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Hey OP, I just want to say, what an amazing prompt. I love the idea so much. I probably won't have time to write and post something on it, but if I get the change, I'd love to try to write something at least for myself. Thank you!

Holy shit.

Okay, full honesty, you reawakened something in me. I'm not gonna lie, this made me actually cry. I'm standing at a bus stop at night, with tears in my eyes. So, good job I guess haha.

You actually made me want to start writing again. Your story made me feel the way writing used to make me feel a long time ago. So thank you for that. It's funny but I actually wrote something quite similar in nature a long time ago and this gave me a flashback.

To your actual story - there's probably no point pouring out words to try to describe it, it's simply beautiful. The idea, the execution. Then again, I always try to be very specific with my comments, so. This part in particular:

>Andrew wore his WWE cap and a shirt that was too baggy on him but that didn’t used to be. It wasn’t the way a twelve-year-old should be growing — he shouldn’t be deflating.

is excellent, it made me feel a lot. "Deflating"... great choice of words. So evocative. Originally, I thought it was just sort of metaphorical - not entirely, just that it was more about his mental state and hardships he went through manifesting physically, I guess. Which would have been great too.

Then there's this:

>I was maybe the only person that night not looking up. I hadn’t seen him smile much recently. Not the genuine type — just the brave plastic type he wore because he didn’t like to see me sad. So I didn’t look up.

Again, amazing. The image, the very clear thing it's conveying, you express so much without having to say it outright. I love this type of writing - a small, private scene where things are inferred and revealed gradually and subtly.

I adore the entire idea, even the fact that we don't actually learn what the wish really was - but the narrator's theory is just so beautiful to think about, and it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. The selflessness of it, and the image of a person just so mesmerized with the beauty to wish for something like this... very touching. And of course, the ending... powerful. Beautiful juxtaposition between the grand, almost all-encompassing wish and the way it feels insignificant to this parent whose life is turning upside down and who only really has one wish. Beautiful exploration of the things we value.

I know it's just a small story, but damn, you really touched something within me (clearly). I hope you keep writing. Have a beautiful day.

Nah, it's the Tau who have an SCP Foundation. The Shadow Caste.

Who's cutting onions?

O5-Council Chambers, Site >!REDACTED!<
Members Present: O5-1, O5-4, O5-13
Personnel Present: D-Class Transcriber D-38876

"Please make sure that thing is working," said O5-1, "I really don't want to have to deal with the Mechanicus again. Letting them in here is inviting disaster."

O5-4 approached the servitor and confirmed that it was correctly recording the details of the meeting without incident. She nodded to O5-1, resuming standing next to him as quickly as she could. O5-1 was a powerful psyker, but within the center of this critical site, with the raw substance of the immaterium pulsing through the air, standing next to a blank was far more preferable.

O5-13 said to himself, barely audible in his voice worn from centuries of disuse, "A meagre shadow of our once great AICs."

Neither O5-1 nor O5-4 knew what O5-13 was talking about. Their 13th member was one of the oldest beings in existence, and was sometimes inclined to speak aloud thoughts which made no sense to them.

"I'll get straight to the point," said O5-1, "We're losing anomalies at an astronomical rate. Our council members themselves are missing, presumed dead, and entire MTFs are being snatched away in the performance of their duties. And worst of all, there doesn't seem to be anything we can do. To be frank, we're losing our organization through attrition alone. O5-13, we need your help. We would not be here if there were any other option."

"How did the problem grow so large?" said O5-13.

O5-4 shook her head, "It went unnoticed at first. Chaos cults were blamed for a majority of the raids and disappearances. Our adversary was cunning enough to disguise their methods. Eventually, we reached a tipping point. Probably when we lost O5-6. We know he was using a great deal of Safes - even Thaumiels - instead of extending his lifespan through other means. Those naturally ended up in the hands of our opponent."

O5-1 slammed the nearby machinery with a fist, "We should never have let him. O5-8 knew this would happen. But even with his contingencies, he was snatched all the same. 13, we're on borrowed time here. You know how much it has cost us to wake you for a moment. We need guidance - or intervention. Did you forsee this?"

The form of O5-13 shifted where it sat slightly, dust rising from its seat - an SCP object itself of great power. "Some events can be hidden from my sight," he replied.

"Thank you for confirming that," said an unfamiliar voice from next to them.

O5-4 wasted no time in shock - she sprinted towards the source of the threat, shrouded in the darkness and drew her polearm. She made it less than five feet before her form simply stopped moving, suspended, without movement in mid-air.

O5-1, despite the hazards involved, drew up his full might as a psyker and channeled a massive bolt which gathered more latent energy as it travelled. The mysterious figure raised tossed a prism from his cloak which projected a strange cube into the air, capturing and re-directing the energy bolt, which then coarsed out and hit the Servitor instead, dissolving it into ashes.

"Shame," said the voice, "I wanted one of those."

O5-13 was the one to stop the conflict - not using his own colossal powers, but with his sheer force of will. "Stop," he said simply, "Let us parley."

The figure stepped out of the darkness, his living metal form shrouded by a hood and scaled cloak. His entry into the Site should not have been possible - but if what O5-4 said was true, and the anomalous was being used to enhance his already-impressive abilities...

"It has been some time since you last visited Terra," said O5-13, "Trazyn the Infinite."

