When Safety Breaks

Just... how intelligent are these things?

I wondered. Just what am I dealing with?! They weren't this intelligent in the original SCP-001 entry! I really don't recall them being this intelligent.

Were they always this intelligent? Or did my being here pose such a threat to the meat things they grew intelligence in response?

They're smart enough to use their liquid-like form to enter into tiny spaces that would otherwise be impossible for a normal human. Then, they waited until I went out to search for more survivors and attacked them.

"How many did we lose?"

Rick proceeded to do a quick head count of everyone inside the basement. While he was doing all this I looked at the basement wall of another house I breached into to expand the original safe house and saw how large parts of it were devoid of any drywall, with insulation materials on the floor. The wood studs were clearly visible while the floor of the basement was partially flooded by a mostly-destroyed toilet and sink.

All spots from where the molten flesh beast-things hid before entering. The lighting still works at the very least.

These things... they must've known about my ability to see through the air or something. I peeked into the hole where the toilet used to be, ignoring how water was squirting me.

Getting annoyed, I turned off the valve and the water stopped. I stared down into the hole and was greeted face first by the disgusting smell of human feces and whatever else that gets dumped into the sewers.

"Ugh," I recoiled back, not used to the smell. I then stopped my breathing before looking over it again.

There are so many holes where these things can get through.

"22."

I turned around and saw Rick by the doorway to the basement washroom. Seeing my perplexed look, he elaborated, "22 left."

Ah... over a dozen people got turned by that one attack... I took in a breath of air before letting it out, trying to modulate my feelings right now. Then, I asked a question that hit particularly close to home;

"Did... did the sleeping girl get turned?"

I saw the area where the sleeping girl was empty.

Sleeping girl.

That was what I decided to call the first person I rescued. It's a placeholder. I didn't know her name yet and she continued to sleep, so I never got the chance. I planned to ask her for her name when she woke up from her slumber. Then, I'll comfort her and try to be there for the now orphaned girl, acting as her impromptu guardian.

Rick looked downcasted as a sad expression overtook his face. I felt my stomach sink.

Wetting his dry lips, the man said, "Yes. She was actually the first to get thrown out."

"..."

I gulped down all the saliva in my mouth. Rubbing my hands together, I focused on the feeling of how smooth my skin was, how it would be the envy of women everywhere as I wouldn't ever have to buy any moisturizing lotions that cost like 50 bucks for 100 mL.

I tried to distract myself from the incoming grief and anguish ravaging my mind.

There's a terrible irony to my first save being the first to get turned.

I felt my heart break. I'm not suitable for this.

These things are too intelligent. They've outwitted me.

What use is unlimited power if I can't achieve my goals with it? Power for the sake of power? How... shallow.

"You're a Goddess are you not?"

My eyes trained back on Rick. He's an experienced manager so he probably knows how to deal with other people.

"Act like one."

With that, he left, probably off to comfort those who were traumatized by the break-in done by these things. He's... definitely more experienced in dealing with such things than I am. He has to be very experienced in dealing with humans as the head of the New York branch of the BBC.

So I listened to his advice. I squeezed thoughts of the future through this vortex of melancholy and sorrow and wondered where would be a better shelter without any way of these things getting in. A place without any holes, or at least, as few holes as possible.

I got up and tried to plan for what to do next. It's not safe here anymore, so a new shelter will have to be found.

Stepping out of the washroom, I was greeted with the sight of half of everyone broken down by the experience while the other half tried to comfort them.

38 people became 22... I've lost close to half of all I saved. At the very least, Alice, and the two physicists, Rick, and Stuart were all still alive.

I didn't look them in the eye. How could I, after I broke my promise of giving them safety?

What do I do now? I can't go out and save more survivors since that'll give these flesh monsters another opening to attack those I've already saved. But at the same time, this also means I can't go out and search for a new shelter.

As I was thinking what to do, Bethany clapped and caught everyone's eyes.

"May I have your attention please?" Bethany said as she stood on top of a tiny stack of books, allowing her head to almost touch the ceiling, "I know how you all feel. I know how traumatizing having your home invaded must be. Ten years ago, my home was also invaded. Burgery. I lost almost all of my valuables like my wedding ring that Henry gave me. I was inconsolable, and so I dealt with my grief by praying. I will hold a praying sermon in the storage room, anyone is welcome to join me for those of you who think this might help."

With that, Bethany got off the books and wiped the book covers that touched her shoe clean. There, she placed them back on a small shelf and left for the room beside the one containing the washing machine.

