Hello Dear

Vampire Squid

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."

“I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

~ David's prayer in Psalm 23:4 and Jesus' declaration in John 8:12.

The shadow of death quenched by the Light of Life!

"And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." ~ John 1:5

Truly though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we need not ever fear any evil; for our Savior is Emmanuel: God With Us, the Light of the world is with us; that Light overcomes all darkness and His Life has overcome death. He has said: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." (John 10:27) With His rod & staff the Good Shepherd helps His sheep to follow Him -and He gives us eternal life and we shall never perish neither shall anyone ever snatch us from His Hand- and as we follow Him we shall never walk in darkness but are blessed with the Light of Life.

And Jesus said in John 16:33 - "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Jesus is the Light who has overcome all darkness and the Life who has defeated death forever.

You’re not sure how long it’s been.

But it feels as if days have passed since the Lab Coats left you locked and alone in the dark with SCP-8103’s enormous sleeping body tucked securely around your small one.

At least, the SCP looks like he’s sleeping.

In the ominous red glow of the emergency lights, you watch his gargantuan chest slowly rise, remain at its peak for a moment, then gently lower again, his bristly mane shifting ever so slightly as he does so, like swaying switchgrass upon a pulsating hilltop.

(You feel a feeble little ache knowing you’ll most likely never see such green hills again, but it fades as quickly as it comes in the face of your present circumstances. 

That being: cramped in a corner by your monstrous jailer.) 

He hasn’t moved an inch, much less made a sound, since they damned the both of you to this dimly lit darkness. 

You didn’t either, not at first.

The main reason is big and obvious and currently curled around you, with the other, tiny little reason being that . . .

. . . you were just plain tired.

Your harrowing experience with Frost has completely obliterated your frayed nerves, draining you of all energy and emotion, leaving only the bitter dregs of dread, defeat, and to top it all off- a skull splitting headache. 

(Maybe you should count yourself lucky that’s all you have to deal with, considering Frost could’ve hurt you more than she did.

You doubt anyone would care about stitching your wounds.)

For a while, the only thing you tried to do was shut your eyes and will the throbbing pain away.

When that didn’t work, you tried ignoring it, with somewhat better results.

But as time passed, the pain did not.

If anything, you began to feel even more pain.

It grew steadily down your back, thanks to the Entity’s elongated horn pushing your knees to your chest, pining your spine against the concrete wall and pinching your poor tailbone on the cement floor.

(The bed in solitary confinement is not luxurious by any means, but at least you can stretch out.) 

Eventually, you’d become fed up enough to overcome your fear of the SCP, and after studying the Colossal to confirm he was asleep, you’d decided to scooch to the side, intending to put distance between you and his snout before you attempted to stand.

But when you took a breath, held it, and started to execute your escape plan, he stopped you.

That is to say, he opened his eyes.

He didn’t growl, didn’t move, didn’t even breathe differently. 

He didn’t need to.

His bright, golden gaze was enough to instantly paralyze you the second you’d shifted.

A few moments passed with you staring unblinking into his illuminating eyes that seemed to tell you, wordlessly, to stay.

And then, apparently satisfied with your obedience, his thick, inky eyelids slid back down, breaking whatever trance his piercing white pupils had put you in. 

Belatedly, you’d let your burning chest fall open and the breath you’d taken slipped shakily back out. 

At the time, you’d wondered if you should say something. 

Maybe try to explain why it was you were moving, or even just apologise for daring to do so.

But your voice felt too weak to shatter the glassy-sheet of silence, and even if you could, you didn’t want to risk the shards slicing the tentative truce that’s miraculously formed between you and the Entity.  

So here you are, still scrunched stiffly betwixt its caging horns with no other choice.

Well.

You suppose you could lie on your side in what little space you have.

But the idea of lying with your neck bare to its fangs is unthinkable, and lying with your face to its jaw isn’t any better.  

A deflating sigh seeps from your lips as you rest your sore cranium against the cold wall.

Looks like you’ll just have to suffer through until the Lab Coats come back.

If you make it that long . . . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . . you glance with glazed eyes at the snout- a good size bigger than your head- still pressed up against your side.

Every magnus exhale brushes his hot breath through your shirt and into your skin; a sensation akin to a summer sun doing it’s damnedest to roast you like a rotisserie chicken.

It’s sweaty and uncomfortable.

It’s also the only warmth you’ve felt since you’ve been here.

