, a secret that no one can know, and one he would tentatively call a friend--all in one.

He’s tried bringing food out to it: discounted items, reduced fruit, the scraps and chicken livers from butchers. Boo doesn’t care for any of it; won’t even pick at the remains that Tubbo tosses out like bird feed. Tubbo’s stomach turns at the thought of it having to be live food for it to count, but no prey or predator that they come across makes Boo’s head turn either. Its mouth never opens, not even when it speaks in its low, hushed tones.

There will occasionally be the inexplicable urge in Boo to move objects, without any rhyme or reason as to where they’re placed. It’s one of the only consistent mannerisms apart from how it toys with Tubbo. It constantly uses its height to its advantage, pushing at loose strings (whether they belong to a sweater or shoelace) and styling his hair into clumps. Tubbo has had to get used to how fast it moves, not abiding by his understanding of time, space, or kinetic movement. 

An adventurous part of him wants to ask if Boo can pick him up and teleport; would he go with him? They could clear towns in minutes just by snapping their fingers. It would be fun, reliving the days of being a kid and getting piggyback rides from relatives. Alas, Boo doesn’t understand English. It’d be a stupid request anyway.

Since becoming acquainted with it, Boo is no longer just a creature, pet, or project. Tubbo doesn’t quite know what he’s supposed to call it. He’s also not sure what he’s supposed to call what he feels for it, if it’s fondness or fascination. The latter would imply scientific interest while the former would force him to admit he has an attachment to something that it likely can’t reciprocate in a language (bodily or verbal) that Tubbo could comprehend. 

But it seems to like him, and he likes it. That means a lot more than science, and it’s possibly the only explanation there is for why he hasn’t turned Boo in yet.

Doubts only come in when he thinks about the attacks on the gas station. It comes first to mind when he thinks about why people wouldn’t believe him if he tried to argue that his actions were justified. What starts as a rogue thought becomes an obsession that takes up most of his night, the day before an early morning shift.

The only evidence of a recording he can find has a modest amount of views on Youtube, with the comments disabled and the description empty. It’s a shaky handheld shot from the sidewalk, the audio scuffed by the hand over external mic input. Soldiers are shouting at the filmer to get back. Their guns are raised, a formation of them closing in on the doors around the back of the shop. All of them are decked head to toe in riot gear, their visors flipped down over their eyes. 

A shadow jumps out, making the already loose trigger fingers jump. All hell breaks loose. Tubbo can almost feel the heat through the video as an inferno of red erupts into the air. The filmer is blown back by the force of the blow, landing on their unused hand with enough power to scrape the skin bloody. They only manage to turn back once more, capturing nothing but the devastation in the wake of the scrimmage--if it can be called that.

He watches it five more times before he decides that it wasn’t Boo’s fault. A stray bullet fired from an officer’s gun was responsible, hitting the gas pumps and one of the cars attached to it that started the initial explosion. Boo got the blame because it was the threat they were pursuing. It was more convenient to say it could put innocents in danger than it would be to admit the failure of the officers. Anything to make their propaganda stronger.

The point of no return comes sooner than expected. Curse his soft heart, he can’t stop making bad decisions under the guise of pity.

As usual, Boo stops by on the weekend to lurk, watching Tubbo plow through the weeds that are growing out of control. He’s never had a problem with them before—never had to do maintenance that wasn’t tugging a big spiky one out of his path—and it means he’s ill-equipped for the job. He’s making do with a shovel and a pair of scissors from the kitchen for the ones that have tangled around the front hose. Boo’s ear twitches with each snap, doing its best to come closer without infringing on Tubbo’s space.

Without warning, it begins spitting rain outside. Tubbo shields his eyes with his hands, looking up at the puffy gray clouds. Boo’s reaction is much of the opposite: its jaw splits, top half connected to the bottom by a gooey string. It’s hissing, eyes squinted and face wrinkled. The droplets sizzle when they land on it.

Tubbo doesn’t stop to think; he pulls the garage door up with a loud heave. The shingles bang and groan as they’re tucked into the sheath up top.

