Interviewed: █████████ - Pascua Yaqui Tribe (PoI 4463-1)

Interviewer: Dr. John Moisson - Level-2, Research, Geologist

Foreword: ██/██/█████. Level-2 Foundation Junior Researcher John Moisson is dispatched to confirm information from satellite images of lone human activity within an otherwise abandoned small town, vacated years prior due to the encroachment of SCP-4463 and floral overgrowth. The town was previously populated by a small community of Pascua Yaqui descendants. Introductory conversation and other extraneous dialogue has been removed and notated accordingly.

[BEGIN LOG]

Moisson: Thank you. I think… I think there's a wolf at your door.

█████████: Yes, there is. His name is Paco. He is probably the last one of his kind you'll ever see, too.

Moisson: How do you know that?

█████████: We knew all of the cuetlāchcoyōtl, when there were more of them. Not many, but more. We've watched them dwindle in numbers over the years, and then… this happened. I don't know if any survived.

Moisson: Did the people of this town domesticate them?

█████████: No. I don't believe you can domesticate wolves, by definition. You can domesticate the descendants that share a common ancestor with the wolf… but. They would cease to be wolves and become something like the artificial breed that shares the name of this region.

(Moisson does not respond.)

█████████: …The Chihuahua.

Moisson: Ah. I'm um… embarrassed I didn't catch that. But you know the wolf's name?

█████████: Oh yeah. I knew that wolf from my childhood. Before I left the reservation. It was no pet, but they— I mean we as a people had a healthy respect for the wolves. We could know to expect certain events from the activities of the group. So we kept a close eye on them, and them on us, it seemed. That one I named when I was a boy. I know it is the same because of the scar on his nose.

Moisson: I didn't realize wolves live that long.

█████████: They don't.

Moisson: Where did you go when you left the reservation?

█████████: Into Phoenix. We had just succeeded in establishing the Indian Civil Rights act of 1968. We were on top of the world then — felt like we were on a roll, like we hung the moon in the sky. This was well before your time; it was all about justice. The age of tribal tyranny had ended, and the U.S. Government was our hero. I left as a representative of my people, had the enthusiasm of my friends and family, and entered into the politics of the state, then of the nation.

Command reports via Moisson's earpiece that facial recognition software has positively identified the individual as █████████, a well-known politician active in environmental regulatory affairs of crude oil and gas production. Moisson is advised to pursue this in conversation.

█████████: But I soon found it was at a great cost. All the incorporation, protection, status increase… wealth. It all came at a price. Smells awfully like protection racket these days. Like being an complicit accomplice. I fear that price was a healthy portion of part of our culture.

Moisson: I recognize you now, senator. Took me a second, but… just like the Chihuahua. (Forces a chuckle)

█████████: (No laughter) Then maybe you know why I've chosen to return. And stay. Until I die.

Moisson: No, I can't say I know.

█████████: I betrayed my people. (Pause) And I caused this mess. Well, I don't know if that's true… but I'm sure I didn't help, not like I could have.

Moisson: How did you do that?

█████████: (Sighs.) I was instrumental in the decision of Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez.

Moisson: I don't know about that one, sorry.

█████████: Good. The influence it generated directly quelled the Arizonan government's impact on the response to the desert crisis. When they— my people I mean, started the protests, I was forced to see their poverty. I had to face how big the gap had become. I became paranoid, thought I was seeing things; things like Paco. But then, I pet him. He just looked at me, with no expression. There was something strange about his eyes… cataracts, but there was something off about them. Something… textured. No movement from him except his gaze that followed me. There wasn't even the exhalation of breath from his snout upon my hand. I knew then that he and the others I had seen, they were messengers.

Moisson: Are you suggesting that the wolf outside isn't real?

█████████: That is what it sounds like, isn't it? I can't see them as anything but the most real things I've known. The visions de-seated me from wealth and luxury in Washington D.C. and brought me here — poor, starving, and alone… taking shelter in the house that was once my parents. They asked me to rebury them and led me to their bodies. Told me the water from the ground flooded many of my ancestors' burial grounds. I got here and found it was true; it had surfaced them.

Moisson: Oh I'm sorry to hear… that's awful.

█████████: Sure. But it wasn't water they were in. What they were hemorrhaging. It was oil.

Moisson: There are oil pools here?

█████████: Oh yes. There are now. (Pause.) You lusting for them? Thinking of what they could afford you? It's okay, I feel it too. No one is above it. But… I wouldn't touch the stuff now. Do you know what oil is?

Moisson: Sir, I am a geologist.

█████████: I mean really is? I wonder if you've been paying attention in a way that I didn't.

(No reply.)

█████████: It's blood. Our planet's. Sitting below the skin in a subterranean vasculature.

Moisson: That's poetic.

█████████: No it isn't. That's the point; it isn't. Our planet is anemic. But as long as it is alive, it will find ways to create life for its own supply. New ways if it has to. Strange ways.

You're here to try and stop it? To reverse the damage done?

█████████: You can't make straight what has grown crooked. It's the price that I have to pay. Besides, the planet doesn't need me to help it; it is perfectly capable of helping itself. Always has been. In great irony, but I believe with great purpose, things from now on will be worst for those most dominant. Just like it has always been in extinctions. And you know what all of our corpses will become given time?

Moisson: Oil?

█████████: That's right — blood. Lots of it. There is much of it on my hands, young man. That is why I am here. To return it. I am going to die here and allow myself to finally contribute to a solution, as I promised my family I would, so long ago.

(Pause.)

█████████: Do you know what the thickest black is, son?

Moisson: …Oil?

█████████: (Chuckles.) I like you. Close, but not quite… (Pauses and leans forward.) It's the kind that you breathe in.

[END LOG]

Closing Statement: █████████ is officially designated "PoI-4463". The aforementioned wolf is not relocated upon the researcher's exit from the home. A mobile flowmeter indicates no concentration of thaumaturgic particles in the dwelling or area. The conjectures of PoI-4463 are not confirmed; no cadavers or oil pools are discovered in the nearby areas or in any area affected by SCP-4463.