SCP-9943 - I Would Have Made A Fool Of Myself

STICKS AND STONES WILL BREAK YOUR BONES.

Popsioak

This article contains CWs for: Colonial violence, death, murder.

⚠️ content warning ↑

TO THE READER OF THIS DOCUMENT:

The following information relates to Foundation operations that RAISA currently lacks record of filing. Though the events contained within plausibly occurred, further investigation is required.

"India will not be desirous or capable of self-government for generations, and when self-government does come, it will not be the leaders of revolt who will rule. The very names of most of the extremists smell in the nostrils of Indian manhood."

Reginald Dyer, "The Peril To The Empire"

Jallianwala Bagh Memorial.

Item Number: 9943

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Foundation teams have constructed local outposts for the purpose of containing SCP-9943-1 instances. All sharp objects have been removed from the immediate vicinity of each SCP-9943-1 instance, and typical locations of impact have been covered with cushioning material. Personnel are to remain at least 20 meters from an SCP-9943-1 instance. If someone enters an SCP-9943-1 instance, medical professionals trained in blunt force trauma are to be mobilized. Spectral-class specialists are on standby by in case of a SEVERING event.

Description: SCP-9943 is the collective designation given to a series of 35 craters, each designated SCP-9943-1. These take the form of a ring loosely distributed throughout the city center of Amritsar, Punjab, India. Each instance has the same 10-meter radius and a variable depth. Upon entering SCP-9943-1, the subject will be immediately propelled outward by an unknown force away from the center of the crater, reaching significant, non-lethal speeds. Thaumaturgic traces suggest an artificial origin of SCP-9943, though this remains uncertain.

DISCOVERY

GoI-1984, The House of The Naga, brought SCP-9943 to the Foundation's attention following a series of tourists being maimed and hospitalized upon inadvertently entering an SCP-9943-1 instance. Locals reported these events to the Amritsar branch of GoI-1984, wherein they conducted an initial sweep. Due to the presence of trace EVE particles, as well as the potential for deepening of relations, Foundation personnel experienced with GoI-1984 suggested a delegation of the investigation to Site-93.

SCP-9943 was given its designation upon reception of documentation from GoI-1984. This followed an agreement wherein GoI-1984 would provide historical records and Foundation personnel would carry out much of the on-site research. GoI-1984's ongoing re-organization has created minor delays in navigating their archives. Received information has been digitized, and is attached below along with Foundation files.

BY ORDER OF THE CROWN, HIS MAJESTY, KING GEORGE V

By his grace did the King permit Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India, to delegate these tasks to I, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer:

The collection of information pertaining to the events of the Bagh in 1919.
A re-examination of the facts of the matter such as to quiet Parliament.
A defense of my actions, and Colonel Dyer's as well, that day.

As a part of the investigation, it was determined that we should re-visit the site. It brings me no joy, though it should, to recall that time, just a few short months ago. The blood has long since been washed away by rains or mourners. No, what bothers me is something my visceral senses cannot detect — that my position is teetering on the edge, at the whims of whatever decision appears most palatable.

There are talks of a convening of Parliament for a special session, or at least for some form of debate. There has been plenty talk from Churchill and Secretary Montagu, plenty disdain from both Country and some of the popular figures here — yet, I remain Lieutenant Governor. It would not do to simply lie around — if this office offers me some lonesome means by which I may clear my name, I had ought to seize it.

This is a most frustrating turn of events — yet I will take it on the chin as a proper gentleman should. It is not my quarry that the barbarous folks resist governance. Rebellion was due, and it was my understanding that should a spark potentially present itself, it is my responsibility to stamp it out. Are we to be surprised? These are a people that consider the swinging of a saber a dance.

Dyer still holds his role yet. If he remains unsullied in professional terms, then it may be possible to deliver me some hope. I am thankful that I was not the one in the plaza that day — I have only the grace of God to thank for this.

In our preliminary examination of the nearest SCP-9943-1 instance to us, we selected a side street off of Sultanwind Gate Road. Said street had a peculiarly high collection of instances — nearly three to four in a single abandoned, overgrown lot.

We had been lucky — the person who was struck (and the resulting incident that alerted us, or the House, rather) had lived, and only wandered through one of the instances, to our knowledge. Had they gone through such a force again, their organs would be a slurry across all the weeds. The House members that had been waiting for us there wanted to run point, originally. I had to say no, or at least let them know that it might have been unsafe for them too. It would be easy enough with the instrumentation that we had brought to demarcate where each instance was. Levels, hyper-precise sonar to determine elevation, things like that.

That was, if they hadn't already made some crude marks of where they thought it was — stones, some spray paint, stuff they brought from one of the mandis down the road. The borders they had circled were about three times as large as we expected. We thought it'd help us narrow it down, at first, and then we realized that we'd hardly be able to get near it. Which was fine, really, all we needed to do after all was just know the general area where they were to establish a containment zone.

Then as we asked, it turns out they had done this with every single other instance. Kind of a blow to the ego there. At least they were handy enough to make a map. Nothing too out of the ordinary, other than each instance making a general circle around one of the memorial areas. First, though, we've been asked to test what it responds to. Hypotheses were any living thing, but the amount of plant growth we observed (and the insects and birds within) disproved that rather immediately.

We've set up a rather small forward base there, and elected to keep the House's delineations. Saves us work, and they're not impossible to notice. Tests about the exact borders'll come later. Hopefully, it doesn't need us to throw any of us at the problem to hash out the specifics. Most of us saw the poor sap who got whacked last time — and it was nothing pretty. Straight into a concrete wall at, well, I don't even want to know what speed. He's still unconscious in the hospital, and it's been three or so weeks.

A series of tests designed to determine what would activate SCP-9943's effects were carried out, with potential triggering organisms designated as "intruders." A number of larger native species were tested, given the observed inactivity with smaller organisms. The truncated list below selected representative individuals for larger taxa.

Test Number

Test Intruder

Result

Pariah dog (Canis familiaris)

No activation.

Crested goshawk (Lophospiza trivirgata)

No activation.

Rohu (Labeo rohita), in a spherical tank that was rolled into the boundaries.

No activation.

Deceased rohu, in aforementioned spherical tank.

No activation. A series of 32 additional corpses were tested, none of which activated SCP-9943.

151

Foundation automated drone.

No activation. Controls were harder to operate.

"He asked whether there was anybody in this House prepared to say that General Dyer did right. I am! I am prepared to say so. I am backed up in that opinion, as I say, by 80 per cent of the Indian civilians and by 90 per cent of the European population!"

William Joynson-Hicks, MP, HEARING OF THE ARMY COUNCIL AND MR. DYER

An artistic rendition of gatka.

It is a most frustrating thing, some of these laws we have attempted to put into place. Though they were not carried out by me, one of the ones we have encountered the most resistance regarding, even from our Sikh Sepoys, is that of disarmament. They are a martial peoples, and we have decreed such that they lay down their Kerpans, and such a simple request (easily allayed by the use of a smaller blade or ceremonial necklace, no-more than a mere finger in size) has historically been met with difficulties.

In a similar vein, my predecessors have time and time again attempted to outlaw that practice of Shaster Vidya, or Jhatka-Gatka, that weapon-toting art that they carry out in their jungles and Guru-dwaras. It is a most terrifying thing to witness, though we understand it carries a certain weight for their peoples. As such, while we know it is still practiced with those replacement implements, we allow it to continue. We are not blind, though we are merciful.

Mercy it may be, though I find my patience running increasingly thin. Whether it is made of metal or not, their muscles will remember how to swing the sword and spin their terrible whirling Chakkars — a matter of time is what I see it as, most definitely.