“Boo!” he calls out to get its attention.

It notices after a second, louder call. The slits of pupil lock on Tubbo and for a second, he wonders if the water has scrubbed any trace of the gentle giant clean.

Boo nearly drops to all fours, bowling him over as it runs for cover in the cramped, musty space. Being as large as it is, it manages to disturb a sheet of dust from the shelving above, which Tubbo begins to hack up. He has to wipe the tears from his eyes after the coughing. 

Removing the glassy lens helps him see Boo better, who’s hunched over in the spot where Mother’s car used to reside. Tubbo’s fingers clench. He wants to approach but it’s probably going to get him swiped at. If he shows up to work with gouges in his face, there are going to be more than a few questions asked.

He can’t go inside and leave Boo unsupervised, so he smacks the worst of the white print off of his knees and takes a seat on the unswept floor. The pitter-patter of rain grows to a full-on pelt from above. They just missed getting caught in the middle of what could become a considerable storm.

After a few minutes, Boo has calmed down somewhat. It looks on edge from the surround sound of the wet weather, however. The uncomfortable arch of its back has forced its hands to come down to support it, palms flat and arms straight. Tubbo leans back on his hands as he observes it, a stranger to this new environment. 

Once they’ve both settled, Boo dares to come closer. Just the sight of Tubbo makes it release some of the tension in its body, becoming bendy once more. It slowly makes its way over with its body pressed close to the ground, not caring that it’s dirtying itself with how it all but crawls on the unkempt floor. It lies its head just beside Tubbo’s lap, watching him carefully.

The closeness lets Tubbo see what he used to only be able to admire from a distance. What he would call clothing is an extension of Boo’s body, like flabs of skin that have been shaped into another decorative layer of cover resembling formal wear. In select areas, it’s been burned away or tampered with. One of those areas is around the neck, which bears the imprint of a hard, unforgiving object. Tubbo squints to look closer, noticing the hardened ridge of what could be a chain and the bruise it’s left behind. Boo can’t grow the skin back around it.

Too scared to try touching it, he instead looks for similar patterns elsewhere. There are two on each arm, one more that cinches the waist in but doesn’t look as obscene. They spell a story of someone who’s been forcefully restrained, denied the freedom of movement. A sympathy pain comes to Tubbo, making him rub his neck.

He can’t comment on the SCP Foundation’s accreditations or if it was ever warranted. What comes to mind are the dead animals. Even if they were not Boo’s doing, that violence follows him around. He has insufficient evidence to claim if Boo even has a moral compass and knows what he’s doing is wrong. The only thing he has to offer are anecdotes. 

While they wait, he escapes to his phone. Using the cat comparison, he searches why dead animals show up on doorsteps. The answers he gets vary from wanting praise, teaching him how to hunt, and giving gifts. None of it is helpful. Using the criteria for a cat to assess an SCP feels inappropriate, but he’s working with limited resources and a need to learn more.

Maybe it’s a kind gesture, he tells himself. Maybe it hoped Tubbo would care for them. After all, there was nothing to suggest that Boo did the deed. 

(That could be the halo effect doing the talking for him but jumping to conclusions is one of the only things he can do.)

Boo rumbles beside him, now dormant. The faint scars on the side of each face, a trail of shed tears, tries to tell Tubbo things he isn’t sure he’s ready to hear. 

As his phone drops to a low battery charge, he eventually has to make the hard decision to stand up and leave. Boo is not disturbed, and he tries to keep his feet light to ensure that. The garage door gives him a bit of trouble, and it’s not an easy task to lift it without it making a ruckus. Eventually, he gets it to a height where Boo could leave once conditions clear. The downpour outside has slowed, but travel continues to be inadvisable.

