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Info
Here Rests Jack Bright
Time of posting: 4th June, 2020
Author:
Lyrics Linn
Translator:
Jochoi
Source: SCP-CN
Link: Jack Bright在此安息
There are many hidden links in the article, related tales about some of the characters.
The man blinked hard. It was as if he has popped up here suddenly; not finding out where he is, yet seemed to have stood here for a long while. He felt the snow-white moss has crept up his ankle, so tried moving his legs. What's good is his sole hadn't taken root yet.
The scene also left him puzzled. There were broken sofa cushions with cotton filling leaking out everywhere, the filthy wood was exposed at the corner of the old-fashioned bar counter. There was a row of wine bottles on it, both empty and filled. If he had to make a definition, he would think of the underground tavern at war times, but this place even had bonfires. He looked up, half of the sky was filled with stars.
The fires were scattered all over the places. When he picked up a bottle of wine and wandered in random directions, there were people all around raising their glasses, giving their regards and shouted, they sounded familiar and cheerful.
"Yo, Bright, long time no see."
"Come here for a shot Jack, I'd say the last fight was very satisfying, ain't it?"
"Hahey, Bright! Oho, Bright!"
……
He rejected different kinds of invitations along the way, and walked towards a certain direction. Every step forward, memories would sprout crazily like Jack's magic beans, and when he got to the dim dying bonfire far away from the crowd, Jack Bright took a long sigh of relief, and threw himself down onto the sofa cushions in a very inelegant posture.
The people surrounding the bonfire didn't seem to be surprised, and specially left an empty seat for him. After Bright leaned the dirty wine bottle on the side of the bonfire, the man opposite him smiled slightly, "how does it feel to finally rest in peace?"
Alto Clef, the model employee of the Foundation plus the head douchebag, the legendary three eyes uncommonly appeared to be of the same warm colour under the bonfire, sparkled and glittered.
"Hey, look what you've said," a second gruff voice said, "this ain't a place for the dead, I'm still alive."
"'Dead' or not isn't the factor that decides we show up here or not, Dr Kondraki." A third person answered in a monotone, "To be exact, we are the ghosts of the tales. Welcome back, Dr Bright."
Bright raised his eyebrows. He wanted to say something like "Dear old Gearsy I ain't having amnesia how would I not have the common sense", but only opened his lips to let out a slight sigh, "We're all old now."
"Don't count me in," Clef protested, "I'm in my prime."
They went silent for a moment in tacit understanding. Sparks crackled and jumped between half-dry sticks, smelling of great pinewood. Bright touched the bottle with the back of his hand, retrieving it feeling a bit of warmth. Seldom do people drink warm beer, but he somewhat felt himself walked in the wind for too long, and the night is too cold.
"So," when alcohol seemed to have let Bright caught his breath, Clef said with great interest, "we were betting before you came, would you come here alone, or with a bunch of……" he gestured, "you know, something like soul shards. Did you originally looked like this?"
"Yeah." Bright said in a dry voice.
With this even Gears looked over. They were already used to identifying the friend's identity with the ruby amulet, but now he took it off. The brown messy curly hair, the dim and tired emerald eyes, if not Bright mentions it himself, nobody could ever recognise the face anymore — the last time he used his own face were decades ago.
"I didn't know even this could be recovered, ain't used to suddenly becoming myself again," Bright pretendingly complained, "in the end people would only remember me drooling and becoming the best joke of the Foundation, I should have turned into a brown howler monkey who only hoo and hahs."
"Neither had I became a giant apple," a troubled voice added. Without even looking he knew this was the unlucky Dr King, famous across the multiverse because he was too stingy to some vending machine.
"What a great suggestion, somebody go out there and tell'em next time," Clef said.
"Please don't be like this." Glass appeared out of nowhere and criticised him softly, then turned to King，"Relax, I remember you did well at the 'Tempest Night', didn't you?"
They had to take a few minutes to appease Dr King who burst into tears, amongst the voices were Glass's apologies — for he forgot that the sole reason King would appear on the Game Day list was because of apple seeds.
