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youllallriseintheink · 4 months

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The Road to Alagadda

Desperate to research the threats posed by the unknowable and dangerous land of Alagadda, the SCP Foundation attempts to position their resident reality-warper and professional piece of work, Alto Clef, to be invited to Alagadda by the Ambassador. Meanwhile, the Ambassador has its own plans for Clef.

---

For years, the SCP Foundation could only watch as the Ambassador led artist after artist to abandon their lives on earth. They'd sent fleets of trained military personnel only to have them killed effortlessly by reality warpers, their remains tossed back through the doors as though to mock the researchers.

Another strategy had been tried: training researchers in the way of fine arts and positioning them to be chosen by the Ambassador, such that they might enter Alagadda as a welcome presence. Unfortunately, the results were the same for every researcher-turned-artist who had gone through this process: once they entered Alagadda, nothing could get them to leave.

"There is one more thing we could try," said one shadowy O5 council member to the board of hr fellows after yet another researcher had been lost to the strange realm. "We could send someone who is impervious to most otherworldly influences. Someone who has reality-warping powers of his own and would never choose art over the violence we let him inflict.”

Another council member, the oldest, looked across to her, eyes sharp. "Alto Clef is an important asset to the Foundation. And moreover, letting him into a realm we know nothing about given his unruly personality could have any number of consequences.”

The other O5 member shook her head. “We don’t know whether Alagadda is related to the Scarlet King,” she countered. “This could very well be the only way to stem a growing army of reality warpers.”

The eldest member sat back, steepled his hands, and thought for a moment. “Very well," then," he said finally. "We will set him up with Paraskevas Portokalis for art film mentorship, as we have with the other researchers we've sent. But if he dies, or worse, converts, you may very be terminated for it.”

The O5 councilwoman nodded. “That's a risk I'm willing to take.”

—-

Charlotte shuddered and screamed as millipedes coated in fake blood crawled from her mouth. Her writhing on the floor was a bit of overacting that Alto Clef had demanded, but the rest of her reaction was genuine. Her joke of a "director" had insisted that nothing else would do.

“Cut!” Clef yelled, prompting the poor actress to roll over onto her hands and knees and spit out the bugs. “Someone get me a lemon drop French martini," Clef ordered. "We start filming again in seventeen and a half minutes. I want twenty more takes of this by the time the day’s out.”

The actress spat out one last grub and looked at Clef in absolute disdain. “What,” she demanded, “is the point of having six bug-vomiting scenes in a film about children’s drawings?”

Clef lounged back in his director’s chair and smiled ghoulishly at her. “It’s about how human expression is painful, or something. I don’t know. It’s fun for me.”

Charlotte looked over to the renowned but retired art film director, Paraskevas Portokalis, who was sat next to his spoiled little protégé in a similar chair. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, he seemed perfectly at peace with things. The man loved watching the creative process of "young and blossoming artists" the way some liked watching the bizarre films he'd spent decades of his life creating. It's why he'd chosen to spend his retirement mentoring anyone who wanted to be mentored.

"A film does need to be enjoyed, eh, Alto?" the old director said. "No meaning will be absorbed without pleasure, surely. But you have to consider what the audience will like, too, no? Don't become too wrapped up in your own preferences."

"Yeah. Sure. I'll think about it," Clef said. He surely would not think about it. He didn't give a damn about children's drawings. Not like his kid could make him any that wouldn't disintegrate in a day from merely being in her radius. No hand-drawn Father's Day cards for him, just the flowers that sprouted from the wreckage of her containment cell whenever it went too long without replacement.

As Clef returned home to the base that night and did his one-hour off-key ukele solo in the dormitory halls, he thought to himself, "This is the life." He thought he had it made on the base tormenting SCPs and his coworkers all day, but this. He had a whole year where his "job" was basically to boss people around and make them do whatever he wanted.

Yes, as Clef settled down for the night, he was absolutely certain that no one could make him an artist and he'd never go to Alagadda. This would be a fun year, and then he'd go back to his old life. He fell asleep peacefully, blissfully unaware that he was being watched.

That night, Clef dreamt. He was standing in a dark void, and then an explosion occurred, sending fractals of light and particles in every direction. From there, there were images of things Clef would never have been able to describe.