Warmth that, as strange as its source is, still gives you a comfort that your species so readily surrenders to. 

Even the sound of the SCP’s breathing is a small solace. 

Because while he would never, not in a million years, be your roommate of choice, the sound reminds you that you’re not alone.

After days of total isolation, that contrast is stark.

And well, with how your luck has been . . . you might as well take what you can get.

Minutes, hours- maybe days for all you know- slog by in red and black and hot, stuffy breaths, your eyelids growing more and more heavy and your butt growing more and more numb.

But you can’t close them, as much as you want to.

Even though fear is buried beneath exhaustion, a primal instinct that’s very much awake within you refuses to lower your guard enough to sleep with a predator, a threat, so close beside you. 

You try to reason with it, longing desperately for the sweet release of unconsciousness. 

After all, he didn’t threaten you earlier, and he’s definitely not threatening you now.

In fact, he hasn’t truly threatened you since you dropped that gun. 

You can’t imagine why- and you don’t dare dream that it’s because he harbors any amount of goodwill towards you.

The most liberal theory you’re willing to toy with is that he’s curious, like a cat.

And you, like a mouse, have caught his attention.

(You certainly feel like one, cramped into this corner, waiting to be played with either by the Entity, or used for experiments by the Lab Coats.)

But then a naive little thought whispers through your skepticism, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the SCP is sentient and intelligent enough to see you for what you truly are. 

A fellow prisoner, as trapped and at the mercy of the Foundation as he is.

Because even with his significantly higher chance of staying alive down here, he’s still a victim to their every whim, every experiment, every decision.

Just like you.

That thought alone nestles into the cracks of your weakening consciousness and takes root long enough to blossom into a fragile, and one-sided, sense of camaraderie with your Colossal inmate. 

And then that thought immediately dies, because what the heck are you doing empathizing with a monster who’s right arm is literally a machine gun?! 

You snort at yourself, a dry, wheezy sort of sound, as you run a hand through your greasy hair.

Shit, man . . . 

You really need to sleep if you start thinking like that.

Letting your hand fall haphazardly back into your lap, you sigh and-

-freeze.

It didn’t-

That’s not-  

This is not your lap.  

As your fingers twitch ever so slightly, you swear you feel a warm, smooth surface, something akin to keratin.

What, or rather who, it is you’re feeling hits you as quick as the bullet that took the bull down, and you yank your hand back faster than you’ve ever moved it before.

Oh shit, shit, don’t wake up, please-

The Entity rumbles a deep, throaty growl directly into your side, eliciting a full-body flinch from you. 

“Sor- sorry, sorry!” you whisper, your voice scratchy and splintered.

But he doesn’t stop.

Fuck!

Shit, fuck- how do you make him stop?! 

“Sorry,” you stammer again, and in a moment of panic, you stupidly place your hand back on his muzzle, as if that could possibly placate-

Oh.

He . . .

He’s stopped.

You wait another breathless moment, straining to hear any more sounds from him, and hearing nothing in the silence but your own erratic pulse. 

Slowly, you start to slip your hand back off-

-only for the warning to rumble through your entire body again. 

You stop and the vibration peeters off. A few more seconds pass, but the silence stays the same. Confusion slowly pulls your brows together as you blink at the Beast.

But any sensible questions that this new development should raise are squashed under the weight of your apathy. 

Because frankly, you don’t really care why he wants your palm placed there.

You’re too fucking tired to care.

So if keeping your hand on his heated muzzle while keeping him from biting it clean off, then that’s fine by you.

(And like always- you don’t really have a choice.)

Leaning your head back, you finally let your eyes close, knees curled to your chest, with your palm pressed upon the heated armor of the SCP’s snout.

And as you drift into a dreamless sleep, your fingers twitch softly against the smooth keratin.

But you’re too far under to notice how this subconscious touch results in a subtle swish from SCP’s tail in the blood-tinted darkness. 

____________________________________

Unfortunately for D-1935 and for SCP-8103, the intern of a particularly cold and elite scientist, does notice. 

The footage on his screen, captured by the night vision camera placed in an inconspicuous spot in the room, shows him exactly what the two of them are doing.

He clips it, saves it into a file, and jots a note on his report.

Dotting his ‘i’s with a smile, he takes a satisfied swig of his room temperature coffee. 

She’ll be thrilled to see this.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS1!!!! BOSSED IT!