I have written to both Sirs O'Dwyer and Montagu regarding this concern of mine, yet have been met with little more than silence. If I receive a response, it is naught more than a perpetual delay, with their more pressing concerns taking a greater precedence. They have their worries, and I have mine — I am a military man, and thus, perhaps see what they do not. It has been a while since they have taken up bayonets and rifles, and in this atrophy, their gaze has softened.

Colonel R. Dyer

The following recording was obtained from Agent Karl Caesar's body-camera following the first instance of a SEVERING event.

[BEGIN LOG]

[Agent Caesar is currently on a nighttime patrol of Forward Base-93, local time 8:01 p.m. The base is currently little more than a few vehicles and tents surrounding the constructed perimeter. In spite of the numbers, such a presence has been sufficient to deter most potential witnesses, although a passerby occasionally walks over to attempt conversation. This is one such instance, with a child no more than 10 years old approaching Agent Caesar as he turns around from relieving himself at a nearby light pole. The child has dirt on his face, and is wearing shorts and a tank tee too small for him. A cricket bat is in his hand.]

Child: Over there. Ball.

[The child gestures to the lot containing SCP-9943. Agent Caesar turns. A red shine can be seen, presumably a cricket ball.]

Caesar: Ah, shit.

Child: Can I get?

Caesar: No, no. No you can't.

[He clears his throat.]

Caesar: Might as well practice. [His following Hindi is poorly spoken.] Get ball to wait, I will have to.

Child: Angreji fine. I can try?

Caesar: No. I mean, let me see. One second.

[Agent Caesar approaches SCP-9943. No alarms have been set up yet, and other personnel appear to be resting in the vehicles and tents, as no one else is currently outside.]

Caesar: Just need to— [He stands on his tip-toes. This is insufficient to see the demarcations. He then grabs the side of the nearest truck and pulls himself up to stand on the front passenger side-steps. None can be seen where the ball currently rests in a small patch of tall grass.]

Caesar: Oh. Hold on.

[He looks around, then steps onto the dirt.]

Caesar: Just gotta be quick.

[He slowly walks towards the ball, and does so without injury. With ball in hand, he looks at it, and veers slightly off his original course to walk faster toward the child. He steps into one of the circles, and is immediately thrown against the truck at a speed too quick for the body camera to register. The ball goes flying, and a reflection in the mirror shows the ball land at the child's feet. He picks it up, and runs off. Automated emergency alerts notify all other personnel, who have already awoken due to the loud crash.]

[Biometric analysis of Agent Caesar found that he was rendered unconscious at moment of initial acceleration, the likely cause of the immediate grip release, rather than a delayed decrease in muscle tonicity. Such a result is unexpected.]

[END LOG]

Agent Caesar is currently recovering in Foundation care. After two weeks, he was deemed medically able to be interviewed by Site-93 staff, at which point he notified staff of having experienced psychic event as a result of impact. Given the difficulty in parsing his speech due to a healing jaw, GoI-1984 psychics conveyed a mental re-enactment of what Caesar perceived during this event. Below is a transcription of what was verbally described.

Agent Caesar is floating behind himself. His hands are frosty windows into the ground below, as he sees through them and all of himself. It is a new experience for him, and not a new experience for what is causing it.

It has done this many times before, to many like him, who have dared to enter its ring, its zone, its home. It has many such homes, and many such selves, who all guard their territory like the most fearsome of lions.

His former body is crumpled on the ground, being lifted by the few other personnel there at this hour. Gingerly, he reaches a hand forward to try to re-enter his body. It does not work, and he hangs his head in disappointment.

"This is a problem," he says.

"Why am I here? When will I go back? Am I safe?" he asks.

All very good, and very pertinent questions, were he asking them to anyone or anything else. Though it is not as if he had the choice.

That which brought him here reassures him that this is only a temporary state. Not reassures, rather, but begrudgingly states so. It wishes there were another way to do so, but its expertise is violence. Death would be preferable, but in that situation, he would be truly unable to actually see.

"See what?" He wonders what is so important to know and to see, that it has been deemed worth what he estimates to be at least six months of physical therapy, once he returns to his body.

What brought him here finds this to be a great offense. In the past, only the most vile and terrible thoughts and feelings would eat at it and bring it to this point. This is a new(ish) sensitivity it is not expecting. Perhaps the Foundation is reminding it of what has gotten it so incensed. Caesar apologizes. Here he is only Caesar.

Here he is less than that. He is skin. He is bone. He is sinew. He is none of these things, and a being of light and smoke. And now that he understands this, and understands what his role and responsibility is, it shows it to him.

There is a FATHER and there is a CHILD.

There is a VILLAGE and there is the OUTSKIRTS of the village, away from the prying EYES.

There the father and child were staring intently at a length of wooden rattan, the child perhaps less intently than the adult, as the older man hacked away, kara iron shining brightly in the sun. Caesar, though he is not there, shields his eyes instinctively from the glare.

He is brought closer, and he sees the faces — one bearded, one peach-fuzzed. Both are dressed in white, with saffron shawls tied around their bodies like bandoliers.

The father was the sort of person who you could tell knew what he was doing, even if he did not at that time. There was a convincing look in his eyes, weary and brown, and a countenance that suggested he had no awareness that his face looked so heavy. Steady hands carved wood as his child looked onward, a precision that people would have typically lost if they were being watched so intently.

The child was baby-faced, not a hint of cheekbone visible, a chipped tooth in the front that had refused to come out just yet, even as all his others had fallen out and been tossed to the crows to pick up and incorporate in their nests. He was a rambunctious one, and if he could, would have tussled with those fiends to get it back. Sentimentality was always a weakness of his.

“This is a gatka.”

“And why’s it called that? I thought we were going to do gatka?”

“Yes, with a gatka. This stick—” he sighs, holding up the half-carved baton, “is going to be what we start you off with.”

“And I don’t get the cool stuff first?”

“No, not yet. In due time, child.”

He nods. He’s learned that complaining too much only annoys his father further, which is not what the either of them need right now. His father DOES have a large blade in his hand after all.

“Perhaps once you’re older,” his father starts, “we’ll get you a chakkar.”

“Really? I thought you always said they were… well, that I wasn’t big enough for them, and that I may not be.”

Another sigh. The father wishes that this was still the case, but the fact that it wouldn’t be bladed was the dealbreaker. No good excuse existed now. He puts down the blade, arises from his kneeling position on the beige dirt below, and stares his son in the face.

His son cannot recall the last time his father was so serious. These days, he was always serious, but there was a hint of something beyond that erupting through his voice and tone, and most of all his eyes. Fear, clawing in attempts to escape like a hatchling poking through an egg, unaware of what it is or what to call itself. Real, genuine fear, that his father refused to call by name.

India at the time of the British Raj.

"There is a weight these things carry. A message it sends. One that I do not want you to send just yet, child."

His son nods. It is clear who he is talking about. Given his age, he knows they are the Raj, but is confused — they do not resemble any Raja he has seen paintings and photographs of in his father's hidden books. Everybody he could think of that did not live in his village seemed to treat the whole affair rather positively. His father told him that there were complex reasons for this tolerating, sweet-talking, and even dying, all for those who descended like a star from the sky. Centuries-old sentiments and frustrations being brought back up and utilized, forgotten scabs picked at and wounds reopened.

While the child churns these thoughts in his head, his father has already returned to whittling the last bit of the branch into an appropriately-sized soti, no larger than his forearm. He knew his father was as confident as he was with the knife because of his training that the men of the village did every few days. Quiet as mice, they were, the only hint they existed in their front yard the quiet whooshes of air as deep and heavy swings were made, and the sharp crack of wooden swords on shields. Nearly done, the child feels a question simmer to the surface like malai on cha.

