Level 8

I drove down the interstate, rooftop down, wind flowing through my hair, vibing to the synthwave that emitted from the radio. It was your typical Monday, but strangely without the traffic congestion. The sun’s heat beating against my caramel skin, a layer of sweat began to build. Looking up for a moment, my eyes squinting in the sunlight, multiple aircrafts zoomed across the pink-orange sky in the direction of the city that I was inevitably headed towards. 

Oh God, what now? 

Every few weeks it’s the same thing. Aliens attacking, blah, blah; we know the drill. Just when I wanted to get my Starland coffee today. 

“Emergency alert: SCP-1067 located in the downtown area. Stay indoors. Do not use the teaspoons.” I heard over the radio.

Do not use the teaspoons? What the heck does that even mean?

A call came in. I answered it. 

“Hello?” I shouted over the rushing wind. 

“It’s Samantha. Boss said head directly to your position today. Don’t use the teaspoons.”

She hung up before I could inquire about anything.

Taking the next exit, I rolled into the city and stopped at the office. I tapped my ID onto the scanner for my pass into corporate Utopia. 

That’s the company I work for. Ironic isn’t it? Attacks on this goddamn place every week but meanwhile we don’t forget to email, mail, fax our way into society in our little piece of Utopia. 

“I guess I have to settle for break-room coffee today,” I muttered to myself. 

Greeting a few colleagues along the way, I eventually made it to the break-room. 

Ignoring the warning I pick up a teaspoon, plastic at that, to stir the sugar into the coffee. But plastic or not, a teaspoon is a teaspoon. And just like the warning said, I had summoned my worst nightmare. 

My body began to melt from the inside. 

What’s this?! 

Starting in my fingers just where they embraced the spoon, a burning and tingling sensation could be felt as my veins collapsed into the meat of my skin. Each layer of fatty tissue dissolving into the next until there was red blood oozing from my fingertips. 

I looked up from the hand that once clasped the spoon only to see the demon standing in front of me. 

Its teeth are creepily misplaced, its eyes annoyingly uneven, its ears despicably elongated. 

“You called?” its voice rang out to me in a happy mischievous manner. 

What the fuck?! 

It started dancing strangely, chanting, “boiling bobbling bubbly blob hahahahaha.”

Disturbing. In all my years on this planet, I have not once come face to face with one of these aliens. But today must have been my lucky day to die. And so I did it gracefully and beautifully.

I pointed what was left of my hand at the alien and said exactly, “Well fuck you,” lifting my bone of a middle finger. My heart began to melt. I was out dead cold. 

But of course I didn’t sweat it. You know reincarnation and shit. “I’ll be back motherfucker.” 

So that’s just what I did. Took me a couple years to make it back but here I am, alive and fresh. Ain’t no creature about to get me this time. 

So this time I’m a cop. You know I’m out here walking the beat just keeping my head down in these streets cause people don’t like the cops so much. But I’m a good cop. Keep the peace, mind my own business, type cop. I get a call. 

“Officer, report to Utopia now. Possible SCP!” I look over to my partner. She knows what time it is. Time to go get us some aliens. 

“Yo, shit’s about to go down, ain’t that right,” she said, shaking her head back and forth and doing a jiggle.

“Bet,” I responded. 

We arrived at office Utopia.

Dejavu…

I feel like I've been here before, maybe in a dream. 

We’re directed to the break-room. The stench is horrendous.  

“Sheeeeeeet that’s all you man,” she said as soon as we entered. 

“Yeet,” I jokingly laughed, “Over my dead body,” I was not about to be the one to examine. But something urged me to look a little closer. It was my dead body. Lying on the ground swaddled in a puddle of red guck, just my ID and a few bones distinguishable, but definitely my ID from my last life. Oh yes, I remember that distinctly. What are the chances that I would come back as a cop to the crime scene of my own body?

“Amanda...I think we have a problem...” I was concerned about this one.

“What’s the problem? SCP-1067. Teaspoon used. Periodt,” she said as she whipped out her notepad.

“No no no, got that. The problem is, this is an overlapping coincidence. Above our pay grade...see this body...it’s me...and I really don’t like this...I got a really bad feeling about this...” Only level-8-restricted-access members are allowed to deal with crimes of overlapping coincidence. We were level 3. The rarity of such a thing and that I was involved had me shook.