He exits through the door that connects to the kitchen, fully expecting to find the garage replaced by gnats and blood-sucking insects by morning. Boo’s ear flicks when he backs out, but it’s otherwise unaware that Tubbo is leaving it. That’s how Tubbo would prefer it be. This is still an unpredictable creature in the equivalent of a cage, carrying the scars of what could be harsh treatment. He doesn’t want to be in between Boo and the outdoors if it comes to that. It’s the safest option, and perhaps he shouldn’t even have been in that situation to begin with.

His truck’s windshield needs to be cleaned the next morning after being left out in the rain. Tubbo’s already in a rush from waking up late after a fitful sleep, so he doesn’t have the time to give it a good sweeping with the brush before he turns the keys in the ignition. Boo is one of the last things on his mind, and it’s only when he’s about to back out does he realize the garage door is still open, the inhabitant gone. 

Sighing, he exits the vehicle to close the garage. It’s still damp outside, so Boo must have left not long ago. A small whorl of disturbed dust is the only thing to say that they were ever there.

On the way to work, he keeps an eye out for paranormal activity or things outside the scope of normal, finding nothing of the sort. It’s a sleepy day, with only a few people out on the streets and most of the sound coming from the drainage system gurgling on stormwater that’s been clogged up by leaves. 

The worksite is much of the same, filled with people that have thermos topped up with black coffee. By now, the fatigue has set in. People can only wake up afraid so many times before it becomes the new normal. The big assumption in all of this is that the creature may have been here but has since moved on to greener pastures. It has given them nothing to be worried about, so it’s a waste of energy and resources to be on constant alert.

The only active body is the SCP Foundation, which remains a vaulted secret to the public. They stealth around town in vehicles with black wheels and tinted windows. So far, they haven’t pulled him aside for questioning. In fact, they don’t seem too worried about tying up loose ends. It could be that they’re inefficient. Or maybe their non-disclosure agreements are a bit too efficient. Drawing conclusions is hard when despite everything, he’s an outsider.

For the first time in his life, Tubbo is anxious to get home for reasons that don’t concern his free time. Making sure that Boo is okay has become one of his priorities. It gives him a lot in common with the older ladies he sees at the grocery store buying thirty tins of wet food for the stray cats they look after. Even if Boo is far from being a feral animal, his charity in not going to the Foundation is matched by the idea that he has taken it in and pretended that this is normal. He’s made Boo his responsibility by caring for it, and that is his ball and chain.

On a rare two days off, he gets a knock at the door. Opening it reveals what looks like a secret agent with his face hidden under a pair of shades that have a small crack in the corner. He’s got a buzz cut and bare chin to complete the rugged look.

“Hello,” he greets Tubbo, “are you the owner of this property?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

Like in the movies, he pulls an I.D out to show him, along with a thin slice of paper. It looks like a warrant but there’s no way he’s reading through all of it to confirm that, especially from afar. 

“I’m Special Lieutenant Whitner dispatched by the SCP Foundation’s Mobile Task Forces, or MFTs as you might know us. I’m assigned to the case of SCP-26110, which you probably heard of on the telly as of late, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we were tipped off about a possible sighting in the area and I’m here to investigate. Do you mind if I come in and ask you a few questions? It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”

Tubbo steps aside, doing nothing to bar their entry. It’s the objects on the man’s belt that catch his attention, ranging from a handgun to a taser. No label on them determines if their use is for a creature or human.

The agent refuses to take a seat, even when it’s offered. Though Tubbo would normally seat himself in the armchair when he has guests, the formal occasion makes him move to the comfort of the couch.

“Don’t be nervous,” the agent assures him, balancing the binder holding his writing pad in his hand. “Just think of me as a news reporter. I’m not here to judge you or anything that you’ve seen.”

“Okay.”

“Perfect. So let’s start easy: have you noticed any strange activity as of late?”

Yes. “No, not really.”

“Not really?” he pries, leaning in.

“I don’t know what’s normal and what’s not. Like, there are more roadblocks up, trees are cut down--I think people are scared, and it’s making weird things happen.” He scratches at his nose.

“Is that all you’ve seen?”

“That’s all I can remember.”

“How much do you know about the object?”

