Aplan - Better Sandbox (2025)

I'm awoken by a blaring alarm. It's coming from my phone. A priority alert.

"SCP-8855 has demanifested."

Will I?

Has a piece of me crossed that threshold?

I walk to the window. Just as it says, SCP-8855 is nowhere to be seen.

But there is… someone. Standing on the treeline beyond its paddock. Not a figure, but a person.

Reine.

Is that really her? Is she looking at me? What is she doing?

She turns away from me, and she steps into the forest. Just like that, what final shred of control that might've remained leaves my body. I can't stand still, not here. I need to get to her. I can't lose her. I need to hurry— I need to run. Through the open door and through the populated corridors flooded with my co-workers, I don't have time to look at any of them. I consider only, for a moment, what they might've once thought, were their director to do such a thing.

Outside, I cross the fields in no time — the grass giving way to shrubbery — but I don't stop at the forest's edge. I don't stop. I trip. I get up. I don't stop. I yell her name. I hear nothing but echos and trampled bushes beneath my feet.

Already I'm deep within the forest, the light from the forest's edge long gone. I've reached the foot of a mountain. I slow down as I happen upon a wooden trail. The ground, it feels like I'm at sea. Seeing footsteps, I follow them. Up. They go up.

Aplan - Better Sandbox (1)

Is this who I am now? A person who chases after someone. Is that who I am, in that sphere?

Step by step. I can see the top now.

I'm exhausted, I know I am. I must be. Should be… but I can only feel those butterflies. Consuming all else within me.

It's here.

I've made it. There she is, on a plateau, I see her. Kneeling before an overlook, rays of sunlight from the dawning sun before us darkening her silhouette.

I run to her.

Dir. Moose: Hey… why are you—

—crying? Did I do this? Is this because of me? What I did? You stupid fucking moron. Why did you do this to her? You have to fix this.

Alsvart: (in a blubbering sob) I'm sorry! Gh-od. Pl— please, forgive me. I'm so sorry. Tilda. <she pauses, gasping for air.> I cou— I could— I couldn't do it anymore.

Is she talking about SCP-8855?

Moose: You did everything you could, love. It's okay. I'm here, it's alright.

I kneel down behind her and wrap my arms tightly around her waist. Immediately she grabs onto them, as if her life depended on it. I drag her closer to me. I feel her warmth and her whimper. She's so warm… so soft. I place my head on her shoulder. Instantly she cuddles closer to me. Rubbing her cheek slowly against mine.

We just need some time.

Her whimper softens.

Her breathing slows.

Moose: You're okay.

Alsvart: I'm sorry.

Moose: Why?

Alsvart: I made you leave. I tried for so long. I tried to do it, I tried to be like you. I tried to be like… <She begins to sob again.> I can't. I can't do it!

Like me? What is she talking about?

Alsvart: But… I still needed you.

Those words. Said in that voice. The butterflies within me grow more restless than ever.

Moose: I came here for you. I never left.

I don't ever want to.

Moose: And what do you mean you 'tried to be like' me? What couldn't you do?

Alsvart: Tilda— <She fails to contain her whimpering.> I need you to tell me who I am.

Who you are? That's simple. You're—

Moose: —my Reine.

I place a gentle kiss on her cheek, and she bursts into tears.

Shit.

What did I do?

Quickly I let her go and take a step back. She falls forward, gripping her stomach. Her cries morphing into a violent sob as her forehead comes in contact with the dirt. I don't know what to do. What did I do?

Alsvart: Tilda.

Her scream freezes me in place. I've only ever heard it… once before. I don't understand.

Moose: You're Reine.

Really? You're gonna lie to yourself?

But she is!

Alsvart: Tell me!

Yes, she is. Like an interobject, your mind's had difficulty differentiating her behavior, her image, from—

Please, don't make me say it.

You've denied her existence, but there she is. Sobbing at your feet. It's her.

She's—

Alsvart: I'm—

Moose: Alison.

Before my eyes this woman that I've known for years, without changing even slightly, becomes someone else.

Alison: I tried for so long. I tried working at the Foundation. I tried to be there, to create someone who could be part of the thing that took everyone I loved away from me. I wanted them to be with Dad… with you. So that even if I could never be with you, someone else could. I tried to be that someone else.

She raises her head.