Clef watched as an alien-looking, water-dwelling squid creature taught a smaller creature of its species- its young, perhaps- to forge ornate glass vases using the heat of hydrothermal vents. After a while, Clef was torn away from their cozy home. He saw its beautiful glass exterior, and then, as he continued to be pulled away, he saw a city of similar ones, unique and sparkling. He was pulled further and saw more cities, then pulled from the ocean and into the sky, where he saw alien plant life and beautiful cities of stone on the planet's landmasses. And then he saw a tiny blip in the water- the rainbow-coloured corpse of the parental squid. But the cities, the art, the legacy remained.

Clef's alarm went off the next morning at six sharp. He rushed through his usual workout regimen feeling especially amped, adrenaline pushing him through more chin-ups than he'd ever accomplished as his mind raced. He had to get back on set. He had to do what those jellyfish were doing.

When Clef arrived on set, he was surprised at first to find that everyone there aside from Portokalis looked bored and annoyed with him. But of course they did- he'd been treating this privilege as a joke. "Everyone but Portokalis, take the day off," Clef announced. "I need to make some changes to the script. You'll be paid in full."

The actress turned away in annoyance and began walking away, no doubt wondering what fresh torture Clef was cooking up for her.

Clef had no time to worry about that. He took to the side of the old director, who had already been seated beside the director's chair. "Alright. We have to make some changes," he started, putting his chair opposite the director's and sitting to face him. "First, I want the protagonist to be vomiting coloured paint, not bugs. We'll use some kind of practical effects to make the colours cover the whole room to show what art does to the world. The windows should become coloured glass. And I want her to survive it. Second, I want this movie to actually be good. You'll have to teach me how to do that."

Portokalis smiled enthusiastically and stood up with all the energy his old bones could muster. "I knew you'd find your inner artist," he drawled, "All my protégés do in time."

They began to walk to the desk on which Clef would plan his masterpiece.

"Though, then they tend to disappear..."

---

Weeks passed. Every night, Clef dreamt of art being created by aliens, proto-humans, and even by what seemed like biblical angels. Every day, he woke up and worked on the film, incorporating what he saw or what he'd learned from it. Everyone but Portokalis was furious with the constant change, but Clef didn't care. He had eight months left to create his masterpiece. The film wouldn't be publishable by the end of the year, and Portokalis would make limited copies of the film and move on to his next protégé, but that was fine. Clef accepted it. He'd keep his copy, share his art with anyone he could, carry the skills into smaller, hobbyist projects afterward, and let that be enough. He'd even started trying to play his ukele well.

That was, until the night of September 28th. On that night, Clef dreamt again of the alien squids creating blown glass. This time it was a master artist creating a great glass structure as many others followed suit, waving their tentacles around in rows of hydrothermal vents like a university classroom attempting to emulate an esteemed professor.

And then the earth began to shake and rumble, and every glass structure shattered as the squids panicked. Once again, Clef began to zoom out of the scene, first from the ocean and then from their atmosphere, backing away just in time to see an asteroid reduce their planet to flaming shards of rock.

Shards of rock. They must have been miles in length, but from Clef's perspective, they were like particles of glass. Clef's scientific knowledge told him that every last shard of actual glass from the planet must have been melted now.

Gone.

Clef was hyperventilating. Once he would have enjoyed such destruction. But now...

The particles of the planet dispersed and stars in the sky exploded, one by one, until Clef was left in a blank void. What looked like a biblical angel floated a few feet from his face, and Clef thought that surely it couldn't die. Surely it wouldn't be destroyed by time as well. But it, too, exploded in a flower of blood and viscera.

And then, Clef heard music. He turned, and he saw a beautiful city with strange geometries, painted in red, white, yellow and black and decorated in all forms of art, most of which Clef had never seen even in his dreams. He even spotted a palace made of coloured glass, grander than the ones he'd seen underwater but undeniably the same style. Clef came towards the city, and as he stepped into its streets, he began to feel safe again. This place wouldn't crumble. It would outlast the very universe and then the universe after it.

Then, Clef's alarm went off. He turned it off, cold with sweat and heart racing.

Clef arrived at the film studio, still feeling and no doubt looking haunted. By now, the studio was filled with strange and abandoned props- things that Clef had integrated into his film in a flurry of inspiration and discarded in favor of alternative desires just as quickly. And amongst them were a crew of frustrated actors and a smiling Paraskevas Portokalis.