"And I hope people would stop talking about job promotion, salary raise, body temperatures, and documents, documents, documents when they bring my name up!" Forever Level 2 Researcher Iceberg joined the denunciation in an outrage, "In comparison, committing suicide again and again isn't even something worth mentioning."
"And the romance triangle," Agent Lament said dilatorily. "would anybody really have thought so?"
He took a peek at Iceberg's face expression and went silent.
And Dr Mann strokes his huge handlebar moustache. "Why did everyone take me a mad scientist? Of course, it doesn't mean I'm against this noun." He raised his glass towards the crowd elegantly.
The word caused a bit of an awkward silence. Finally, the brave Dr Rights said, "But the problem is, you are indeed a mad scientist."
More and more moved from the original place. Long departed friends greeted each other, forgotten early characters caught the successors and asked about progress of new tales, there were sounds of glass clinking, chatting and laughter everywhere. Bright sat there, watched lazily as Draven and Talloran carried over a batch of sticks and threw into the bonfire together, Agent Yoric told everyone willing to listen about a certain "classical" parallel universe he had experienced loudly, and Agent A.A and Maddox hid behind the crowd, head to head in a corner far away from Clef.
Finally, he realised himself watching Kondraki chatting with a familiar young female — Dr Zyn Kiryu. To his knowledge, the two hadn't ever met in the tales, at least not when the former was alive.
"I've heard of you," Kondraki scrutinised Zyn for a while, "they said you wanted my butterflies."
"Oh, I…mm…right." Rare for the calm capable Dr Kiryu to be surprised, "But I finally got to have my own butterflies. Sorry, may I ask how did you…?"
"Those Pataphysics Department guys, they sometimes read tales, you know." He shrugged. "I have to say, you've done well, young lady."
Under the fire, Zyn's face was slightly red. After that they made some exchanges on experiences of keeping anomalous butterflies. Bright listened for a while, took his bottle of wine and quietly left.
He had stayed in the Foundation for too long, countless characters that appeared with him, and now, even the old enemies that had differed in opinions or fought with him were not that abominable. He ran into everyone, chatted a few insignificant words, hugged, or patted their shoulders heavily.
Then he found at the end of the crowd there was O5-6, and two SCPs, one Serpent's Hand. So he joined them, until the night couldn't get any darker. The night is so long, as if it was endless, but the first rays of morning would eventually, eventually have to shine.
"Go, brother. You represent us." Mikell Bright said.
People came around one by one, noisily and in high spirits, even the normally most calm faces glittered with smiles. Bright jumped onto a slightly higher mound of dirt, trying to identify all the people sitting down messily, such that the excited chatters would calm down.
"I've coworked with most of you for a number of years," he cleared his throat, feeling some emotion long missed coming up his throat, and decided to make his speech shorter, "though you are a bunch of geniuses, freaks, psychos and things like that," the atmosphere reignited, quite a few curses were thrown along with choking and laughter, "but I just wanted to say, I'm honoured to meet everyone, no matter inside or outside the tales……"
Bright had to stop for a few seconds.
"I love you guys." He whispered, knowing this is the end.
"Goodnight, Jack." Someone in the crowd shouted.
"Thanks for your retiring party, love you too!" Another shout caused some raillery.
One by one, people silently left, back to where they normally stayed — the only place they could go when they are not inside a tale. Year after year, only when one of "them" announced to leave this world and never come back, could the people once met in tales briefly reunite in this place, then depart quickly. Everyone knew, there would be a day, after another and another long farewell, no more old tales would be read, no more new tales will be written, they are destined to separate, to forget each other, sitting alone in the gap between tales until the end of the universe.
The last bonfire died out, the silhouettes of his family members disappeared from his eyes. Bright stepped back and turned, then remembered that this is totally unnecessary: darkness in all directions, no space, no perceptions of solidity, a bit like falling into 963, but no need for him to hear every scream when tens of thousands of himself die.
If this is the curtain call, actually it's not that bad. Jack Bright that finally got to rest thought, closed his eyes in the finally calm long night.