“You mean the creature?” He gets a nod. “I know you’re not supposed to look at it.”

“That’s right.” He gets praised like a small child, or a dog that’s performed a paw shake. “It can travel very far very quickly, so it’s not unreasonable to think it’s come this far in search of cover.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Not yet. We’re looking for anything that could suggest supernatural activity: changes to the geography, the laws of reality bending, that sort of thing.” He rolls his hand. “I thought I saw something like it on the drive here. Did you dig up that earth yourself?”

He’s not surprised that it’s been picked up on. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tubbo resists the urge to look over his shoulder and incriminate himself. “Which one? The one on the road? I found it there, but that happens all the time up here.”

“How long has it been there?”

It’s a well-laid trap. Normal grass seed would take months to be fully grown without patches, and what he used to call a lump of dirt has sprouted into a lush covering in under three weeks’ time. 

“A while now, I’m not sure. It’s not something I would look into.”

“Have there been any strange noises at night? Sounds you can’t explain? Whisperings, murmurings, any of the lot?”

“Mostly just animals.”

The agent’s upper lip firms. “Nothing else?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” He laughs to dispel some of the awkwardness. “I’d tell you if there was.”

“Do you know how to reach us?”

“The hotline is online, right? Yeah. I’ll just use that.”

“Here, I’ll write down the number for you just in case. So you have it handy.”

Ignoring Tubbo’s refusal, he scribbles down an almost illegible scrawl of numbers that he rips out of his notebook and hands to Tubbo. Tubbo feigns interest, already thinking about how he can rip it up and flush it down the toilet.

He twists and twirls the paper around in his hand, tearing the corner. “So are you just here to warn me?” Tubbo asks, afraid to meet his eyes.

“That, and we’re doing all that we can to hunt it down. So long as it’s roaming free, it poses a serious risk to anyone that comes across it.”

“Are you so sure it’s a threat? I haven’t heard of it doing anything bad.”

If he could see the agent’s eyes, he’d imagine they would’ve lit up.

“It’s not up to us to determine risk, it’s to contain anything that could pose one,” he says slowly “These are not humans or animals acting on their own morality or instinct. They’re unpredictable. It would be irresponsible not to assume the worst.”

“Okay,” he says numbly.

It’s not a good look on him. The agent jots something down before he leaves, which Tubbo isn’t allowed to see. Craning his neck makes the agent slam the binder shut. The smile he flashes is obviously faked, and achieves the opposite of what it’s trying to do.

Tubbo follows him to the door, head bowed. There’s nothing that comes to mind that he could say to salvage the situation. Talking would only make things worse. 

Right before the man is out the door, the agent remembers something important enough to put a pause on all movement. Either that, or it’s for dramatic effect. The hand resting on the door frame tenses enough for his veins to pop up through the thin gloves he has on.

“Look, I don’t want to have to get the law involved. Civil rights are hard to work around and I don’t like making empty threads to suspend them. But I need you to promise me that if you know something, you’ll come forward. There’s more than just you at stake. Think about it,” he says.

He moves forward, as if to pat Tubbo on the shoulder, but decides against it. Tubbo wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. The agent acts less like a human being than Boo.

Tubbo retreats to the bedroom once the visitor has vacated the property, not able to do much except lie down and play the conversation over again in his head, checking for anything that’s going to immediately put him behind bars. He could have handled it much better if he’d come prepared. Unfortunately, that’s a luxury only few can afford these days.

An hour after the agent leaves, Tubbo finds the bravery to go outside. It’s more for Boo’s sake than his--this is the first time he’s had visitors since they met up and the van that pulled up didn’t need a logo to be suspicious. The tense atmosphere lingers long after the sound of rubber crushing gravel is gone.

His sixth sense tells him that Boo is nearby, answering why his nape pricks and he has the urge to touch his face. He listens for the groaning that tells him it’s close, relying on it more than his sense of sight to get a picture of where it is these days.

He sighs. “It’s fine Boo, he’s gone.” 

