(Connected to SCP-005)
We thought it was snow. That's what the civvies kept saying, pointing up, smiling, recording videos. White flakes falling slow through the air. Beautiful, even.
But it wasn't snow.
By the time we arrived, the streets were already a graveyard of abandoned cars and panicked footprints. The thing was above the city, suspended against the night sky like some painting come to life. Six wings, each one shimmering like broken glass in the light. Too bright to look at, too impossible to ignore.
We were told not to listen. Rule number one, hammered into our skulls before deployment: Don't listen. If you hear a voice, if you feel a thought that isn't yours — cut the feed, cut comms, pull the trigger on your failsafe if you have to.
I thought I was ready.
Then the tone started. Low, humming, like someone dragging a bow across a cello string deep inside my chest. My teeth ached. My vision blurred. And behind it, faint at first but growing clearer, came the words.
It doesn't matter.
You've already failed.
My squad broke before I did. Ramirez dropped his rifle and started crying, clawing at his face like he was trying to dig something out of his skull. Chan just… stopped moving. He froze there in the street, eyes locked on the sky, smiling like a child staring at fireworks.
I tried to drag him back. I tried to shout. But then the voice found me, threading into my skull like needles through cloth.
You were always going to die here.
My arms went weak. My knees hit pavement. I could see her above us — wings spread wide, shedding feathers of light that vanished before they touched the ground. She didn't move. She didn't need to. The city burned itself for her.
I don't remember much after that. Just flashes: fires blooming on rooftops, cars crashing into barricades, civilians tearing at each other in the streets. All of it perfectly timed, like a symphony playing out to her silent rhythm.
When I woke, I was in restraints. Site medics, Class-W amnestic prep. They told me I'd been compromised. They told me I'd written something, scratched it over and over into the wall of the safehouse before they dragged me out.
I asked what it said.
The medic wouldn't meet my eyes when he answered.
"She is teaching us to hate ourselves."
And the worst part?
I know he was right.
— Recovered Testimony of Field Agent █████, ██/██/20██