Chapter 743

His appearance was not outstanding, and he looked somewhat haggard. When he appeared on the screen, everyone thought he was some researcher who had stayed up too late working on a project.

Because he looked too ordinary, and also too abrupt.

But this seemed to be just an appearance, far from representing his essence.

Fu Xuan squinted her eyes as she looked at the figure on the screen.

Although matters were currently complex and many affairs required her decision, she could still manage to steal some leisure time to watch the Foundation's live broadcast.

She looked at the plain-looking man, subconsciously wanting to divine, but a strong sense of crisis shrouded her heart.

His status was no weaker than a supreme divinity!

"How can this be?"

Fu Xuan was somewhat surprised.

Is there such a frail supreme divinity?

She was somewhat puzzled.

Among the supreme divinities that had appeared before, either their forms were strange and beyond human cognitive categories, or they possessed powerful strength, and just looking at them made one feel their extraordinariness.

She patted her flat chest, and only after the palpitations disappeared did she raise her head again to look at the screen.

But what did the man on the screen have?

He looked painful, thin, and was practically a patient.

Notebooks and books were scattered on the desk; Stonefish's gaze seemed to pass through all of this, through the wall, over the window, and gaze into the distance.

A moment later, he slowly picked up the pen, as if every movement required great effort.

The tip of the pen touched the paper, but it only stayed for a moment, as if hesitating about the first word to write down next.

Finally, he let out a soft breath, and the pen tip began to move on the paper, slow and hesitant.

The room was so quiet that one could hear the sound of the pen tip rubbing against the paper; this sound appeared particularly prominent in the silence.

【 I haven't been here for a few weeks, goddammit. 】

【 So, you see, this is a story about things gradually disappearing, things flickering in and out of existence, reality gradually disappearing. 】

【 At first, Talloran noticed that no one around could remember certain researchers, then it was the country called Belgium and the mug he placed on the table. 】

【 Later, his toes disappeared one by one, then Montana, and the stars began to flicker and go out. 】

【 The window disappeared before his eyes, and the leaves dissipated from the branches. 】

【 He looked down at his hands, but only found two fingers and a thumb. 】

【 Everything was disappearing, until he used his remaining torso, which had almost no limbs, to type the final article on a keyboard that was about to disappear in the last containment room in the universe. 】

【 Then his eyes, the computer, and his last finger also disappeared, leaving only his eyeless, earless, noseless, mouthless, limbless, and naked shell; then, the containment room disappeared, and the universe was about to flicker out. 】

【 This was just an accidental accident. 】

【 I really am not sure how to explain this concept. 】

【 So I changed my approach. 】

Seeing this, his identity was about to be revealed.

"Holy shit?! The upper-narrative narrator in the flesh???"

"Ah???"

When realizing that the man on the screen, who looked too ordinary and lived in an ancient era, was actually the upper-narrative narrator who created the entire story world.

Everyone was shocked.

In the audience's impression, the image of an upper-narrative narrator should be no different from a supreme divinity.

They should be shrouded in light, surrounded by profound knowledge that is difficult to understand, and should themselves be the embodiment of some concept.

"He looks, is he a bit too ordinary?"

"Actually, thinking about it, this should be what an upper-narrative narrator looks like... In the narrative layer where he resides, the upper-narrative narrator is also just one of the common people."

"I can probably understand... 3999 is a projection of a certain trait of the upper-narrative narrator himself in the file, and Talloran is a character in his imagination, or perhaps, Talloran is also a part of him, representing his other traits."

【 Someone suggested distorting Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), so I treated SIDS as a kind of innate anti-memetic defect, making parents believe their children are always facing backward. 】

【 And I also combined other people's ideas about ridiculous large prime numbers constantly calculated by computer programs, which can make you have a fanatical superstition about numerology. 】

【 Most importantly, I made the two into one; perhaps this survivor of an innate defect also suffered from a fetish, and Researcher Talloran is the lead researcher of the project. 】

【 I couldn't make it work. 】

【 So next, I had to look for a backup plan, a memetic version of a classical music album, causing people living in central Pennsylvania to hate and become increasingly obsessed with everything I created for the Foundation, even deleted works, or articles never added to the main project list. 】

【 Researcher Talloran was the first staff member killed by a memetic madman. 】

【 This is simply too stupid. 】

【 But I couldn't drive Researcher Talloran out of my mind. 】

【 For weeks, he just stayed there quietly, occasionally judging my behavior; during work, I should have been teaching children to tap dance, but I was thinking about him. 】

【 During school, I kept thinking, trying to find a suitable scene in psychology class to stuff him into. 】

【 I have been trying hard. 】

【 Time flies, and things are about to happen. 】

【 Finally, it descended upon me. 】

【 I woke up from a light sleep, finding myself unable to move, barely able to open my eyes, and even on the verge of suffocation. 】

【 I tried hard to restore movement to save my own life, lying in bed suffering through the pain of hours feeling like years, my muscles starting to twitch and tremble. 】

【 Then, Level 3 Researcher, James Martin Talloran, stood at the foot of my bed like a demon. 】

【 He looked like an indescribable black shadow, but for some reason, I recognized him immediately. 】

【 He stared at me with those terrifying glowing eyes, and then laughed at my current state; just this laugh made me piss the bed. 】

【 Subsequently, he pulled a huge, cold-glinting curved dagger from his clothes, emitting a chilling coldness in the moonlight. 】

【 When I looked at him, he stuffed the knife into his mouth and cut horizontally. 】

【 Although the force he used couldn't possibly be that strong, his chin fell to the floor, his mouth dripping with blood, his tongue flipping and falling in vain in the waterfall of blood. 】

【 Like a whistle calling a loyal dog, the sudden fear screamed from every dark corner of the world, merging into the black shadow that constituted Talloran. 】

【 That was the collection of all nightmares, yet it was once a beautiful imagination that I had immersed myself in for a year: the throat-slitting President, the unstoppable lizard, the clockwork man, the eye bean, the deer god, the teleporting statue, the kind or evil old man. 】

【 All the terrifying things stood quietly. They looked at me with contempt as I lay on the sheets soaked through with urine and feces. 】

【 "Why would you waste time on us?" 】

【 "We are not glorious after all; these horror creations are so stupid. You could have written some great works different from us trash; you could have made something of yourself!" 】

【 I heard them speak. 】

【 They stared at me, and one of them, a rotting corpse, patted Talloran on the shoulder. 】

【 He approached me holding the dagger stained with his own blood, leaning forward. 】

【 The scarlet eyes struck my soul directly, seeing through everything I had done and the original sins I had committed. 】

【 I whimpered, and then mobilized every bit of strength in my muscles to move my lips. 】

【 "Do it." 】

【 He stabbed the dagger into my lower abdomen, tearing and stirring, and my intestines spilled onto the wooden floor like a slippery sponge. 】

【 As Researcher Talloran squinted at me, saliva mixed with blood dripped from his grotesque bloody mouth onto my cheeks, and all the deformed monsters watched with satisfaction. 】

【 I woke up, and it was just a dream. 】

【 This is where you are about to join; I sit here writing all this down. 】

【 I have to do this; it feels good. 】

【 It has been two days since that nightmare descended, and I have just finished. This is the final ending. This is the rebirth of all things. 】

【 I don't know if I can continue from here; I don't know if I can move forward. 】

【 The Eleven-Day Empire melted me, and I surrendered. From the moment I joined the Foundation community, I had already surrendered. 】

【 "SCP-3999" has achieved victory. 】

【 "SCP-3999" has failed. 】

【... 】

【... 】

【 I hate myself. 】

【 I love myself. 】 ===== CHAPTER 745 =====