"Is what we're doing alright?"

"Meaning?"

"Why do we need to hide it?"

"Trouble, child."

"I thought they only didn't want us using metal."

"When your mother wants you to go to sleep, what does she tell you?"

"To put down my toys."

"But does she say she wants you to sleep?" The point is made. For all his questions, the act of posing them (and his father's patience) has left him a smart child. And as if to emphasize the point, the last lilt of his father's voice has him hold up the finished implement to his child.

He takes a few, small swings. Overhead, side-strikes, other bits of simple motions that he's picked up from watching from the stairs while pretending to have long since been asleep.

"If they found us, we would fight, would we not?"

"Of course."

"And we would win? Like the stories."

His father does not answer.

Caesar is confused. Why stop it here? Why is this all he gets to see?

Because it is not only him who needs to see it. He understands this, and feels his vision cloud before he takes a long, sharp blink. The voice in his brain has quieted down, and he feels a strange pull, as if he is being vacuumed towards his body speeding away in a whining ambulance.

With a start, as if he was born anew to blinding lights and cacophonous noise, he opens his eyes. A sharp pain is in his chest, a different sort than the sensations from his bones stabbing into places they shouldn't. There is a sinking feeling there too, as through the haze of drugs and endorphins, he realizes that he is not the only person that will be forced to see the rest.

He cries, not because of all of that knowledge or because of his body laying in a crumpled mess, but because of what else the rest will be witnesses for.

This extra-sensory experience has been designated a SEVERING event. As no records of such events could be found, suggesting it to be a recent development, it was proposed that Site-93 acquire additional subjects to trigger further SEVERING events to determine the trigger and origin of SCP-9943.

Personnel attempted to recruit local individuals from unhoused and vagrant populations with offers of money and food. These subjects did not activate SCP-9943. Members of GoI-1984 volunteered to attempt triggering a SEVERING event as well, which was similarly ineffective.

As of writing, the sole confirmed method of activating SEVERING events is via the use of Foundation personnel or tourists — the latter of which has been determined to be too unreliable to attempt utilizing due to relying on a fluctuating population of individuals from varying backgrounds.

"There were no women and children."

William Joynson-Hicks, MP, HEARING OF THE ARMY COUNCIL AND MR. DYER

While hesitant, Foundation personnel were tasked by Site-93 overseers with activating SCP-9943 additional times. The lack of fatal consequences meant that requests to pause testing did not have sufficient grounds. A series of SEVERING events were triggered, with their transcripts attached below.

He is one of sixteen or so individuals that is here to learn gatka, and learn it well. The rest are mostly men, and mostly adults. The child is the only one who is under eighteen. It is his first practice, and so they have his father stand next to him and let him know what steps are occurring, one by one.

It is a simple start - recitation of a brief Ardaas, as they head into some of the more boring bits to the child. Conditioning, with drills like squats, jumps, lunges, things that any rambunctious and energetic child would be doing. As such, it really doesn’t call to him. It gets slightly better when they move to something more new – advance and retreat, tactical movements, learning to channel whatever small amount of power he has in his young frame rather than restraining it solely to his arms.

Still, none of it compares to when he gets to hold his weapon for the first time. It seems to be merely a wooden stick, but in his mind, it is a great sword. If he wasn’t daydreaming, he might know how awkward it is for some of the adults be using the same training implements as he is, rather than the steel that their bodies were accustomed to. The father laughs; it’s nostalgia more than anything, but the humiliating sort of nostalgia.

The child knows that there are two main kinds of Gatka. There is that which was intended to protect your life in the wars from before his father was alive, and there were that which they practiced these days – showmanship and flow, intended to give the viewer delight and a good experience, rather than strike fear into their hearts.

Curiously, the father knows what they’re practicing is far more like the former than the latter. It is a risky move. But, the village elder advised them that it might be wise to spend more time learning self-defense, than only showmanship. And when an older man whose left eye is scarred shut from times where he had to wield the weapons that they practice and play at using gives you a suggestion, you listen.

It was actions like these and the unavoidable noise that they made that brought the British to the village one day.

Though they arrived calmly, for all intents and purposes, it was a guns-blazing raid. All over the country, but especially in Punjab and Gujarat, people were upset, so explosive again, like they were in rebellion some decades ago. That terrible uprising where sepoys both Hindu and Muslim found that the cartridges that they ripped open with their teeth used the fat of animals that neither should’ve eaten. Of course, this was a grave offense, and not the level that they were at right now, but the father knew that his understanding of what tensions were like was very geographically restricted. So they would hide; a local House member was gracious enough to shelter them in their home, using whatever magic that they all seemed to know to distract or unnerve of the British enough to leave.

The father wasn’t a fan of relying so heavily on the one person, but the child thought it was the coolest thing on the planet. The Naga member told of things that he should not have been alive for, judging by his smooth face and youthful eyes. He was far older than he let on, and must’ve seen some terrible things that made him so inclined to help. Other villages and district’s assigned members barely did anything at times, so to have someone as active as this was a blessing.

On days where they needed to practice with weaponry that would certainly generate some noise, like the mock staffs and spears, the House would cast something that would leave them relatively quiet. Rarely, however, with it being a most taxing magic.

The child learned and learned quickly. He wielded axes in both his hands, learned how to throw and attack and defend with the spear, slice a man down on horseback. What gatka represented was a simple ideal, one that his father told him was a spiritual connection. It’s all it was good for these days, with no Ustaads, no teachers, no lineage. And it was entirely the English’s fault.

The original version, the Shaastar Vidya, had long since been lost. That was true martial artistry, rather than whatever talwar-dancing they did now. Occasionally, you had practitioners be paid to perform for the British, and the colonials would eat up the particularly flamboyant moves. They would point and laugh, and say how easily their English weaponry could take out a silly whirling swordsman with a single thrust. Still, the weapons-wielders would remain quiet, as they knew the truth and knew what they would be showing if Shaastar Vidya was still allowed. They would be using the same weaponry, using guns and cannons, and displaying a prowess that was enough to end the lives of many an enemy soldier only a few decades ago. As diluted as it was, the father still felt it was an important skill to learn; it could be left dormant, biding its time for the proper moment to make a return.

Then again, he mused, there was always the benefit of scaring the British wherever they came, and that was a prize well worth any amount of money.

"He says excess does not concern him. 'I was not concerned with excess,' I think he says, 'because I had in view the effect which it was necessary to produce upon public feeling in the Punjab.'"

Thomas Bennett, MP, HEARING OF THE ARMY COUNCIL AND MR. DYER

FIELD NOTES 814.15

I am well aware I am a bit of an oddity amongst us House members for keeping records. At this time, at least, there's no one these records would be for. It's just me here.

Perhaps I should encourage others to try; I am more and more of the opinion that keeping things in the mind alone are not sufficient. I have done my best to hide the practitioners as I can when the British come knocking. It is a futile endeavor, most days, but they leave me alone. They understand what jadhu is, and how they cannot mention what they see to their commanding officer lest they be seen as insane and deserters.

The children and women are safe here as well. No harm will come to them. They will protest in peace, and I will ensure that this is true.

I am in utter disbelief that this passed. The Legislative Council knows what it should be doing, and I had little faith that it would do its duty to the Raj. The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, allowing us to pre-determine if an individual will be participating in nationalist activity, detaining them on the spot. Preventative measures like this are the first of its kind, the same way you might cut out rot from a garden. There is no point in allowing it to fester, and the Council clearly understands this.

