A blond man laid upon an scarlet altar, limp and dead. Crimson liquid slowly dripped from his head where a blood red crown sat. Creatures constructed with bits and pieces of bone, shell and trash circle and chanted towards the corpse. Their body’s dripping black liquid as they gave frenzied prayers towards the altar. They raised their various appendages to the sky, filled with flying beasts and several crimson moons. The man on the altar shook as the chanting grew more and more intense.
Then all of a sudden the chanting ceased as a tall figure began to approach the corpse. The cultists made way for the creature. It towered over everything around it, perpetually just taller than anything you could compare it to. It had countless long thin bony arms and wrapped itself in a mountain of feathers and bile. Its face was indiscernible, buried within the refuse of its body. It paused for a moment, before it reached within its own flesh and pulled out a bright red ball of light.
It’s arm then cracked and twisted as it moved the light towards the crown on the corpses head, wisps of red smoke trailing off the ball as it moved. However, just before the creature could push the light into the crown, the man at the altar vanished from the spot without a trace. Confusion overtook the monster, before turning to understanding and rage. The creature screamed in anger as countless arms shot from it’s plumage. Tearing apart the cultists and destroying everything within its reach, and the monster could reach everything.
Until after quite some time, only the cries of the eldritch beast itself could be heard within the dead world it now resided.
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The man's corpse appeared midair in the cafeteria of a certain facility, before crashing down into the table below, and ruining Steve's scrambled eggs. All eyes turned to the corpse, before a guard finally lifted his radio.
“Send Dr. Hearthgrieve to the cafeteria. I think Houdini might be dead.”
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Several dozen miles away a young well-built man named Michael was busy fixing the satellite dish atop his house. He jostled the dish around, not quite sure how to go about fixing it.
After some time he shimmied over to the edge of the roof and yelled down towards the house, “Hey Hugh, are there any changes with the T.V.?”
“Nope, are you shaking it!” Hugh yelled back.
“What do you think I’m up here doing, of course I am!”
‘Why am I the one up here anyways,’ Michael thought to himself. ‘We split the rent but every time something breaks in this house I end up being the one who has to fix it.’
Either way it looked like he’d need to call in a professional tomorrow. Hopefully it wouldn’t be an expensive fix, but who was he kidding, of course it would be expensive.
With a sigh, Michael began to make his way down the steep roof when suddenly the shingles under his feet came loose, causing him to lose balance. Michael scrabbled to catch his grip, but failed and tumbled down off the roof, unable to right himself before falling head first down onto the pavement. A sickening crack echoing out from where he landed.
Several moments passed before a bright blue ball of light was ripped out from Michael’s body, rocketing off into the distance, leaving a rather annoyed Hugh wondering why his T.V. wasn’t working yet.
The orb flew fast as light towards its destination, before dipping below the earth and rocketing into the crimson crown of the ritual victim who still lay sprawled atop the cafeteria table, and Steve's ruined breakfast.
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When Michael woke up, everything hurt and his head felt groggy. He looked around expecting to be in a hospital, but instead he was laying on a cot inside of a concrete room with a large mirror covering most of the far wall. The only door looked heavily reinforced, and upon closer inspection had no actual handle to open it with. All corners of the room had cameras and a table with two chairs sat in the middle of the room.
Standing up, Michael felt weirdly heavier and upon looking down he saw a pudgy belly and skin that was a good bit paler than what it should’ve been.
“Um...what in the actual fuck,” Michael said in surprise.
Michael quickly began to study himself in the mirror. Short blonde hair and green eyes sat upon the short, unathletic build of the man in the reflection.
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He paused in thought, ‘Is this some sort of reincarnation thing? Don’t they usually get incredibly strong abilities to go along with their new bodies? If so then why did this body look like it hasn’t seen a gym in the past decade?’
However, the strangest part of his new body was undoubtedly the crimson crown on his head. It looked to be incredibly intricate, with rubies decorating it’s exterior and had hundreds of small symbols carved into it. When he tried to take it off, it stuck firmly to his head.
Moving towards one of the cameras, Michael waved his arms.
“Hey where am I? I wanna talk to somebody!”
A moment later a staticky voice could be heard from the camera, “Calm down 507, please take a seat at the table. Dr. Hearthgrieve will be with you shortly.”