It’s not like him to feel glum, but today’s a day he wants to spend curled up in bed under the covers. He doesn’t like being in trouble, much less being the reason why other people are troubled. As he leans his right cheek into the fist of his hand, elbow on the knee, he hasn’t got the energy to do anything more than doodle with a piece of dead wood that’s splintering so much that pieces of it are shedding all over his lap. 

Boo teleports beside him with the day’s gift, a new practice of his that it’s inherited from someone that isn’t Tubbo. He brings pink daisies with him to plant out front, none of the flowers wilted or eaten. They’re a favourite among the bees, which make up a good percentage of traffic in the front lawn. It’s been a lot more lively around here since Boo and the incident with the swarm.

Tubbo gives his stick figure some pupils and a shaggy head of hair. He elongates the legs of Boo, who is drawn beside him with a comically wide smile on his face. After a moment’s thought, he draws a line down Boo’s body to shade the black half from the white.

“See? That’s you and me.” He points to Boo and himself. “You and me,” he says again, without much feeling. It’s spoken at a mumble.

This time, Boo is looking at the drawing as requested by Tubbo. It nears, and Tubbo is seconds away from warning it not to step on the lines and pack the dirt into the ground. It’s unnecessary; Boo is only admiring. 

When it makes the connection between Tubbo and the portrait, Boo sounds a loud trill in celebration. With one hooked finger, Boo draws a loose circle around the head of Tubbo. As opposed to before, Tubbo doesn’t feel much of a reason to defend his drawing. It’s become collaborative just by Boo being there and interacting with it.

Then out of nowhere, Boo draws two large fistfuls of dirt with his hands shaped like a rake’s teeth. Instead of editing Tubbo’s drawing, it makes its own. Strange characters are carved into the ground. They join what looks like a humanoid shape in the middle, with proportions that are stretched too long to be human. The almond-shaped eyes have more in common with the depiction of aliens in popular media. 

Boo finishes the outline. With one shaky hand, it attempts to point to itself like Tubbo was doing earlier. It’s a gesture it struggles with, the boning beneath the knuckle twisted.

After establishing that, it raises his right hand and brings it down. Dirt sprays up into the air. Ravenous, it claws and hacks at the picture until it is unrecognizable. Where there was once Boo is now nothing. None of the lines connect, the language destroyed.

Wordless, it comes back over to Tubbo. It points at the circled figure once more. Its gesturing is enough to make Tubbo back up on his hands, giving it the space it needs to do what it needs to in fear of losing a limb if he gets in the way. Besides the circle, which comes close to decapitating Tubbo’s head from his body, the drawing of him never gets cut. Boo makes sure to give him a wide berth as the rest is desecrated.

It must be saying something. If only Tubbo could understand. For some reason, compassion is what he feels first. Maybe it’s because they’re hot off the heels of the agent, who Boo must have seen on the premises. Its response to seeing him was to eviscerate itself in drawing form. That alone speaks volumes, even if it’s in a form that Tubbo’s ears can’t pick up on.

On a Sunday, when he’s about to go on a dump run to dispose of bagged leaves, a loud boom makes Tubbo jump almost a foot in the air. He tugs his earphones to hear it repeated, and heads toward the door to investigate.

He looks through the peephole to see three agents, all looking a bit distorted in the fisheye lens. None of them are emoting. Their chests are pronounced by Kevlar vests that are strapped around their shoulders and under their pectoral muscles. 

The lamp in the bedroom is on and his truck is in the driveway. They know he’s home, there’s no prolonging the inevitable by playing dumb. With how they look, they’re going to kick down his door if he does not cooperate. He’d rather not pay to fix the lock if they damage it.

Tubbo opens the door no wider than his pinkie finger. “Can I help you?” he calls out.

“Yes actually, it’s me, Special Lieutenant Whitner. Do you have a few minutes before tea time for a chat?” True to his word, the voice is familiar. It, however, does not bring comfort. Tubbo does not want him here on suspicion of what’s been done to Boo.