Four people got up and followed her, one of those four placed their arms around another one.

"So, what do we do now, Goddess?" Josh asked, still covered by a blanket sitting on the couch.

All eyes were now on me. Rubbing my chin, I thought of a response.

"We'll rebuild. We'll go somewhere else and rebuild. In the long term, I know of a large bunker complex out in the middle of the United States that we can stay at and wait out the apocalypse but for now, we'll stay in New York. I realized that I really, really shouldn't leave you guys for longer than ten minutes at a time until you're all properly secured."

One of the young men huddled inside blankets asked, "Is it the Cheyenne Mountain Complex?"

"The what?" I turned to the one who asked, Steve, his name was. He was a directing assistant at the BBC. Caucasian descent, he had the messiest hair I've ever seen and the nerdiest laugh I've ever heard.

"You know, the bunker out in Colorado that housed NORAD during the Cold Wars? Is there where we're going to wait out in the future?"

I had no idea what Steve was talking about. I was very tempted to search it up on Google but the Company Smart Device doesn't exactly have that function.

"Dude, she's a bonafide Goddess, of course, she wouldn't know what the Cheyenne Mountain Complex is." One of Steve's coworkers, a directing assistant by the name of Joshua. African-American descent, with short hairs that are put into braids, is his most identifiable feature.

"Did you guys try and access the internet?"

"All of our search engines are hacked. Google, Safari, Firefox, DuckDuckGo, the odd Bing here and there," Stuart hurriedly said before anyone, "All I'm getting is the symbol of this circle thing with three arrows pointing inward."

Stuart took out his phone and showed it to me. Pressing Safari, all the screen would show was the logo of the SCP Foundation, underneath of it which is a single line of words saying 'Stay in darkness, fear the light'.

"..."

My eyes narrowed as my lips thinned. Who wouldn't recognize that symbol? That of the SCP Foundation.

Maybe not those around me but...

Something must've happened. Something absolutely catastrophic must've happened for the SCP Foundation to take down the internet. Did a computer SCP escape and the Foundation was forced to shut off the entirety of the internet to contain it? Did perhaps the sun corrupt one of the many Groups of Interests of the Foundation and released anomalous memetic agents into the internet prompting people to go out into the sun?

If I remember correctly, wasn't it said that SCPs who got mutated by the sun lose their anomalous properties? So the second possibility is less than likely.

Even so, it was... troubling. This doesn't bode well for the future.

I then moved on to a new topic, "Were any of you injured by those things that used to be human?"

A field of still or shaking heads. No one was hurt thankfully, letting me release a sigh of relief.

Thank god— Well, guess I can't say that anymore. Thank goodness for small mercies.

I massaged my forehead because while my body had no problem being a perpetual motion machine, the same could not be said for my mind. I felt mentally exhausted from constantly moving for the past two hours, constantly dealing with threats, and constantly being forced to see things I'd never seen before and hoped to never see again.

A wrist, above a pool red that looked just like a pool of water underneath the crimson, hellish sky—

I clenched my eyes shut. The darkness felt comforting.

It was only because of Stress Defense that I still soldiered on. I found it difficult to get rid of that slit wrist from my mind. That a person can just... kill themselves... right in front of me...

I think that was the first time I've ever seen a body. The person I... mercy-killed didn't count since there was no corpse left.

There's just something so disturbing, so visceral, so... upsetting about suicide for me. I can't put my fingers on it but it's like a primal revulsion against such a thought.

I am DEFINITELY going to buy the next level of Stress Defense when I can.

"Alright," A smile formed on my face as I opened my eyes. I placed my hands on my hips.

It was a forced smile. I think all of them knew that but no one is willing to call me out on it.

"Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to check the fridge and pantry to see what food is there. I can see that we're all still a bit jumpy and I think putting some stuff inside your stomach should help immensely with calming down our nerves."

I went upstairs to the first floor. Stuart tried to follow and help only to be stopped by how there were rays of sunlight separating the kitchen and the living room.

Running into the kitchen, with the sun shining through the curtained window above the sink and swinging the freezer door open, I was greeted by the sight of many frozen cuts of lamb and a large turkey. On the lower section of the fridge where it was above zero, were flatbreads, cans of soda, and hummus.

There were more, but these were the ones that stood out the most.

However, something stumped me.

I didn't know how to cook.

Before signing on with the Company, I almost always microwaved my meals since it's faster that way. I mean seriously, who has time to spend an hour cooking?