"We need to start all over," Clef said.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Charlotte shouted. "For what? So you can keep overloading this movie with weird shit that no one is going to understand?"

As recently as yesterday, Clef would have snarked at her in response. Today, all that escaped his lips were the words, "I don't know."

How could he make something that mattered? He needed his work to be seen, worshipped, its message known. But even if it was, it would all disappear in the end. He looked over to Portokalis, whose face had fallen. "I don't know," he repeated, hoping that his mentor would have the answer.

"Shall we leave the actors to their acting and try to do some writing?" the mad director asked, putting a hand around Clef's back and guiding him to a breakout room. Clef followed his lead into the room and fell down heavily in a chair. Portokalis brought him some paper and pencils.

"Alright, now leave me alone," Clef ordered. "And have someone bring me a martini. My usual order."

"Very well," Portokalis said, turning to leave.

Clef faced the paper, his mind empty. Minutes passed, and he tried writing the easiest story he could think of, a simple torture-and-murder type thing that he'd fantasized about on his coffee breaks in the Foundation. He didn't have the words even for that.

Clef's lack of inspiration continued for several days, and the dreams had stopped entirely. Filming continued as Clef directed, his eyes glazed over and the wheels of his mind spinning as he tried to fix his film. The actors were glad for the lack of changes, which annoyed Clef. Why hadn't he taken the time to enjoy their misery before? He couldn't enjoy it now. The halls of the foundation had grown quiet from the lack of Clef's ukele solos.

Weeks later, Clef finally had a dream again. No imagery, just a single voice, deep and androgunous and smooth.

Show me who you are, it said. Express yourself. Show me that you are worthy.

The next morning, Clef came into filming, loaded his arms with all the art supplies he could carry, and hurried back home. Frenzied, he ran through his dorm unit, coating everything with red and black. That wasn't enough. Home wasn't where he was most himself and he knew it. He took his cans of red and black, with white and yellow, too, for good measure, and stumbled into the SCP research center. He threw a bucket of yellow paint on the ground and began spreading it before he realized that this wasn't enough, either. No. He knew what he must do.

Clef made his way over to SCP 682's containment cell, opened it with his keycard, and threw black paint into the vat of acid containing the anomaly. In its subdued and tortured state, the creature did not react. Once at a safe distance and out of the creature's eyesight, Clef pushed the button to collapse the tank of acid and watched as the reptile thrashed about, roaring and spilling paint everywhere as it made its way out of the cell door. Soon, the blood of some unfortunate personnel would join the black.

Yes. This was him. He was pure chaos and destruction. This was the self-expression the voice had commanded of him. He could feel it. A bit longer and he'd be done.

At some point during Clef's artistic rampage, in which six more SCPs were released and he faced a strange lack of interference, something was said over the intercom. Clef scarcely registered it. At some point, cameras, microphones, and a harness were put on his body by other members of the SCP personnel. He didn't notice. At the end of twenty minutes, the SCPs were once again contained and Clef found himself painting a door of white on a wall painted black. When he was finished, he stepped through the door.

From the control room, several researchers were gathered to watch through Clef's cameras. Through it, they saw a world of four colours: red, black, yellow, and white- though Clef was, for the first time, seeing it in every colour he knew of and some he didn't. The realm's citizens, all clad in masquerade masks, were strange and alien. Some even floated as though through water. The world's structures and geometries were downright bizarre. The camera on Clef's chest heaved as he took several sighs of relief. And then he noticed the equipment that had been attached to him.

"Ha, you thought you'd try to pull me back if I went local, huh? Well, I'm not going to be held back by a stupid leash."

"Okay, let's reel him back," the head researcher ordered through a walkie-talkie. On the Foundation's side of the door, three Mobile Task Force members began to heave the cord that connected Clef to the real world. Clef fell backward, but then he used his reality-warping powers to undo the harness. The three guards, suddenly pulling at an empty leash instead of against a man, fell backward.

"What do we do?" asked a scientist from the control room.

"We learn what we can learn from the cameras," said the lead scientist, "and if need be, use our last resort."

Clef strolled through the city, stopping occasionally to gawk at bizarre art or to chat with a strange beings in an unrecognizable tongue and be spoken back to in English. About ten minutes into his sightseeing, a fifteen-foot-tall being cloaked in robes and wrapped in chains melted out of the cobblestone road and appeared before him.