“About what? I’m a bit busy right now.” His gut tells him to slam the door and dial 999 as soon as humanly possible, thinking of the phone left on the kitchen counter.

The door punches him in the nose as it’s forced open, his head ricocheting into the wall where it creates a loud bang. With no obstacle in the way, the agents push their way in and detain both arms around his back. Tubbo kicks as wildly as he can, though he’s too outnumbered to pose a significant challenge for them to overcome. One agent grabs his leg, using it to help carry him out the door.

He shouts, more to voice his displeasure than to bring help. He knows better than anyone that he’s completely alone out here. The first person to realize he’s missing will be his boss when he doesn’t come in, and it might be another day until the angry voicemail doesn’t get a reply and they send someone else to yell at him. That’s long enough to take him somewhere he’ll never be found again. 

He coils his lower half, moving his spine around to an unnatural angle to try and escape their hold. The transport unit they’re taking him to is a retrofitted black van not unlike those he saw on the streets at work. One of the back doors is swung open, which he tries to kick shut as he passes. If he was wearing shoes he might leave a dent. In socks, moving it away from him is all he can do.

A hand grips his esophagus. A wet choking sound rips itself out of Tubbo’s chest. His saliva drips down the back of his throat, causing further harm. He can’t see anything. If he keeps resisting, they’re going to dislocate his leg. Tired of his screaming, they slap a hand over his mouth, careful to overlay their fingers so that he can’t bite them in retaliation. 

A hum begins in the background, growing steadily louder over the sound of Tubbo’s struggling until the distortion tears at the seams. Background and foreground are confused by it, his depth perception lost to its presence. If his hands were free, Tubbo would cover his ears. It comes at a pitch and intensity that’s going to give him a migraine.

What he thought was a psychological warfare technique also appears to be affecting the soldiers, many of whom are bent over and their hold on him weakened. Tubbo ceases to be their priority; the one that drops his leg has retrieved the holster on his thigh and raised it.

Tubbo’s confused as to what he’s aiming at when a black-and-white shape throws itself at him, four-legged but not human. Its mouth hangs low beneath where its jaw should be, showing rows of teeth introducing a purple void that has no connection to any internal organs. It grows in size, arms thinning. The appearance of a suit is lost to the ribs tightening out of the midsection. Rousing more yells from the soldiers, it brings its hands down and knocks the one in front of Tubbo aside.

A detonation of ammunition blasts into the air. Projectiles fly past him, prompting the world to quiver and shake. Tubbo’s head smacks into the ground as he’s dropped, flinching from the loud sounds that make his eardrums throb. He forms a ball with his tucked knees, bracing his head around both arms to protect himself from further damage. If a concussion is the worst he gets from this, he will be lucky.

A soldier begins gurgling, his partner turned fearful as he wails for backup. He too meets an unfortunate end--or so it sounds like. Tubbo won’t even look their way, listening for the body thud as it falls back. His machinery clinks, the gun choking on a cloud of dust. The aftermath is almost just as bad, forcing Tubbo to come up for air or end up like a doll filled with sand. Delirious, he uncurls himself and tries to stand to get away.

All animals have been scared away from the fight, Tubbo is all that remains. The ringing in his ears keeps getting louder. It feels like he’s dying and looks like it too. His vision is so unreliable that his stumbling around nearly ends up with him planting his face into the ground. He’s a sputtering, coughing mess. And he doesn’t know how he’s the only one left. On second thought, maybe he should have played dead.

All his questions are answered by one outstanding figure, who stands before the settling filth with impassive judgement. One look and he knows: it’s Boo. His mind didn’t make the connection before, intent on surviving above all else. Now he finds himself staggering toward it. He knows Boo. Boo wouldn’t hurt him.

It was unrecognizable with that monstrous form it took. It looked emancipated, sickly. Any human that saw such a thing would take leave, fighting being the farthest thing from their minds. You couldn’t win against a creature like that. No wonder the reports exaggerated how terrifying it looked, if that is what its victims saw.