This is all not to mention the full extent of what it is capable of:

Ensuring that the press reports fairly and accurately.
That detention may occur with or without trial to our decision, as the courts are terribly overworked.
That a trial may occur with or without a jury to our decision, as the courts are terribly overworked, and it has proven difficult to find non-sympathetic jury members.
That the accusers and evidence may remain unidentified so as to protect them from the Indian masses.
That trials may occur privately in camera, to ensure the safety of all involved.
That a special panel is created and ensures that these trials are carried out fairly, for they will specialize in Indian matters of violence and nationalism.
That these trials are not reviewed under habeas corpus to prevent addition of extra caseload onto this special panel.
That our rules of evidence are relaxed to allow for borderline cases of denial to be properly accepted.

In all, Viceroy Chelmsford, it is clear that this will ensure that India remains stable and secure for decades to come. You need not worry.

Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer

The child cannot walk down the street of the city without seeing them. They do not say anything to him, but he can tell that their faces are ones of disgust. A child, as earthen as he is? A child, as dirty as he is from all the time spent wrestling or sparring? How exotic! How quixotic!

Their gazes cut like knives. It feels as if they are plotting, and plotting, and plotting. He knows they are, in truth, because the raids have come with increasing frequency in recent days. There is talk of fear amongst the English that they might grow more nationalist in due time.

“Nationalist.” The word frightens the boy, as he does not know what it means. Though he does feel it deep down, and it feels as though they can tell he does. He once made the mistake of carrying a tir-kaman, a bow and arrow, with him to the city. Practice was soon after, and he assumed that the bundle of arrowhead-less sticks and bow would not be a cause for any fear.

He was very wrong. They noticed, and though they did not report him, avoided him. Called him terrible names he could not understand the meaning of, though the tone was clear. Guns, guns, guns. All the rage these days and not available to a small pind like his. Look at this pitiful “orphan,” all alone in the city, bow and arrow in hand! Doesn’t he know that you need something sharp at the end? Oh-ho-ho!

You took the blade. You blunted the tip. Do not laugh at us so, he thinks, as the anger simmers inside.

He works this off with some extra practice of footwork. It is a most precise dance, feet twirling and arms carefully placed to get the illusion of a tornado of wooden staff and sword. Granted, he wasn’t exactly lethal, but the motion stood as beautifully as sunlight upon water.

The anger subsided eventually, but not without a few strong, sharp whacks to a training dummy who had seen its fair share of abuse already.

You are someone else now. All you were doing was walking, or trying to walk, down the street. And look at you now — on a suffocating, dirty, pungent train car to gods-know-where.

What you can gather is that you have suffered the same fate as the eighty or so other men on this car with you. That you only looked a certain way, to these British. Such a shame that you had to have a limp that made you grimace, right when they were watching.

And the tracks clack and rattle on, carrying you to where you will surely die, failed leg and all.

The child is dressed so well, through no help of his father. The sweet old bebe next door helped him get into proper attire, for he was far pickier than his father had any patience for.

Restraint was a difficult thing to come by for the child too, who pulled at his kurta that felt as though it were stabbing him in a million places at once. The pins that were put in likely were, but it was too late to do anything now as they rode in the back of a cart to Sri Harmandir Sahib, that great Golden Temple, for Vaisakhi.

The father always found it a bit silly that to celebrate the harvest, they were leaving where the aforementioned harvest occurred, but it was both tradition and an opportunity to visit a very important place. The food, the stalls, all of the fun and festivities - things that the child had yet to see while old enough to recall it. Last time was oh, so long ago, when the child’s mother was still around. It would be the first time for the father too, in all of that time. He would be overwhelmed with grief at the thought of going it alone, before. Now, the child’s presence begged him to stay stoic and strong.

It is a hellscape trying to get into the city center. Thousands upon thousands have all come for that express reason — to visit Harmandir Sahib and take part in Vaisakhi. Lines hundreds long have already formed for treats like sugarcane juice, and vendors are hawking whatever wares they can; jewelry, clothes, food, toys, even the odd book or firework.

In spite of all the hustle and bustle of joy and excitement, his father noted an undercurrent of… something else. Frustration, certainly. It was to be expected, after all, with as many people here in such close quarters sharing ideas, sentiments, and anger, all the while the British looked onward.

The two had yet to enter Sri Harmandir Sahib; and already the father felt the mugginess and ache of standing so long in lines the child dragged him to started to wear on him. A park was nearby, though park was stretching things, somewhat. It was a dusty field with some grass and trees, and a rather deep well that had not been used in decades, at this point. It’d long since run dry. No other places to sit that weren’t the busy road were available, on a quick glance.

“A quick rest, then we’ll go matha tek inside. Okay?” The child nodded in agreement. At this point, with his soti in hand, there was plenty to be engaged with and distracted by as the father and he walked hand in hand to a narrow doorway, with a height twice the father’s size.

“Now, child,” the father said, looking to the sole entrance in and out of the park. “This is going to be a bit… crowded. You are going to stick with me, because there will be seating no one else will bother to take there.” The child liked this idea. Perhaps it meant he’d be able to sit too, and steady his nerves before the performance.

The two entered, and the child quickly realized what the crowd was there for, as the shouts and protests could be heard many meters away through the echo of the enclosed hall. It was no surprise what they were there for, the father thinks.

The acts?

The Rowlatt acts, yes.

Vile things they were. Vile, vile things, though it hid behind a thin veneer of formality with its long and pompous name. They all saw through it, however. So many had been snatched, so many had been taken. It would not do.

The child assumes his stance.

This is a time to show them! I will scare them, make them run, he thinks. And for those soldiers of ours, the Sikhs who fought in their army, I will remind them what they should be doing.

Quickly does he run from his father’s side, into the throes and mercy of the singular being that the crowd has morphed into as it hurls insults at the line of soldiers already assembled at the far side of the lawn. His father finds him quickly, as the child is unable to get far into the crowd; but the both of them stop for a moment, and listen. Nothing of worth is said, as everything has already been said before. The father knows this — the child does not.

"He heard the noisy defiance of British authority. The civil administration had failed, and he felt that it was up to him to act."

Brigadier-General Herbert Surtees, HEARING OF THE ARMY COUNCIL AND MR. DYER

A great mass was in the Bagh, a garden long since dried out, but now flourished with color in reckless ways with the throngs of protestors. They were loud, the child noted, as he held his father's grip tightly, but no louder than any festival he had been in before. The Nagara at the Gurdwara, a great and powerful drum, would have overpowered them, he felt.

Still, he could not see anything — he had tugged at his father's sleeve to try to get a better view atop his shoulders, but his father rebuked him with a sharp no, audible through the wall of sound all around him. If elevation was not going to work, he would try the opposite, crouching gently with soti in hand. This worked, affording him passing vignettes of who they were all yelling at and against through jumping legs and tangled feet. The yanking and tugging and pulling and shoving grew particularly strong for a few minutes, then subsided - they had stopped moving.

A nearby wall. Bullet holes are marked with white rectangles.

From here, the view taken from low-down was a tad better. He could see a man atop a horse, with skin so pale he almost thought him to be a ghost. In front of the rider, in a great line, stood men with guns and weapons. Many of them looked like him, or his father, or the vast majority of others in his village. The one place they did not were their uniforms — all looked like those that had come to their home those weeks ago.