Of course, I wasn't completely useless in cooking. I knew to dump some oil onto the pan beforehand and basics like that. And I know how to cook bacon. Since this was an Islamic household, they didn't have any bacon. Or pig products in general.

I frowned slightly at that.

I'm going to miss bacon.

Deep down, I know this is a distraction attempt. I know that my time could be better spent out there trying to find more survivors.

I know that. Goodness, sometimes I wish I didn't know that. Ignorance is bliss.

My hands that were on the pantry doors stopped. I was really tempted to leave through this window right now and search for more people. To save more people.

The pool of blood—

I opened the pantry door and found the family that owned his house had a lot of snacks. I saw at least half a dozen brands of potato chips alone like Ruffles and Lays, bagged trays of Oreos, and a chocolate chip cookies brand I wasn't familiar with called 'Annie's'.

I'm more familiar with Chips Ahoy! to be frank. Grew up eating their cookies.

If I were a child, I think I'd be thrilled every time I went over here for a playdate. Based on the amount of snacks here it seems these parents are the type to treat guests with the utmost respect, allowing them to eat as much snack as they want.

My lips thinned. No matter how impossible, I wish I could've met this family. Though if the used needles on the coffee table were any indication, it seemed like not everything was alright.

Taking out a metal pan, I placed it in the sink and turned on the tap.

No water came out.

"The electricity's out!" I heard the people in the basement yell. I turned and stared at the electronic clock above the stove, confirming it. The electricity really was out now.

Well... the only really long-term light source available to me would be plasma. I conjured up a tiny pinprick of plasma no larger than a needle head.

It was incredibly hard to maintain the plasma to be so small, so I dispelled it.

Such a volatile and difficult-to-control power.

Alternatively... I sifted through the Authorities available to me through We Are The Winged Serpent and found the Authority of Fire belonging to Tohil, the Mayan God of Fire.

The smoke though... and the potential for Carbon Monoxide poisoning if the wood is burnt incompletely. I may be fine but others won't be.

I then started to get creative. Since I'm unaffected by heat, I thought about what would happen if I were to clasp my hand around a ball of plasma.

Energy gathered as a ball of plasma about the size of a pea formed in front of me. I raised my right hand and grasped it like it was a rare marble I found.

I definitely feel the heat coming from the plasma, yet it's completely bearable, like touching a bowl of warm chicken noodle soup.

My hand fully encompassed the plasma with not a single bit of it leaking out. Using it as the cooktop of a makeshift stove, I confirmed my suspicion that it's possible to cook foods like this.

But that doesn't really deal with the lack of artificial light. That's a problem.

I looked down at my chest, covered by a special leather jacket as it was. I wasn't looking at the two mounts but instead at the thing between two mounts: my heart.

My plasma can be hot enough to cause nuclear fusion. Needless to say, if I could somehow harness that energy I could power a whole city without any problem. But the issue comes with infrastructure. Nuclear facilities are gigantic, and while before I signed on with the Company there floated around the idea of small modular reactors the size of trailers, I don't have anywhere near the expertise or specialized materials to build such a thing.

All the more reasons to contact the Foundation soon.

Nonetheless, I opted to cook the flatbreads first. They're large thankfully, each the size of a textbook. One per person should be enough.

It was only when I moved to grab a container full of vegetable oil did I discovered how awkward and hard it was to actually hold up a frying pan with a clenched hand.

I still did it.

It was really awkward.

Squirting a good bit of oil onto the pan, I quickly placed the container back on the table's countertop before I began to swirl the yellow liquid around the black pan. Very soon, the oil sizzled, telling me that it was ready.

The hard refrigerated flatbread quickly softened inside the skillet. I used a fork to lift the flatbread onto the other side.

I flinched when the oil sizzled and burst particularly loudly. That fear quickly became inconsequential when I forced myself to recall how I was unharmed by heat much hotter than simple boiling oil.

Since I was merely heating the flatbread up, I didn't let it spend too much time before taking it out and placing it on another plate.

I didn't cook the food so much as heat it up to an edible temperature.

In 15 minutes I heat up enough to form a stack on the plate. 30 flatbreads should be enough for everyone.

My eyes fell as I was reminded of how 30 wouldn't have been anywhere near enough for everyone had those people I failed been alive.

I shake my head to rid myself of those dark thoughts.

"Food's ready! Some carbohydrates should fill the stomach."

Dispelling the plasma inside my right hand, I was about to grab the plate full of flatbreads before seeing how my skin was glowing from the heat. The temperature on my palm was hot enough to soften most metals into a Play-Doh consistency.