As he nears, he sees that Boo wasn’t hit a single time. All of that firepower and they weren’t able to even slow it down.

“Boo,” he begins, hoarse with lungs of smoke, “what--what did you--”

Boo turns, and for a second he wonders if his survival is accidental--if he will be next. But his trusted instincts don’t win out, and the creature he protected with his denial repays him by leaving him be. He’s been spared the fate of the rest.

Tubbo looks out at the carnage. The vehicle is still running, spouting black fumes into the air. A soldier’s radio is discarded on the ground beside them, static spat from the speaker. With their arms spread and necks outstretched, they look like birds. Mutilated birds, like the ones he found on his doorstep, the ones found after the discovery of Boo. 

He doesn’t have the choice of being civil, not with the bodies of a reconnaissance group surrounding them. Reinforcements will come around and finish what they started. Tubbo is a wanted man now.

“What have you done?” he asks, not expecting an answer.

Boo blinks at him, as if to say I saved you. It’s child-like innocence on the face of anything but.

Tubbo grabs onto the outstretched hands, expecting to find them sticky with blood. The fact that they’re not is not the reassurance he hoped it’d be.

Like him, those armed forces were humans. They were trying to protect people--maybe not him, but other people--from this. In a way, Tubbo was proven wrong: Boo isn’t the docile housepet he wanted it to be. It was always capable of doing this. He was shown mercy, which might be unique to him. It’s not a courtesy that is available to all.

Then comes a voice: these men would have killed him. Thinking he would be released at the end of their questioning is fantasy; he knew too much, resisted them to the point of interference by playing dumb at the interview. Either he was spending the rest of his days in a cell or being taken care of in a refrigeration unit. It was them or him. They might have tortured or butchered Boo. 

No wonder it wanted to be rid of them. It knew what they were capable of, and Tubbo was about to be a victim to it.

Against the cold hand, Tubbo tries to relax his muscles and overcome the shock of what’s just happened. Boo does not move, giving himself over to Tubbo as support. Its spindly limbs make it a good obstruction for what lies in front of him and how it reeks of a taste much sourer than death.

Unfortunately, time is in short supply. More people will come for him. He has no other choice but to rouse himself out of the haze that’s beginning to thicken under his eyelids. The corroborative evidence is damning. They have to get out of here. 

What was supposed to be his chore day has become the plan to ditch all he knows. If today was any indication, the people coming for him won’t be the government. It’s going to be the field agents of the SCP Foundation, armed with cattle prods, torture devices, and chains much thicker than shackles. His solution is to toss the clothes in his hamper into two bags, raid the storage downstairs for those cans of non-perishable food he bought, and fill the two recyclable milk jugs he was planning to take with him that day with supplies of water. The supplies are thrown in the back of the van that the agents drove there. 

Tubbo must walk in and out of the house ten times trying to make sure everything is in order, loading up maps to places up north where he has distant relatives that might take him into hiding. Boo sticks around for the whole while, looking as lost as Tubbo feels. Its hands are held out in front, palms upturned. A prosecutor would look at it and describe it as a symptom of guilt.

He expected Boo to flee. Having it stand there when he’s so used to Boo’s erratic movements over the weeks adds an uneasy feel to it all. Tubbo could use some consistency right about now.

“They’re probably gonna get ‘ya too,” he thinks aloud as he loads the backseat. “You better go.”

Boo only has eyes for him. Trying to shoo it into the forest has no effect.

“You gotta get out of here. I’m leaving too, see?” He throws open the back door, showing it the bags it has already seen him heft out.

Boo looks in for a second, but doesn’t appear to understand. Firmly planted to the ground, it would have to be pushed to move, and Tubbo doesn’t have that strength right now.

Had Tubbo not seen it take out the agents, he would have bit the bullet and pulled Boo into a hug. In the interests of his personal safety, that stops being a good idea. Patting Boo on the arm feels like an unnecessary risk but it’s the worst odds he’s willing to gamble on right now. It’s going to have to suffice for a goodbye.