They looked proud, he thought, whenever he got a brief glimpse of them. He recalled that the Bagh's entrance was rather small, and if he wanted to return to the festivities outside, he would have needed to try to squeeze through both these other protestors and the soldiers in front. They were not there before, the military men — they had slowly moved around the group, and now stood in the way of leaving. Frustrating, but not impossible to get past. His father, with a frame much taller and broader would probably find it a bit more difficult, he mused.

So proud they looked with posture held so straight, he thought, yet if he had been closer, he would have seen the pain upon their face as they were told to raise their rifles. Threats were made earlier that day by the man whose name would be foreign to him. Had he spoken Urdu, he would have understood them, yet he had not gotten to those classes yet in school. If he knew what that marble-skinned man upon the horse suggested was coming to them, perhaps he would not have been in the Bagh that day.

A sharp yell and a swishing of a saber, a sound the child had begun to grow familiar with, signaled a galloping line of cracks.

Whoosh. Thud.

People fell with thumps. The booms were so much quieter than he had expected a rifle to sound.

The child did not know what a gun being fired really looked like, until now. Yet, the primal instincts in him told him to run. His father realized this a moment before, and the two of them ducked behind the nearest withered tree.

Thud. Screech.

"Shut your eyes," his father hissed as the thousands of explosions from rifle barrels propelled squealing ammunition forward into a rapidly decreasing population of protestors.

Thud.

Obediently, he slammed his eyelids shut, as his father guided his legs to some place of safety. The screams were so loud and so great, yet the horrid mixture of noise had so many ingredients he could pick out if he focused enough.

Thud.

Perhaps a peek would allow him some more intelligence on what was happening.

Boom. Thud.

"Do not open them," came the reply of his father, instantaneously. "There is nothing here I want you to see." The two were heading to somewhere quieter; a side galli that the Bagh connected to, where no one would think to check, that his father had remembered on previous visits to Sri Harmandir Sahib.

Thud.

Lucky they needed to be, he hoped. As the volleys continued to reload and the screams grew quieter, the yells of the man atop the horse continued, as if he hoped additional firing would murder the very air itself.

Thud. Crack.

"We are going to hide here. You will be quiet, when I tell you to. We are not there yet." The father's head swiveled around to ensure that no sight was pointed their way. Seeing nothing, he pushed the child forward.

"Move only where I tell you to."

The child nodded.

The ground was cold under his feet. Young skin had not had the time to develop calluses just yet. Sharp rocks poked at their sensitive soles, until he felt cold, smooth clay underneath. The two had found somewhere, and for a brief moment the son opened his eyes.

"You people know well that I am a soldier and a military man. Do you want war or peace? If you wish for a war, the Government is prepared for it, and if you want peace, then obey my orders and open all your shops; else I will shoot. For me the battlefield of France or Amritsar is the same."

Reginald Dyer, Proclamation in Urdu made on April 12, 1919

The well, present day.

A ghost is walking in the Bagh. He has form, and shape, and weight, but his face is haunted and a wail emanates from his mouth.

Body after body lays strewn. Blood. So much blood.

Piles of people trampling over themselves. Arms outstretched as they tried to run. Kesari, teal, green, pink salwar and paghs, now sullied, dirtied. Heads at odd angles, cocked from pain or from a bullet tearing through them.

How many just farmers? The dying grass underneath them a painful irony, as their corpses were nourishing the soil now.

He looks at the soti in his hand for a reprieve from reality. There was nothing to fight against. Nothing.

He is only a child. There are no words he can think of for the pit in his stomach. No matter where he scans, it is the same everywhere. This could have been him.

And that terrible well, in the middle of it all. The stench - the drop into its gaping maw. He cannot look. Some things are still best left hidden, even from a shell of a child.

The ghost drops the soti. There is nothing left for him here.

Is that all?

It's a terrible sight. I am sorry. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Is what is coming any better?

“It was a horrible duty to perform. But I think it was a merciful thing. I thought I should shoot well and shoot straight so that I or anybody else would not have had to shoot again. I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself.”

Reginald Dyer, DEPOSITION OF THE HUNTER COMMISSION INVESTIGATION OF MR. DYER

Some 120 bodies were found in the well. Some more were found dead on the ground where they had been alive just a few hours prior — bystanders were stopped from collecting bodies by Dyer at night, so their wounds claimed them.

The child realizes he has made a mistake. He left something behind that he should not have. It has been a few days since it all, and he and his father have stayed in Amritsar to assist with what may be needed. They sleep on cold marble in front of the Sarovar, and the more the child washes in its water, the less clean he feels.

The well, circa 1950s.

Spirits eat at him as he collects shoes, as he assists preparing Langar, as he sweeps the floor inside and outside. Respite is only offered by assisting his father with the more terrible parts of the Seva they have signed up for.

This involves the collecting and cleaning of the bodies. The ones out on the lawn were easy enough to do, for they had not been mangled too terribly. Family was usually present to identify and confirm that it was who they were looking for, what with the news of the massacre quickly rippling outwards. They were not to perform any rites - Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, all wanted to do something different with their bodies.

However, they were running low on the easy individuals to deal with. The child knew what came next — the well. The first time he looked down the well, so many eyes stared back up at him on broken necks and snapped spines. Bodies upon bodies were stacked, with the last few that they pulled out having been flattened beyond recognition some ten meters down. Children, women, men, elderly. One hundred and twenty in total. Quickly, he had learned to eat only dinner. Nothing before would stay very long.

The British came every so often to insist they take the bodies, the first time a few days afterwards. They would stop them from doing so. The least they could do would be to not disturb those who they snuffed out in the first place. If the child had been older, he would have realized what they were trying to do by asking — the obscuring of the situation they were trying to pull.

Only, they had come about after successfully passing martial law. Justification was all they wanted, and so those dealing with the bodies, mostly the children and elderly, watched themselves with a terrible precision. Another reason, another Bagh, another corpse to collect and process would not do.

"Some Indians crawl face downwards in front of their gods. I wanted them to know that a British woman is as sacred as a Hindu god and therefore they have to crawl in front of her, too."

Reginald Dyer

By his grace did the King permit Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India, to delegate these tasks to I, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer:

To declare MARTIAL LAW within the Punjab.
To detain any seditious individuals.
To transport these individuals via train.

Currently, I am pleased to confirm that at least one thousand individuals have been detained. While this has had the adverse effect of stoking tensions, the current level of force is certainly plenty to discourage too much activity.

Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, Michael O'Dwyer

The child has been waiting for his father for what feels like all day. It is particularly slow for him to return, and he fears the worst.

An example of the crawling order being enforced.

Thankfully, the gate creaks open at that moment. In, his father stumbles, his proud stance… hindered? There is that familiar sight of bright red — his father's knuckles and knees are scarred. What could puncture that impervious skin?

"It is nothing," he says, when asked about it. The father could tell his child had seen it, before asking — watching where your child looks is important after all.

The child is young, but not stupid. He has heard the rumors at school, of a woman that was attacked on a street by some drunkard, and after the Bagh, whoever is in charge has forced whoever walks through it to crawl. Slither, really, undulating their body in a way that is entirely impossible for a human to do. Like a snake upon the ground, and when they fail at this, they are poked and prodded at with the butts of rifles and their joints pressed into the ground, scraping them up like this.

It was his fault, in a way — his father went to go pick up a few extra blankets, as the child could not sleep these days without an instance or two of terror. Frozen in terror, he would wake up, having had the same nightmare of staring down that well and seeing glassy eyes look up at him.

The father sits down with his child. In spite of the injury, he has his spoils of the journey with him. It is a lohi, cotton and soft. He wraps his son in it, and holds him close. For a moment, the child lets go, and pretends as though nothing and everything has changed at all, and that the two of them are practicing Gatka in a place far away from here.