Michael waited for them to say more, but they didn’t. So with no better option he reluctantly sat down at the table in the middle of the room and waited a few minutes before a thin scientist walked into the room carrying a briefcase.
“Good evening Tommy, I take it you're feeling a bit better?” The scientist, presumably Hearthgrieve, said as he placed his briefcase on the table.
“My names not Tommy man, where am I?”
The doctor ignored him and took a seat opposite him at the table, pulling out a stack of papers from his briefcase.
“Please save all questions until I have completed the interview.”
Michael grumbled, ‘Not exactly a polite one, now is he? Whatever though, it’s probably still best for me to comply. At least if I want to find out whatever this is. If they wanted me dead I’d already be dead. This place is secure, they could easily do it, it’s probably best to not give them a reason to.’
Tapping his papers on the table the scientist began, “What is your full name?”
“Michael Gregory Stevens”
“Species?” The scientist pressed.
Michael narrowed his eyes, “What?”
“Please answer the question.”
“...human.”
“Good, now do you remember the events of the past three days?” Hearthgrieve asked.
“I was just doing normal stuff. I was fixing my satellite before I woke up in this room.”
Michael’s face then paled in realization, “I did fall off my roof though.”
The doctor looked interested, “Can you give me your address?”
Skeptically Michael told him the information, and for the next hour continued to answer question after question.
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This monotony was finally broken when the speakers crackled to life, “His story checks out, permission granted to disclose information previously granted to SCP 507.”
“The scientist leaned back in his chair, visibly more relaxed.”
Michael turned back to him, “What did all that mean?”
“Ah, that just means you passed through our little lie detector test”, he said with a smile.
“Now Mr. Stevens, I think I understand what happened here. You died falling off your roof, and bonded with that crown on your head. It’s probably some sort of soul storage device, It wouldn’t be the first one we’ve seen. It seems that the original 507 died in another dimension, and got that crown stuck to his head. We tried taking it off, it didn’t work out. That thing’s stuck for good.”
“What do you mean by another dimension?” Michael asked, overwhelmed.
“Oh, my apologies Mr. Stevens, I haven't told you why you’re here. Our organization secures, contains and protects the world from paranormal entities, your new body and crown being two of them.”
“If the soul storage crown is a new addition, then what was so special about this body?” Michael asked.
“Well every two weeks or so you’ll get sent to a random dimension, and come back somewhere between an hour and 5 days later.”
Michael paused for a moment. He knew the implication of all this, but couldn’t help feeling a little excited. He’d always been interested in exploring, sadly nowadays you need to be exceptionally gifted at math to be an explorer. Not exactly his cup of tea. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise.
Besides, his past life hadn’t been anything glamorous. He’d simply been going through the motions, and planned to just get a simple desk job once he’d finished college.
But super powers seem like a pretty good trade for that life. Not much he could do about it now either way. He wasn't one to stress over something he couldn’t change.
“Can I get some examples of these dimensions?”
Hearthgrieve nodded, “Sure, one of them had vegetables that screamed when eaten. It damn near turned Tommy into a vegetarian,” he chuckled.
“Another one had rats that spoke russian, were bipedal and dressed like humans. I believe they had a war going with a group of similarly unique squirrels.”
“Are these dimensions dangerous?” Michael asked.
“No, well most of them anyways. I’d reckon ninety percent of them just have some weird gimmick.”
“And the other ten percent?”
Hearthgrieve sighed, “Well, that’s why we let you request items to build a prep kit. They’ll have to be pre-approved of course. Tommy had built up quite a bit of trust with us, you’ll have to do the same before we consider giving you any of our more lethal equipment.”
“Part of that is never mentioning this facility or anything going on in here outside of this compound. Everything we are giving you is a privilege, and it can easily be revoked.”
Michael rubbed his beard in thought, “I can do that, just make sure the equipment I ask for is actually delivered. I don’t want to be killed by something like Nazi spiders just because your organization decides to be stingy.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hearthgrieve answered. “I’ll leave a pen and paper, just make a list of some essential supplies and I’ll see if I can get them approved.”
The scientist got up and left, once again leaving Michael alone in his new cage/home.