Trazyn gave a curt bow to the immobile O5-13, "You're looking very well, I must say."

"What do you want?" said O5-1, surprise at the intruder now controlled following 13's guidance, his tone still dripped of the hate that he had for the Necron.

"My aims are quite noble, you'll find," said Trazyn, placing one foot up on a machine, "I seek to maintain a cultural record of events - to preserve antiquities for future generations. I am just now working on an exhibit which you would be very interested in."

"I'm not interested in seeing any of your Xeno perversions," said O5-1.

"Seeing?" said Trazyn, "I think not."

There was a brief staring match at that. Only a pulse of energy from beneath O5-13 was enough to break it.

"You must think yourself confident in your new acquisitions to be standing here," said O5-1, "Out with it. What do you want?"

"Only what I have said," stressed Trazyn, now leaning on his Empathic Obliterator, "To preserve culture for future generations. It is simply that I am working on a new, grand wing of my galleries, dedicated to an area of history I have only recently learned of. The anomalous. SCP-914 is the current grand exhibit."

"You're displaying anomalies?" said O5-1, his voice now dripping venom, his hatred for both the Xeno and the uncontained now combining into a new brand of vitriol.

"Yes, and with far more success than you, I might add," said Trazyn.

"1," said O5-13, "Trazyn is not here through anomalous manipulation. He is here because I willed it."

O5-1 pivoted towards O5-13, his features writ with shock despite 13's standing. He composed himself as best he could. "Explain," was all he could say.

A shudder rang through the chamber, as if the very site itself were taking a breath before speaking. That wasn't far from the truth. 13's tone was low and halting as he spoke. "The SCP Foundation is failing. In the darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only war. The resources required to sustain our anomalous containment efforts must be spent elsewhere. Material and immaterial threats require them. It was I who invited Trazyn here today - though I did so under an alias. His galleries have... merit."

"Note," said Trazyn, "That despite my galleries holding roughly nine-tenths of the Foundation's entire supply of anomalies, we have suffered but a mere handful of containment breaches. A fairly straightforward process, when proper display procedures are observed."

"You've got to be kidding me," said O5-1.

"No," said 13, "You know that I have always guided humanity - and the O5 council before them - down the best path. This is the only path."

O5-1 looked at the frozen form of O5-4, locked in stasis. But even in the face of what was to come, he could not doubt 13. The SCP foundation under him had always been about securing and containing. But 13, he alone could say he protected humanity.

"Well..." said Trazyn, "I understand you've come to a decision, but given you've failed to consult me about it, what is to stop me taking the Golden Throne with me as I leave?"

"You will be allowed to finish your collection," said O5-13, "Including your most recent exhibit - the O5 Council. And Trazyn - you are truly only here because I willed it. If you step again into this chamber without permission, I will crush you where you stand, and no Teleportation Matrix nor Necron anti-death measures will bring you back afterward."

There was a rush of psychic power into the room to accompany the threat - a suppressed energy was now overwhelming the senses, to the extent that even Trazyn, completely blind to the immaterium in his necrodermis form, could see the sparks forming in mid-air with his oculars.

"That fate will also await you if you allow your gallery to fail."

Trazyn smiled, "If the gallery fails, it will be because I am already dead."

With the activation of a final Tesseract Labyrinth, Trazyn claimed both O5-1 and O5-4 and fled to orbit. Things had not gone as planned - he had been manipulated and had things played out differently, he may have found himself ground to dust on Holy Terra. But in the end he found that he simply didn't care. With the SCP Foundation now out of the way, the entire universe's anomalies would be safely displayed in his galleries for all eternity.

This is really touching

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https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Cells

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"At least the trains run on time"

please elaborate i'm interested in reading about that

My oiled abs quiver in anticipation of a second installment.

Great prompt, but isn't this already a thing in 40k? I thought there was some ultra secure containment facility on Holy Terra?

Good catch! Thanks

I'm not crying at work, nope.

Lovely story. But I think you meant Jabari rather than Sadiki in the second-to-last paragraph?

I didn't need these feels. My littlest boy just turned 8 today.

Thanks Poetry for a fascinating response! I really like your last line about showing the thorns as well as the rose in love

Thanks. I saw a Twitter post and instantly thought of this

I think unrequited love is denoted through writing out the feelings of most usually longing, sometimes abandonment, and pain. There can also be the feeling of loss. The best piece of advice that I've received and that I would like to pass on is: go through it. But in all honesty, that piece of advice was given to me for all writing. After all, writing based on experience is much more straightforward.

Emotions are difficult to portray through words a lot of times, and that is because emotions rarely make a lot of sense. There is no logic to be found in them, especially in love. I personally think that the most reliable way to truly understand what love is like, or what unrequited love feels like, is to go through it. Not that I would wish for someone to go through all the pain that a love unrequited brings.

Further, I think there's this idea that some people have that love is all flowery, and thus should be portrayed as such. I think that to properly tell any tale revolving around love, the thorns should be shown to the reader as well, and not just the rose petals on top.

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Did the Queen fall before or after the villian took over?

Nice. I liked the mystery about the characters background!

All over the globe giant dead animals have been appearing out of thin air. Today two saber toothed cats suddenly appeared in downtown Boston. Yesterday a wooly mammoth was found just outside the Vatican. In Paris several weapons appeared that look to be large rocks affixed in some unknown way to the end of tree branches.