Such temperatures will instantly crack the plate.

Ah... Thermodynamics... 

Then, I placed my hand over the kitchen sink. Better not make a mess of things, I thought.

*Sssssss*

Using the Pan-Human History version me's Authority over water, I began to issue a stream of fresh water that boiled into steam the instant they came into contact with my very hot hand. The steam made it appear as though my hand was actually smoking.

It took five seconds for my palm to cool down to a temperature where water wouldn't instantly boil and instead started overflowing into the kitchen sink. There, I took that as a sign and waited five more seconds before touching the ceramic plate.

I don't want the ceramic to instantly shatter the moment I touch it because of the residual heat.

Effortlessly picking up the tall stack of flatbreads, I flew down to the basement and I wasn't greeted by total darkness. Instead, the curtain of blackness was broken periodically by flashlights.

Some of them opted to use the flashlight on their phones as a makeshift light source. That wouldn't last since it'll drain the battery...

That thought trailed off. Is there a way for me to convert the electricity that comes from lightning strikes into actually usable electricity?

Food for thought in the future.

"I prepared 30 flatbreads. Based on their size, they should be enough but don't be afraid to go for seconds. If it's not enough, I can always cook more."

I looked around and found Bethany finished with her sermons.

The druggie I rescued from that trash can went for it first. As I stared at his face, I realized how I'd never asked for his name.

"Thank you, Prophet Kukulkan." He bowed his head in reverence and received the bread.

I looked befuddled. The druggie was one of the four who went with Bethany to pray. Did the middle-aged woman start a new cult around me?

I felt conflicted.

Cults never had the best reputation. My mental images of cults were shaped by the many infamous cults throughout the world like Heaven's Gate and Jonestown and horror movies where its members perform ritualistic sacrifices to the devil for power.

But... faith sometimes is needed to pass through hard times. And I can sparsely think of a harder time than right now.

So I merely nodded uncomfortably. Others quickly took their own flatbread. Josh took two and Amy, a young Asian woman in her late 20s, tried to object until I stepped in and allowed him to.

"I can always make more," I said.

Everyone took their flatbreads. Alice asked whether or not I was going to eat.

"I don't need to eat. I'm a Goddess."

A sense of almost normalcy descended upon everyone as the room sounded like it was in the middle of a classroom brainstorming session.

I'm impressed honestly. I expected everyone to eat in silence but Rick started a chain of intense conversation and debates over which state's basketball team was the best. Bethany further fostered the conversation by stating how the Houston Rockets were the best, followed immediately by Rick firing back saying that the Golden State Warriors would trash the Rockets.

While this was happening, I was lost in my mind. I tried to review just where would be a good spot for a short-term shelter.

I dismissed Mill Rock since that place is covered in greenery. However, just beside that rock, I remember there being a river barge dock.

The most important thing about that dock was that it was a warehouse. Metal walls, a lot of spaces, concrete floors, mostly lacking in sewers, and most importantly it appeared to be sturdy. Sturdier than this house that's for sure.

With some improvements, it can definitely be sturdier. In fact, it can be nigh-impervious, capable of standing up to hoards of these molten monsters.

I stood up in excitement, causing everyone to pause in their conversation as they looked at me. I felt the flowers of hope bloom inside my mind as I thought of over half a dozen ways of making that dock nigh-impervious.

"Goddess...?" Stuart asked hesitantly, "You agree with the Celtics being the best NBA team?"

"What?" My excitement was hampered by Stuart's question. Oh right, they were just talking about the NBA while I was lost in thought, "No, sorry, I don't know these teams. Anyway, I just figured out where our next safe house is gonna be!"

"Where?" Rick asked.

"When I was ferrying you guys here, I remember distinctively there was a river barge dock right beside Mill Rock—"

"You mean the 91st Street Marine Transfer Station? The garbage disposal dock?" Alice asked.

That's a what?

I must've said what I was thinking as Alice continued, "That blue dock is a municipal city waste disposal dock. Every day, tons upon tons of garbage are driven there and are then loaded upon river barges."

Suddenly that dock felt less appealing.

"I did a school project on that once."

Short of a bunker, I think that is the most secure place in all of New York.

I snapped my fingers and pointed at Alice, "Yeah, that place. It certainly looked sturdier than here. Even if it's a garbage disposal dock, I think we'll be safer there than..."

My head turned to look at the destroyed walls.

"... here..."