“There’s no such thing as a coincidence,” she laughed grandiosely. But then she looked me straight in the eyes without any emotion, “I was waiting for you to realize this.”

Her eyes began to distort themselves.

“Nah,” I backed up and whipped out my gun and pointed it toward my partner who had gone deranged. Her body began to morph into some kind of monstrosity. I recognized that face, that laugh.

“Boiling bobbling bubbly blob hahahahaha,” that voice echoed in my ear as if it happened yesterday but in reality it was a lifetime ago, my last life to be exact. Just as I was about to shoot “It’s not just the teaspoons!” Samantha ran into the room and grabbed my arm, yanking me out of the room. 

“What the fuck is going on?” I wanted some answers. 

“You’re in a tethering maze,” her voice began to sound as though she was underwater. “Wake, the fuck up!”

I heard about that, a tethering maze, but I thought it was just a story to scare the newbies at work.  The officers were talking about it the other day, “All paths lead back to death. Yo, this alien is said to take your soul and kill it a thousand times no matter how many times you reincarnate. That's some powerful shit man. I’m glad we only level 3 cause those level 8’s got a lot to handle with that one,” Johnathan had said one day in the locker room. I thought it was funny they could actually believe that really existed but now look at me. Caught up in this mess. What could an alien like that want with a little level 3 cop, even an office worker at Utopia. I’m nobody special. Can someone explain this shit to me?

Was I dreaming again? 

“Wake up,” 

Samantha… Samantha!

The alien had caught up to us and with it’s dance and chant I could see Samantha before me beginning to melt. She smiled faintly at me as if she was sure of something. I didn’t know what it was, but all I could think about was what she said, “Wake up.” 

From what exactly?!

There was nothing I could do, she was dying before my eyes and all I could do was run away.

Skipping the elevators and taking the stairs down four flights I got out of the building just in time. People were standing around the building where the police lines blocked them off. They all looked horrified at what had followed me and came bursting through the front doors right behind me. I turned around and took two shots but nothing happened. The bullets went straight through crashing into the glass doors behind it.

I threw the gun down as the creature approached me ever so slowly as if to taunt me. Everyone else ran away in fear. I was alone. Just me and this thing that was going to put me to a boil once again. 

Think… Think…  

I looked around and saw the camera men, and my image was splattered over all the digital billboards on the street. I could feel the temperature in my body rising, my heart beating a little bit faster. The tingle in my fingers, the alien was beginning to chant. I simply closed my eyes to accept my inevitable fate, to be melted down to bones and clothes. But then I felt something inside me. The dissatisfaction, the rage built up within and as I looked up at the screen, my physique had somehow morphed into that of an ancient being. I had grown twelve feet tall, tinged green skin, muscular in build. Golden nemes conjured upon my head; a golden serpent staff had become enclosed in my grasp. 

“Holy shit. I’m a god?” 

They kept telling me to wake up… Was this something that I had forgotten?

“This is more like it, a challenge,” the alien spoke in a rasped fashion. 

I instinctively took my staff and plunged it into the ground. The concrete rippled and with each wave, the concrete ceased to exist. The city crumbled around the alien and I and we were transported into another dimension. I wanted to be free and if being this thing, this god, was going to destroy this monster and take me back to my simple life of a level 3 cop, I was not complaining. 

The creature’s arms unfolded and a drapery of flesh showing the faces of those who once succumbed to its diabolical fate wailing in agony. Hovering in this void with me, it soon sped straight through me at an unimaginable speed, causing me to take a step back. The boiling sensation began to stir in my form. Looking around, I could only hear the faint laughter of the creature, but I knew for certain that it was still there. 

I closed my eyes, and remembered a quote: In order to think outside of the box, one needs a reference within another box; remember, the key is that there are no boxes.  

That’s it! To stop the tethering maze, I needed to simply remove myself, “I am That.” 

The creature came out of the darkness into my view and wailed; each step closer, its arm stretching toward me, its stature diminishing into a single silver teaspoon.

I reached down and picked up the spoon, grasping it in my hand. I saw my reflection and the reflection of someone behind me as well. I turned to see who it could be. It was indeed Samantha...But what was she doing here?

She looked at me and smiled, “Welcome to level 8. We’ve been waiting for you.”