Sir Chimanlal: Supposing the passage was sufficient to allow the armoured cars to go in, would you have opened fire with the machine guns?

Dyer: I think probably, yes.

Sir Chimanlal: In that case, the casualties would have been much higher?

Dyer: Yes.

Sir Chimanlal Setalvad and Reginald Dyer, DEPOSITION OF THE HUNTER COMMISSION INVESTIGATION OF MR. DYER

Rebuked me! They have rebuked me! Parliament has gotten their britches in a twist. Filed an official complaint, and it made it through. I am to lose my job. What is that justice? Performing my actions in a way that ensured my safety against such a vulgar situation deserving punishment is a most awful joke. All that any desire is simply a lack of such sedition.

Yet, here, the Sahib is so easily swayed by being body to body and hearing the rousing shouts of a few others. In situations like this, where attitude is so easily boiled, one must respond properly. If a man fails to do so, his perceived authority will easily shatter. I know this is a sentiment shared among others, for 26,000 pounds I have received, from generous donors that have so helpfully and handsomely raised this from England and her people.

Readily apparent it is, as to why India rejects self-government so. The leaders of its current movement are nothing more than blood-thirsty extremists, and they will call for the heads of anyone and everyone they can find, even long after we are gone. It will be the death-knell of the State and all its peoples, certainly. And the most terrible problem? We would lay ourselves on the cross as though it was our fault! One does not fault the cultivator if his crop refuses to grow, yet we would be seen as associates to murder on the global stage.

This will not last. There is not a single thing I did wrong,

O’Dwyer is certainly next. I can take a degree of comfort in that, I suppose.

Colonel R. Dyer

i am aware you are hearing this, naga-wala jadhughar.

i am acquainted with you, and though you help them, i must acknowledge the great service your people perform.

i will withhold. but i need you all to see with your eyes what you have done when you were here last.

my restraint is a restraint. that is all. showing a dead man dead things would do no one any good.

this is a fight, and I am using a soti against your talwar. Steel is nothing against tempered wood.

The child is practicing with the katar today. His father can sense there is something he wants to deal with personally, and what better than the close-quarters stabbing and slicing of the more inconspicuous blade?

A katar.

“What is the matter?” the father asks, in a ready stance with both hands carrying shields. He is there to assist the son in target practice.

“Do you not feel as though-” he grunts as he throws his right hand forward, only to hopelessly bounce off his father’s raised shield, “what they’re trying now is pointless?”

“It is respectable.” The two clang weapons together, the son’s motions growing a tad more desperate. “Only some of the Gurus did anything violently. Most did not.”

The child laughs, attempting a downward slash in an X’s shape. “Respectability never got anyone anywhere, when it comes to them. You know this.”

Both slice naught but air as the father leaps away, move telegraphed enough that he had ample time with which to do so. “I understand you are bitter. But you must let it go. Sant-sipahi, my son. Saint and soldier. Do not forget one half in favor of the other.”

The right answer tends to be frustrating to hear when you are not ready for it. The child growls, and swings with his left hand in a backhand, attempting to bluntly smack the shield to damage the hand behind it. Instead, the shield rises to meet him.

“Do not try anything so silly,” the father mutters as the katar goes flying. Pain shoots through the child’s hand, and he drops the katar to hold it briefly, before brandishing the second katar like a dagger and charging forward.

His father knocks the other katar away with a wrestle of his shield. It catches the lip of the katar’s hilt, weakening the child’s grip enough to see the blade fly, landing pathetically meters away.

“It would do you well to understand that this is not the only way. When all other options are exhausted, you rage. But not yet. Gandhi is seeing results, child. Let it go forward, and see how it does.”

"Let me marshal the facts. The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything. It was holding a seditious meeting. When fire had been opened upon it to disperse it, it tried to run away. Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other. When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed upon the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes, and it stopped only when the ammunition had reached the point of exhaustion."

Secretary of State Winston Churchill, HEARING OF THE ARMY COUNCIL AND MR. DYER

Spectral analysis proved inconclusive. No markers of typical Spectral activity were present. Investigation into the cause of SCP-9943 continues. Additional machinery for detailed imagery that Forward Base-93 has been requested from nearby sites.

it does not mean that all justice was not received.

of course, this is a short-lived justice. they then— allow me to show you.

The agent's spirit has a feeling that something is around her neck. Scratchy, tight, cutting into thin and tender skin.

She cannot breathe — but she cannot die, either. Lungs are perpetually suffocating, while she is kicking and thrashing to attempt to escape. But the courts do not allow for this escape. Nothing right and just and honorable would.

Your name is Shaheed Udham Singh. You are not Shaheed yet, as you have not died yet.

The drunk soldier you bought a revolver from in whatever disgusting, dingy pub you found yourself in would have refused had he known your plan.

It was fairly simple to take one of your books and cut a hole fitting the gun. You carried yourself as a well-read man already, suit and tie and the entire nine yards. You had bought a ticket to his speaking event under your wife's name. A degree of irony, you think — that he be allowed to speak as if he had authority over the matter; and when had they ever invited anyone from there, in spite of all the outrage that you had heard about?

Never, really, so you invited yourself. And you walk through Caxton Hall, with its pale crown molding and countless artifacts dotting the halls and walls, into a grand atrium. You sit and pay attention to none of what he says; nothing could sway you, really, from what you were doing here. If you heard the right sentiment, it might have made you want to pull the trigger sooner.

The speech concludes. All the people there are allowed to leave without being shot at and mowed down and forced to jump into a well to their death. The Bagh was not afforded such a privilege; this covered roof of Caxton Hall gets to shield this great evil. You were there.

You walk up to O'Dwyer. You take the book out from under your arm, open the page to the only Good Word that exists in this hypocritical country, and fire.

The gallows are where you go, not long after. So be it — they could not crush your people's spirit, and you died so long ago, already. Thousands upon thousands of your country-men will descend upon their tyrannical Government. You have no quarrel with the peoples of England, save only for their blindness and desire to avert their gaze.

As the ground swings out from under your feet, you know that what you desire will come to be, in time.

All things must end.

It's a good thing that nothing honorable exists anymore. The agent's spirit is returned to her body, in due time. Yet you are allowed to do something now, and what can they hope to do? Kill you?

there is nothing you can do to me.

This is your fight. This is your forcing them to see.

Agent Cassie Lane experienced no physical injury corresponding to the SEVERING event, but did report requiring additional psychiatric care to return to baseline. Given SCP-9943's new escalation in hostility, extra time to identify the cause of SCP-9943 was allotted, which would typically be devoted to experimenting with additional SEVERING events.

Microscopic thaumaturgical analysis located the likely cause of SCP-9943; each instance was found to contain a small mass of splinters undetectable to the naked eye that rapidly accelerate at a target. Upon impact, a brief burst of EVE only visible with precise sensor timing is seen.

Site-93 personnel requested permission to attempt to destroy SCP-9943 due to the escalation in tactics.

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL:

At the current moment, given that SCP-9943 appears to be impervious to physical force (otherwise it would destroy itself with each SEVERING event), decommissioning attempts would only serve to aggravate it further. Personnel are recommended to continue carrying out the planned testing regimen in hopes it will calm SCP-9943, when its SEVERING events conclude. All signs indicate that it is attempting to communicate a narrative.

We have already upped recruitment in Punjab — in spite of all that's occurred, it seems their proclivity to be a martial race works in our favor. They cannot help but take up the sword. The Punjab truly is the home of the best soldiers; a nursery of sorts, whether the teat never appears to run dry.