Alto Clef, the being said. Its voice was androgynous and otherworldly and threatening. Clef remembered it as the voice from his dreams. Welcome. I'm glad that you've accepted my invitation. You are not any ordinary guest here. We know of your powers. And we know of your love for violence. We have a special role for you here.

The being stomped the ground, and a portal leading to swirling cosmos opened up beneath it. You see, for people to crave legacy, immortality, and all else that our world depends on for its new members, they must fear death and destruction. We will make sure you have time to create, but we would also like to instruct you in the ways of using your powers for destruction. You'll have a role here in destroying worlds and causing calamities to keep living beings aware of their fragility. Do you agree to this arrangement?

Clef took a moment to absorb what he was hearing. Then he smiled and laughed so hard he could barely collect himself. "Yes," he said. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" His trepidations towards violence were gone- he was no longer one of mortal creation, so why should their destruction frighten him?

"Clef," came the voice of a female researcher through the speaker attached to his chest. "This being might be tricking you. You have a pleasant life at the foundation. Come back. We'll even re-negotiate your contract if you want, we-"

"Shove it!"

"Very well. We'll have to turn to other measures, then," came the transmission as Clef threw it on the ground and stepped on it until it broke.

The ambassador guided Clef along a cobblestone road. About five minutes into their walk, they heard the sound of stampeding footsteps. Clef looked back and saw easily a hundred Mobile Task Force soldiers running in, guns at the ready, but the ambassador stepped forward and, with a flick of his wrist, caused them all to fall down dead.

"Ha. I guess that's the best they got," Clef said, turning back to follow the ambassador.

"Dad," came a female voice from behind Clef. He audibly gasped when he saw where it had come from. Standing amongst the corpses was a blonde teenage girl with furry goat legs and horns- his daughter. And she looked ready to cry. "Dad. Please come back. If you don't come back, I'll stay here."

Clef's mouth hung open as he took in the implications of that. "Honey... you have to leave. You destroy everything man-made, and this place is only made of man-made materials. There's nothing natural under it! You'd make this place fall apart. We'd all die."

The girl clenched her jaw as tears ran down her face. "If I go back without you, the foundation will kill me," she said.

"I have to protect this world," said the ambassador. "Will her powers still affect this place if she's dead?"

"Yes!" Clef screamed. "It'll make them go haywire! She'd destroy everything in a minute if you kill her, so don't even think about it!" It was a lie. Clef didn't know what would happen if his daughter died.

Grass was growing at his daughter's feet, disturbing the cobblestones. That was Clef's final straw. He ran, grabbing his daughter's hand and sprinting for the door he'd opened and thankfully not painted shut. They were through the door before Clef dared to look back.

The ambassador was not in a rush. It stepped slowly toward the door, and once it got there, pulled a paint bucket and brush out of thin air and painted the portal closed.

It made sense, Clef supposed. He was a threat to Alagadda's existence. There'd been no need to stop him from leaving.

With information on Alagadda acquired, there was no need for Clef to learn about the art of film. His mentorship was ended and he returned to his post at the Foundation. The very day he was repositioned, Clef bought himself a set of paints. He'd make something to earn his way back to the unending world of Alagadda, and this time the Foundation wouldn't interfere.

#scp foundation #alto clef #alagadda #the ambassador #scp 166 #my fanfiction

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worksinprogress1 · 4 months

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Another strategy had been tried: training researchers in the way of fine arts and positioning them to be chosen by the Ambassador, such that they might enter Alagadda as a welcome presence.

Unfortunately, the results were the same for every researcher-turned-artist who had gone through this process: once they entered Alagadda, nothing could get them to leave.

"There is one more thing we could try," said one shadowy O5 council member to the board after yet another researcher had been lost to the strange realm. "We could send someone who is impervious to most otherworldly influences. Who has reality-warping powers of his own. Who would never choose art over the violence we let him inflict.”

Another council member, the oldest, looked across to her, eyes sharp. "Alto Clef is an important asset to the Foundation. And moreover, letting him into a realm we know nothing about given his… personal characteristics… could have any number of consequences.”

The eldest member sat back, steepled his hands, and thought for a moment. “Very well," then." he said finally. "We will set him up with Mahavira Madhvacharya for art film mentorship and see what happens. But if he dies, or worse, converts, you may very be terminated for it.”