Tubbo turns the keys, taking a minute to adjust his mirrors and familiarize himself with the dashboard and all the accessories that come with a custom vehicle. In the place of a radio dial is a frequency that speaks in codes only a secure line would know of. Registration is missing; there’s a glove box but it contains sensitive documents in manilla folders. Boo’s registration number rests below the paperclip, giving him something to look at later. 

He starts the engine, himself fuelled by impulsivity and not gasoline. On the steering wheel, his hands shake. His whole life rests behind him, about to be abandoned. He probably left the television on, on a news channel no less. All the hallmarks of a murder scene are there. Only, instead of him being abducted as planned, the tables have turned.

Boo teleports in front of him, just before Tubbo’s foot presses down on the accelerator. Luckily, his instincts are so sharpened by the conflict that he’s able to react instantly. 

“Fuck!” Tubbo slams on the brake, shifting the truck into park once he comes to a full stop. He flies out the door, almost twisting his ankle at the angle he takes.

“Why are you making this so hard?” His words crack. “Do you want to come with me or something?”

He’s emotional, he knows he is. What’s weighing on him isn’t just the events that took place but also the knowledge that life won’t be the same. His family will think he’s dead, if not an enemy of the nation by the time the news is done with him. Who’s to say the government doesn’t side with the Foundation that was carrying out an attempted kidnapping on the basis of him violating the law to protect a legal non-entity? No one will take his side, even a legal representative would give him dirty looks as they write out his defence.

Boo grunts, churning out half-sounds. Its feet drag along the ground as it moves toward Tubbo. It’s so light that the grass is the only thing to bend under him. Tubbo is half its size; yet, it looks to him for guidance, deferring to him with both ears flat to its skull.

What was thrown as a joke becomes a potential avenue. Could he take Boo with him? There’s nothing but persecution in its future if it remains in the forest they suspected it was in. Boo, who risked revealing itself to intervene, should not be at the mercy of chance when Tubbo is taking a vehicle that can

Real-life sets in when he leads Boo around to the back. The transport interior’s padded walls and barred windows prompt an immediate reaction from Boo, who morphs into the familiar face of the monster that people fear. Tubbo holds both of his hands up in front of his face in surrender.

“I’m not gonna do anything to harm you.” His voice goes up a pitch, now a peal. 

Boo doesn’t look too inclined to get in regardless. It’s probably seen its fair share of transports in its time, and will not have fond memories attached to them. Just the sight and smell of them must bring back memories of lab experiments, testing, and containment inside four sterilized walls.  

Tubbo isn’t going to force it--it was a stupid idea anyway--and is about to close and lock the doors so he can hit the road. Before he can, a scaled hand grabs him by the shoulder. It squeezes, having changed its mind on being the cowering form it was previously.

Boo moves so quickly that it’s inside of the seated area when Tubbo is in the early stages of turning his head. Boo bends at the waist to fit in, so tall that it needs to lie down to fit under the low ceiling. A slow blink tells Tubbo all that he needs to know: that he’s earned its trust, that it knows what’s at stake and that it needs him to avoid a life of imprisonment. 

Its decision made, Tubbo is the one coming to terms with it. He makes the call to close the doors and smack them twice to assure Boo, as well as being the one to step into the driver’s seat of a stolen vehicle that he’s using to ward off suspicion until he’s far enough from the scene of the crime. Realistically, he won’t get far. It’s the last hurrah before it all goes to hell.

He tries not to dwell on the particular as they pull out, headed toward the motorway. Many cars see the sleek black look and yield to him, giving up their right of way to see to it that he gets to where he’s going. If only he had such a solid destination in mind. All he has is the creature in the transport cabin, the one he’s indebted to. That’s worth more than a shabby career without benefits, a house falling apart, and a life of loneliness he lived up until their meeting.

He’s in the early stages of grief, so it doesn’t surprise him to have delusions be so prominent. Still, he can’t help but think that it’s thanks to Boo that he’s the freest he’s been in a long time.