Certainly, they prove easier to handle than the Sepoys from decades ago. There is dissent, yet most are too blinded by Bengal, or their frustration with the Mughals, or whatever other frustrations they carry with them. It is not a difficult thing to simply mention this, and their spiritual sense takes such pride that it forces them to sign up. Fathers and sons come together, some days, recruitment offices in Lahore are telling me.

Certainly, they will serve in their own regiments. I will not subject English soldiers to whatever accommodations they require. Let like handle like — it may stamp down whatever resistance exists now. I am told that Imperial Nippon carries their own Indian regiments, and this is a less desirable outcome for our potential recruits.

FROM THE DESK OF CLAUDE AUCHINLECK
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE INDIAN ARMY

The child is now older. He kneels in the same place his father did, oh so long ago. He is with his own son now, a quieter boy than he ever was. The child and the boy, for the child does not think he ever really left being his father’s son behind. Still he lives and is stuck at that day in the Bagh.

The father had long since passed from the flu, or tuberculosis, or one of any other disease that they could not afford the treatment for. But the child would ensure that some part of him did live on in teachings and behaviors and small quirks. Most of all, through Gatka.

The boy learns quickly, quicker than the child ever did. He throws the chakrams easily, spins the chakkar even easier. At such a young age, is able to hold a Khanda, of all things, that great and mighty two handed sword. The child is impressed. For awhile now, they have been able to practice in the open, and with weaponry once again. Sikh soldiers had petitioned the British authorities to allow the privilege they were afforded in the Indian Army to be extended to the populace now.

A talwar.

So, the boy received a better training than the child ever had. Perhaps too well, because in the blink of an eye, the boy grows from soti, to talwar, to enlisting in the army himself. This frustrates the child to no end, though him and the boy argue about it frequently over exchanges of strikes during spars.

Today, he is showing the boy how to use a barchha, the snakelike spear with squiggled tip. With each thrust, the boy attempts to poke through his father’s defenses, both literal and figurative. Pointed questions are posed that the child has no good answers for.

“Is this not defending our country? British or not, we will die if they invade us. It would be foolish to do nothing.”

“The Gurus would be proud if you consider what we are fighting for, no? The death of fascism. The death of evil.”

“We are Sant-Sipahi, saint-soldier. Is this not the latter half, fulfilled?”

“Is it not my right to decide what I wish to do, father?”

And the child is quiet, for all of it is true. It frustrates him, for he cannot follow this path himself, and cannot bring himself to admit that it was a privilege he wished he had. Instead, he is a slave to routine and prayer to seek inner peace and fill a hole that is as deep as the well from so long ago. So he tells his son to do as he desires, and that is precisely what he does.

I suppose it will be any day now. Even now, it hurts to pick up the pen. But if I do not write, I suppose these thoughts will linger and be the very last meal I have to chew before I am judged, and that is not the first impression I desire to make.

I have pored those days over again, and again, and again. Dear God, how the speechlessness and the apoplexies have riddled me so. Left me paralyzed, a shell of what I was — all the life snuffed. I have heard the opinions, that poor old Reggie Dyer has been cursed from the Maker himself, a karmic punishment meant to judge me. Karma. Such a Hindoo thing to say.

To hell with them, I say. So many people who knew the condition of Amritsar say I did right, but so many others say I did wrong. They did not step foot there. Yet I understand that this is not a guarantee of the correctness of their opinions.

Now, I only want to die and know from my Maker whether I did right or wrong. A proper, full life I have lived, after all, and at the end of such a one, is there any other question we desire to ask?

Colonel R. Dyer

The child received an urn that day. A smaller one than he expected. An attached letter denoted that the majority of the son's remains were buried at the theater, in accordance with British policy. Bodies would be a hindrance, as would ash, to troop movements. The pinches of what came were saved by his regiment, and sent back to his father — whose photograph he carried with him in his medical bag.

All that laudanum, all those bandages, and none of it does a damned thing when shrapnel shreds your entire upper torso like atta. And now the rivers were devoid of 95% of a person, back home. He almost wished they hadn't sent anything. It would have offered some blissful ignorance that his son was still alive, just perhaps, finding it difficult to return home.

The war had just started. Were he to somehow, years down the line, return to the place where he was buried (were he able to find this marker they had put at the site, if that even was the exact spot) it would be nigh impossible to figure out where his son was. Did they want him to dig through soil and gunpowder and blood, hoping that whatever pile of earth he scooped out might contain a portion of his son? That the dirt under his fingernails was his lips, or eyes, or bones? If the air he breathed in as he scrabbled at frozen stone was his lungs, or nose, or finger?

And he died in that stupid, god-damned uniform. Maybe it was his fault. God, he hadn't given him whatever tools he had had as a child to resist it. Just given him the weapons and the gatka and the training and assumed he would be fine. Lucky as his son was to not inherit a shred of the horrors that he still saw in his dreams, perhaps it could have held him back.

He was standing in the doorway when he read all of this. There, leaning against the wall, was the soti him and his father had made, so many years ago. Stupid fucking stick. They didn't even need it anymore. It wasn't as if his son would be here to use it.

All of it. All of what it meant. Hands picked it up, and held it tight. It was so small. He felt its grain, the small lines like a unique fingerprint of the wood he selected. For a brief moment, it was warm. His expression softened; then he remembered what he had seen with it, together.

And he raised it overhead, as if to deliver a strike like the one that won him that spar so long ago, and brought it down onto the ground. Again, and again, and again, indiscriminately, through tears. He cared for all of this no longer.

Smashing, breaking, utterly destroying, splintering it.

FIELD NOTES 1516.15

The war is won. I have returned safe to my pind. Yet in spite of all of this, I still hear the rockets. I still am in Burma, and I see friends of mine in front of me, who had been picked off in sniper duels. Their turbans are all red from the blood. I look in the mirror, and I see no face staring back at me. Flesh lays in tatters around my eyes, and they have brutalized my face like a tiger.

The leg still hurts, even though I know it not to be there any longer. They pulled me out too quick. My body still hungers for war, and it is pulling my mind along. It is not just me. Two other veterans I know, two regiments over, stabbed each other to death in Ludhiana. Eritrea called for them, and they thought each other enemy combatants still.

I have tried to do Gatka again, in hopes that repeating old habits and motions might sate my body's needs. It does not. I cannot even attempt to strike a dhal without feeling as though I need to vomit.

Additionally, I have spent time in the Gurdwara, doing bani in hopes it would bring me some peace. I pray that Waheguru might deliver me some relief. It comes for a time, then leaves all the same when I stop. Dwelling on things any longer proves poison — and if the British did one thing right, it was making alcohol easier to obtain. I have not told the Granthi that I partake, but there is nothing else I find myself able to do.

Sometimes, when I am in my bed, I feel hot. I tend to be sensitive to heat, so I think it is the chadar I have pulled over myself. I yank it off, then it continues growing warmer, and I realize I am swimming in my blood leaking out from my gut. They have punched a hole through my stomach, and I think it might have been better off to have died there on the field.

The following SEVERING event was the longest observed instance. Agent Marcus Dain required twice the time for recovery, despite a lack of corresponding severity of symptoms.

SO MUCH I HAVE SEEN.

SO MUCH.