The woman nodded. “That's a risk I'm willing to take.”

—-

Charlotte shuddered and screamed as millipedes coated in fake blood crawled from her mouth. Her writhing on the floor was a bit of overacting that her director had demanded, but the rest of her reaction was genuine. Her joke of a "director" had insisted that nothing else would do.

“Cut!” Alto Clef yelled, prompting the poor actress to roll over onto her hands and knees and spit out the bugs. “Someone get me a lemon drop French martini," Clef ordered. "We start filming again in seventeen and a half minutes. I want twenty more takes of this by the time the day’s out.”

The actress spat out one last grub and looked at Clef in absolute disdain. “What,” she demanded, “is the point of having six bug-vomiting scenes in a film about children’s drawings?”

Clef lounged back in his director’s chair and smiled ghoulishly at her. “It’s about how human expression is painful, or something. I don’t know, it’s fun for me.”

Charlotte looked over to the renowned but retired art director, Mahavira Madhvacharya, who was sat next to his spoiled little protégé in a similar chair. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, he seemed perfectly at peace with things. The man loved watching the creative process of "young and blossoming artists" the way some liked watching the bizarre films he'd spent decades of his life creating. It's why he'd chosen to spend his retirement mentoring anyone who wanted to be mentored. "A film does need to be enjoyed, eh, Alto? No meaning will be absorbed without pleasure, surely. But you have to consider what the audience will like, too, no? Don't become too wrapped up in your own preferences."

"Yeah. Sure. I'll think about it," Clef said. He surely would not think about it. He didn't give a damn about children's drawings. Not like his kid could make him any that wouldn't disintegrate in a day from merely being artifical and in her radius. No hand-drawn Father's Day cards for him, just the flowers that sprouted from the wreckage of her containment cell whenever it went too long without replacement.

As Clef returned home to the base that night and did his one-hour off-key ukele solo, he thought to himself, "This is the life." He thought he had it made on the base tormenting SCPs and his coworkers all day, but this. He had a whole year where his "job" was basically to boss people around and make them do whatever he wanted. Sure, they were supposed to move on to other stages of film-making eventually, but he wasn't going to let that happen. And as for the idea that this would make an artist out of him, well, that there was even less chance of.

Yes, as Clef settled down for the night, he was absolutely certain that he'd never go to Alagadda. This would be a fun year, and then he'd go back to his old life. He fell asleep peacefully, blissfully unaware that he was being watched.

That night, Clef dreamt. He was standing in a dark void, and then an explosion occurred, sending fractals of light and particles in every direction. From there were images of things Clef would never have been able to describe.

Clef watched as an alien-looking, water-dwelling jellyfish creature taught a smaller creature of its species- its young, perhaps- to forge ornate glass vases using the heat of hydrothermal vents. After a while, Clef was torn away from their cozy home. He saw its beautiful glass exterior, and then, as he continued to be pulled away, he saw a city of similar ones. He was pulled further and saw more cities, then pulled from the ocean and into the sky, where he saw alien plant life and beautiful cities of stone on the planet's landmasses. And then he saw a tiny blip in the water- the rainbow-coloured corpse of the parental jellyfish. But the cities, the art, the legacy remained.

Clef's alarm went off the next morning at six sharp. He rushed through his usual work out regimen feeling especially amped, adrenaline pushing him through more chin ups than he'd ever accomplished as his mind raced. He had to get back on set. He had to do what those jellyfish were doing.

When Clef arrived on set, he was surprised at first to find that everyone there aside from Madhvacharya looked bored and annoyed with him. But of course they did- he'd been treating this privilege as a joke. "Everyone but Madhvacharya, take the day off," Clef announced. "I need to make some changes to the script. You'll be paid in full."

The actress turned away in annoyance and began walking away, no doubt wondering what fresh torture Clef was cooking up for her.

Clef had no time to worry about that. He took to the side of the old director, who had already been seated beside the director's chair. "Alright. We have to make some changes," he started, putting his chair opposite the directors and sitting to face him. "First, I want the protagonist to be vomiting coloured paint, not bugs. We can use some kind of practical effects to make the colours cover the whole room to show what art does to the world. The windows should become coloured glass. And I want her to survive it. Second, I want this movie to actually be good. You'll have to teach me how to do that."