Alison: But I could never be anyone but myself. I couldn't bear it. Existing in a place like that. And you… talking to me like I wasn't me. I had to leave… but I needed you. <She turns to me.> I needed you to come with me.

Alison: SAY SOMETHING!

How could you…

Moose: What have you done?

She stands.

Alison: Look at me, Tilda. I'm the same Alison that—

Moose: Not another word.

I can't listen to this. I can't talk to her. I can't stay here.

Reine wasn't real. No, of course she was. She was real. She was Alison. And you loved her. You fucking moron. You knew the whole time, didn't you? What, was it easier just not admitting it to yourself? ARE YOU LITERALLY BLIND?! She was exactly the same, but she hadn't made any of her mistakes. So what? You thought it'd be different this time?

Was any of it real? SCP-8855? It knew how I would act— or did she just know me? Was there any omen at all? Any threat to my life? The dreams — the figure.

Reine.

I want to cry. I know I do. I need to.

No. Stop it.

Control yourself.

Alison: But I can be better. I promise. I— I can still be someone else! If fate won't let you and I be together, I swear I'll do it. I promise, we can…

Pretend?

Is that what I've been doing?

No. She lied to me. I didn't know.

Sure you didn't.

I didn't!

I'm gonna be sick.

It's too much. I turn away, back to the wooden steps. And I walk.

Alison: You can't fix something by just walking away!

Alison cries. Under her breath, I can hear her speak. But I hear nothing of what she says. I can't be there for her.

The stairs ahead become a bright, dawning star in the space of a single blink. I stand upon the same overlook as Reine had when I found her, knelt down in the dirt. I turn to see Alison standing now before the stairway I had just approached.

Alison: You don't understand, Tilda. How alone I'll be, without you. I don't know him anymore, that man who goes by my father's name. There's nothing left of the man who raised me. Or maybe I never really knew him. But you're still you. I have no one— no one but you.

Don't do this.

Alison: Please.

Please don't do this.

Alison: Please don't leave me.

Please stop…

Alison: My love—

Don't call me that.

Alison: <She begins moving toward me>.> I know it can work. Fate? I figured it out. It's like your Foundation. Desperate to control. But you're proof, Tilda. Proof that it's not all-consuming. It can be made to open its hand, to forget. We can be proof of fate's fickle grip, together. I told you—

Alsvart: —I can still be someone else.

Moose: Shut up! Don't you dare speak to me in her voice…

You sadistic piece of…

Alsvart: But our voices are the same—

Alison: —they always were. Even if you think you didn't know, Tilda. Some part of you did.

She's right in front of you. She has you cornered. In all but her direction you're met with a steep drop and a long fall. Did she design it this way? There's no turning around and walking away, the only way out is through… her. You need to speak, Tilda. Speak. Say something. Anything. Maybe…

Moose: Maybe some part of me did know… and maybe you really do need me. But it's not my responsibility to fix you. You've promised and promised and left them all shattered on the ground beneath your feet. How could you possibly think — even for a moment imagine — that after everything you've done… we could just be together? Because you found some new trick? Something that will finally let you dupe fate? What you've done isn't just another lie, or broken promise, Alison. You duped me.

Alison: But I can—

Moose: Understand. This is not fate speaking, this was not preordained. I am telling you this, now. In my own words.

It was a wilful thing, having never said this out loud. Is it not best, perhaps, for you to leave it unsaid just once more? Just for the chance that…

Moose: You and I—

No. I can't make that same mistake… just to stoke some dying light. I can never let her… I can never let myself have a way in again.

Moose: —we can never be together.

And I see there somehow, in the Black Queen herself, a light goes out.

As it does in me.

So now you have nothing to say…

Moose: I'm leaving.

Alison: No.

No?

I look to her side, and I take my step. Yet she blocks my path without a step of her own.

In every direction I step, I look, she — and she, alone — stands before me.

Alison: (in her sternest of tones) You leave with me. Or not at all.

She knows it won't work. Why is she doing this? You saw it. She knows we can't.

And yet, unflinchingly, she stares at me.

We're doing this.

Already in my hand, grabbed out of my coat pocket — a device — activated.

She moves, without moving.

Pulling me into her e—

Aplan - Better Sandbox (2)

ERROR.

CONNECTION SEVERED.

Aplan - Better Sandbox (2025)
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