MR. AGENT. YOU WILL SEE TOO —

YOU ARE STARVING BECAUSE THEY HAVE STOLEN YOUR FOOD TO FEED THEIR BELLIES

YOU ARE LEAVING YOUR HOME BECAUSE THEY HAVE DESTROYED YOUR SCHOOLS AND POLLUTED YOUR ECONOMY AS THEY CALL TO YOU TO TELL YOU THIS IS THE SOLE MEANS OF SUCCESS

YOU ARE ASSAULTED IN THE STREETS BY YOUR NEW COUNTRYMEN WHO HAVE EATEN YOUR FOOD THE DAY PRIOR

YOU ARE CRAWLING ON THE GROUND AND SCRAPING YOUR ELBOWS AND KNEES

YOU ARE A SOLDIER DYING IN A TRENCH

YOU ARE A SOLDIER CHOKING ON MUSTARD GAS

YOU ARE A SOLDIER GUTTED BY A BAYONET

YOU ARE HINDU AND MUSLIM AND SIKH AND JAIN AND BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN AND YOU ARE TOLD YOU ARE DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER

YOU ARE AN ARTIFACT THAT WILL NEVER SEE HOME AGAIN

YOU ARE A SEPOY WHO HAS BEEN CUTTING YOUR TEETH ON PORK AND COW

YOU ARE A PERSON WITHOUT TRIAL WHO IS TIED TO CANNONS AND SHOT

YOU ARE A CHILD AND MOTHER PEACEFULLY PROTESTING WHEN A BULLET SLICES THROUGH YOUR WOMB, KILLING YOU BOTH

YOU ARE DYING TO TEST THEIR CHEMICAL WEAPONS

YOU ARE ATROCITIES JUSTIFIED

YOU ARE KHILAFAT AND GHADAR AND SWADESHI AND NON-COOPERATION

YOU ARE CRIMES FORGOTTEN

YOU ARE A CHILD VIOLATED

YOU ARE A DOWNPLAYED NUMBER WITH FALSE CITATIONS TO MAKE THEM FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES

YOU ARE A PRINCE STOLEN FROM YOUR PALACE AND MOTHER

YOU ARE A PROTESTOR SUFFOCATING TO DEATH ON A PRISON TRAIN WITH A BELLY FULL OF URINE INSTEAD OF WATER

YOU ARE A FARMER FORCED TO GROW INDIGO THAT YOU WILL NEVER USE WHILE YOUR FAMILY STARVES

YOU ARE LUNGS HACKING AND COUGHING TO DEATH BECAUSE OF THE FLU THEY BROUGHT FROM SPAIN

YOU ARE A STATE CUT IN TWO BY A LINE THEY DRAW TO DIVIDE YOU FURTHER BY SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER VISITED BY YOU

YOU ARE FIVE RIVERS, SIBLINGS THAT WILL NEVER MEET AGAIN

YOU ARE TWO COUNTRIES NOW THAT STAND APART AND WISH TO BOMB EACH OTHER OUT OF EXISTENCE

YOU ARE THREE COUNTRIES NOW THAT STAND APART THAT PRETEND AS THOUGH THEY HAVE NEVER MET

YOU ARE FOUR AND FIVE AND SIX.

YOU ARE FOREVER CHANGED — AND YOU ARE FOREVER ANGRY.

The following SEVERING event is the final time SCP-9943 has spoken, and the final time a SEVERING event has triggered. SCP-9943 remains active, though without any extra-sensory experiences.

perhaps hearing an apology would sate me now.

i cannot tell you.

it is hard to determine how hungry i am.

what point is there in forgiving

the ones who have waited so long,

or their children who know not what they did?

all those i would ask penitence from are dead

dead and dead and dead.

a fate too good for them.

be-gone. do not trick us again.

I promise it'll be different this time.

this time you mean it?

this time?

i will believe it when i see it.

LONDON HERALD

Daily News

Since 1859

JULY 9TH

5p - NO REFUNDS

FIERY DEBATE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

DYER UNPUNISHED, CHURCHILL SAYS "NO MORE"

By Elias Vigil

PARLIAMENT - Tensions ran high in the House of Commons as the long-anticipated Amritsar debate reached its conclusion. For over the better part of the day, Labour and Tory forces duked it out in determining the severity of punishment for Colonel Reginald Dyer, former Brigadier-General in the Punjab of British India. Dyer is infamous for ordering the attack on a mass of protestors revolting against a number of acts passed early last year.

Sir William Sutherland is noted as stating that the House's noise had never been so grand since the war — and that Sir Winston Churchill's fiery defense of a harsher punishment, as well as the unarmed nature of the protestors, was firmly unexpected yet welcomed by Labour. Condemnation by the government in the form of the Hunter Commission, upon Churchill's request, was met with barring Dyer from further military employment some months ago.

Yet today, Sir Churchill seemed disappointed following a raucous speech that called for further punishment upon Dyer's head — criminal sentencing, which Tories firmly rejected due to the lack of a trial. Sir Edward Carson is noted as stating that Dyer was “a gallant officer of 34 years’ service… without a blemish upon his record.” Yet for some, the Massacre of Amritsar is the blemish in and of itself.

The Government had unfortunately tied its own hands with its early, seemingly rushed decision to accede to the Army Commission's request to protect Dyer from further consequences. A formal apology for the massacre or Dyer's conduct was not offered by the Commission, a move that…

SEE DEBATE, PAGE 3

MEMO

15 FEBRUARY 1921:

I have told the Viceroy again, and again: look at my latest letter. I have enclosed an excerpt, reading:

"In my ability as Council, I can firmly state that [while it was an] overdrastic and severe action, [and] excessive use of force and acts [which could be] reasonably interpreted as designed to humiliate Indian people… [It] cannot but be regarded as unpardonable (and) morally indefensible."

There is little else I am able to do. This is the Viceroy's responsibility now.

Sir William Vincent, Viceroy of India's Council

The following was recorded during a visit of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in October 1997, at the scene of Jallianwala Bagh Memorial.

. VIDEO LOG: SECCAM021515

1997/04/10 | 17:42:01 .

[BEGIN LOG]

[The Queen and Duke are reading the plaque on the memorial as protesters chant "Queen, go back." Inscribed on it is: "This place is saturated with the blood of about two thousand Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims who were martyred in a non-violent struggle."]

PHILIP: That's a bit exaggerated.

[He shakes his head.]

PHILIP: I learned all about this from General Dyer's son, after all.

[END LOG]

Before the visit above, Queen Elizabeth stated:

QUEEN ELIZABETH II: It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past – Jallianwala Bagh, which I shall visit tomorrow, is a distressing example. But history cannot be rewritten, however much we might sometimes wish otherwise. It has its moments of sadness, as well as gladness. We must learn from the sadness and build on the gladness.

RADIO HOST: Prime Minister David Cameron is the first to comment on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919. Of course, expectations for apology must be tempered with his refusal to repatriate items and treasures acquired during the colonization of British India, as it was called at the time. 2013 is certainly a year to start making amends, if he plans to do so.

BELOW IS THE ITINERARY FOR PRINCE WILLIAM AND PRINCESS KATE'S VISIT TO INDIA, APRIL 2016:

APRIL 10: ARRIVE IN MUMBAI
APRIL 11: INDIA GATE
APRIL 12: VISIT MEMORIAL FREE DAY
APRIL 13: CENTRE FOR WILDLIFE REHAB
APRIL 14: BHUTAN
APRIL 15: BHUTAN
APRIL 16: TAJ MAHAL
APRIL 17: DEPARTURE

BBC GUEST: It was so many years ago. What is it now, 2019? The House of Commons had the debate a century ago. Now the Lords decide to pick it up in 2019? What is there to discuss anymore?

APRIL 12, 2019: In a curious move, PM Theresa May has released a statement to Parliament, rather than India, in light of the event held in Amritsar to commemorate the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. While she did not issue an apology, May called the 1919 shooting of unarmed civilians a "shameful scar."