Madhvacharya smiled enthusiastically and stood up with all the energy his old bones could muster. "I knew you'd find your inner artist," he drawled, "All my protégés do in time."

They began to walk to the desk on which Clef would plan his masterpiece.

"Though, then they tend to disappear..."

---

Weeks passed. Every night, Clef dreamt of art being created by aliens, proto-humans, and even by what seemed like biblical angels. Every day, he woke up and worked on the film, incorporating what he saw or what he'd learned from it. Everyone but Madhvacharya was furious with the constant change, but Clef didn't care. He had eight months left to create his masterpiece. The film wouldn't be publishable by the end of the year, and Madhvacharya would make limited copies of the film and move on to his next protégé, but that was fine. Clef accepted it. He'd keep his copy, share his art with anyone he could, carry the skills into smaller, hobbyist projects afterward, and let that be enough. He'd even started trying to play his ukele well.

That was, until the night of September 28th. On that night, Clef dreamt again of the jellyfish creating blown glass. This time it was a master artist creating a great glass structure as many others followed suit, waving their tentacles around in rows of hydrothermal vents like a university classroom attempting to emulate an esteemed professor.

And then the earth began to shake and rumble, and every last glass structure shattered as the jellyfish panicked. Once again, Clef began to zoom out of the scene, first from the ocean and then from their atmosphere, backing away just in time to see an asteroid reduce their planet to shards of rock.

Dull shards of rock. They must have been miles in legnth, but from Clef's perspective, they were like particles of glass. Clef's scientific knowledge told him that every last shard of actual glass from the planet must have been melted now.

Gone.

Clef was hyperventilating. Once he would have enjoyed such destruction. But now...

From there, Clef saw the particles of the planet disperse and stars in the sky explode, one by one, until the sky was empty. What looked like a biblical angel floated a few feet from his face, and Clef thought that surely it couldn't die. Surely it wouldn't be destroyed by time as well. But it, too, exploded in a flower of blood and viscera.

And then, Clef heard music. He turned, and he saw a beautiful city with strange geometries, painted in red, white, yellow and black and decorated in all forms of art, most of which Clef had never seen before, even in his dreams. He even spotted a palace made of coloured glass, even grander than the ones he'd seen underwater. Clef came towards the city, and as he stepped into its streets, he began to feel safe again. This place wouldn't crumble. It would outlast the very universe and then the universe after it.

Then, Clef's alarm went off. He turned it off, cold with sweat and heart racing.

"We need to start all over," Clef said.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Charlotte shouted at him. "For what? So you can keep overloading this movie with weird shit that no one is going to understand?"

As recently as yesterday, Clef would have snarked at her in response. Today, all that escaped his lips were the words, "I don't know."

How could he make something that mattered? He needed his work to be seen, worshipped, its message known, but even if it was, it would all disappear in the end. He looked over to Madhvacharya, whose face had fallen. "I don't know," he repeated, hoping that his mentor would have the answer.

"Alright, now leave me alone," Clef ordered. "And have someone bring me a martini. My usual order."

"Very well," Madhvacharya said, turning to leave.

Clef faced the paper, his mind empty. Minutes passed, and he tried writing the easiest story he could think of, a simple torture-and-murder type thing that he'd fantasize about on his coffee breaks in the Foundation. He didn't have the words even for that.

Clef's lack of inspiration continued for several days, and the dreams had stopped entirely. Filming continued as Clef directed, his eyes glazed over and the wheels of his mind spinning as he tried to fix his film. The actors were glad for the lack of changes, which annoyed him. Why hadn't he taken the time to enjoy their misery before? He couldn't now. The halls of the foundation had grown quiet from the lack of Clef's ukele solos.

Weeks later, Clef finally had a dream again. No imagery, just a single voice, deep and androgunous and smooth.

Show me who you are, it said. Express yourself. Show me that you are worthy.

The next morning, Clef came into filming, loaded his arms with all the art supplies he could carry, and ran back home. Frenzied, he ran through his unit at the Foundation, coating everything with red and black. That wasn't enough. Home wasn't where he was most himself and he knew it. He took his cans of red and black, with white and yellow, too, for good measure, and stumbled into the SCP research center. He threw a bucket of yellow paint on the ground and began spreading it before he realized that this wasn't enough, either. No. He knew what he must do.

Clef made his way over to SCP 682's containment cell, opened it with his keycard, and threw black paint into the vat of acid containing the anomaly. In its subdued and tortured state, the creature did not react. Once at a safe distance and out of the creature's eyesight, Clef pushed the button to collapse the tank of acid and watched as the reptile thrashed about, roaring and spilling paint everywhere. Soon, the blood of some unfortunate personnel would join the black.

Yes. This was him. He was pure chaos and destruction. This was the self-expression the voice had commanded of him. He could feel it. A bit longer and he'd be done.

At some point during Clef's artistic rampage, in which six more SCPs were released and he faced a strange lack of interference, something was said over the intercom. Clef scarcely registered it. At some point, cameras, microphones, and a harness were put on his body by other members of the SCP personnel. He didn't notice. At the end of twenty minutes, the SCPs were once again contained and Clef found himself painting a door of white on a wall of black. When he was finished, he stepped through the door.

From the control room, several researchers were gathered to watch through Clef's cameras. Through it, they saw a world of four colours: red, black, yellow, and white- though Clef was, for the first time, seeing it with every colour he knew of and some he hadn't. The realm's citizens, all clad in masquerade masks, were strange and alien. Some even floated as though through water. The world's structures and geometries were downright bizarre. The camera on Clef's chest heaved as he took several sighs of relief. And then he noticed the equipment that had been attached to him.

"Ha, you thought you'd try to pull me back if I went local, huh? Well, I'm not going to be held back by some stupid leash."

"Okay, let's reel him back," the head researcher ordered through a walkie-talkie, and on the opposite side of the door, three guards began to heave the cord that connected Clef to the real world. Clef fell backward, but then he used his reality-warping powers to undo the harness. The three guards, suddenly pulling at an empty leash instead of against a man, fell backward.

"What do we do?" asked a scientist from the control room.

"We learn what we can learn from the cameras," said the lead scientist, "and if need be, use our last resort."

The being stomped the ground, and a portal showing all of the universe opened up beneath it. You see, for people to crave creativity, immortality, and all else that our world depends on for its new members, they must fear death and destruction. We will make sure you have time to create, but we would also like to instruct you in the ways of using your powers for destruction. You'll have a role here in destroying worlds and causing random calamities to keep living beings aware of their fragility. Do you agree to this arrangement?

Clef took a moment to absorb what he was hearing. Then he smiled and laughed so hard he could barely collect himself. "Yes," he said. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Now he would be able to cause more calamity than the SCP foundation ever would have allowed him! The trepidations he'd had before were gone- he was no longer one of mortal creation, so why should their destruction frighten him?

"Clef," came the voice of a female researcher through the speaker attached to his chest. "This being might be tricking you. You know that your life is pleasant at the foundation. Come back. We'll even re-negotiate your contract if you want, we-"

"Shove it."

"Very well. We'll have to turn to other measures, then." With that, the transmission ended.

"Dad," came a female voice from behind Clef. It was a blonde teenage girl with furry grey goat legs and horns. His daughter. And she looked ready to cry. "Dad. Please come back. If you don't come back, I'll stay here."

Clef's mouth hung open as he took in the implications of that. "Honey... you have to leave. Your powers will destroy this place. It's entirely made of man-made materials and some of them are really processed! There's nothing natural under it. You'd the whole world collapse in on itself!"

The girl clenched her jaw as tears ran down her face. "If I go back without you, the foundation will kill me," she said.

"I have to protect this world," said the ambassador. "Will her powers still affect this place if she's dead?"

"Yes!" Clef screamed. "In fact, it'll make them go haywire! This place will be destroyed in a minute if you kill her, so don't even think about it!" It was a lie. Clef didn't know what would happen if his daughter died. He had to think of a way out of this.

The ambassador was not in a rush. It stepped slowly toward the door, and once it got there, pulled a paint bucket and brush out of thin air and painted the portal closed.

It made sense, Clef supposed. He was a threat to Alagadda's existence. There'd been no need to stop him from leaving.

With information on Alagadda acquired, there was no need for Clef to be learning about the art of film. His mentorship was ended and he returned to his post at the Foundation. The very day he was repositioned, Clef bought himself a set of paints. He'd make something to earn his way back to the unending world of Alagadda, and this time the Foundation wouldn't interfere.

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