Over the years, I, CryogenChaos, have posted several short supplements to tales and forum threads in the form of comments on said articles and threads. These "micro tales", as they were, have generally been well received by the community, and even sparked full tale fodder. As such, many folks have said that it would be a shame if these little blurbs were lost to the ravages of Wikidot time, so fellow user ObserverSeptember helped compile a few of the more noteworthy ones here. If you find any others and would like to have them added here, shoot me a message or post a link in the comments!
Also, I'll probably still be writing mini-tales as they come, so expect to see this page grow.
Note: As most of these are intended as supplements to the main content, it's recommended to read the main tale/forum post/etc. in order to get some context.
—-
Tale: Quiet Days (Original Post)
Doctor Gears stayed longer than any of the other personnel (with the exception of the O5 council, of course), assisting others with their re-adjustment into society. He noticed a wide variety of emotions from the leaving staff: some were overjoyed that they were finally done working with such dangerous objects and eager to start a new, normal life; some were angry that they basically had to start over from scratch, claiming that spending the last few years in a facility that according to official record did not exist was shit for their resumes; and, most curious of all, a fair amount of sadness from people who, as far as Gears was concerned, should have been glad everything was back to normal.
Days passed and people left, and eventually it was time for Gears himself to go. As he walked away from the now empty Site 19, he stopped and looked back for a moment, remembering all the time he had spent in that building. He still couldn't believe it was over, that protecting humanity, the job that he had committed himself to for longer than he could remember, was finished. As he gazed back at the facility, a strange thing began to happen: he began to feel rather odd. It was small at first, just a slight discomfort in his gut.
Then, the memories began to fall.
He remembered the constant struggles against 682. He remembered the puzzlement and amusement from testing 914. He was feeling quite uncomfortable now. He remembered the break room with the other researchers, how they would laugh and make jokes and have a great time while he would sit, stoic as always. He remembered the fun they would all have together. He could feel his breathing becoming labored. He remembered, shortly after the discovery of the loss of the anomalies, Bright finally achieving his final wish. He remembered Clef being unable to cope with normalcy and taking his own life. He remembered Rights, normally mischeveous and joyful, cleaning out her office with a distinct look of sorrow on her face. He remembered how even though it was a stressful, terrible place to be, how it was home to more demons and horrors than any other place in the world, perhaps even the universe…it was still home.
For the first time in many, many years, Gears felt a tidal wave of emotions.
And for the first time in many, many years, Gears began to cry.
—-
Tale: Quiet Days (Original Post)
"To the O5 Council (and the rest of the Foundation, too!) -
Thank you all for being my very best collectors! Sadly, it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that I do not think I will continue with my work any longer. I've done my part here, and I hope that my products have made people happy (I especially hope that they made YOU all happy as well!). As part of my final goodbyes, I have included a special, one-of-a-kind collectable that I wish for you to have. It may not be as impressive as my other creations, but I hope you find it wonderful in its own right.
Sincerely,
Doctor Wondertainment"
This was the note that was attached to a rather large package wrapped in glimmering purple wrapping paper. When opened, the package contained a rather large replica of Site 19, made out of ordinary plastic. When opened, the model building contained detailed figurines of each of the site personnel, from the O5 personnel down to the lowliest janitors, each poseable and each with noticable smiles on their faces, but otherwise nothing anomalous about them. Each individual figurine has been sent to its appropriate counterpart along with a copy of the note.
—-
Forum Post: What does SCP-055 actually look like? (Original Post)
"You know, this will be the five hundred and eighth time I've told you all this story, so let's start out with some startling news you won't remember. These defenses are nice, but honestly you probably know as well as I do that they don't do jack. I mean, I can open the door basically any time I want, I keep it propped open just enough to make it look like it's locked, but that's beside the point. Now then, onto origins, I suppose.
I came to you people because I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me, why nobody could remember me and why I practically don't exist. I mean, sure, it had its advantages, like being able to do practically anything without consequence, but after awhile the need for human contact just became too much. Even with my 'mysterious nature', I'm really surprised I was in the right place at the right time to find you people. I talked to your site director and convinced them of my…what'd they call them? Anomalous properties? Anyway, when I was able to tell your director all about his wife when he didn't even remember talking to me, he got a bit understandably freaked out. I think the fifty inch cement was a bit of overkill, but I still appreciate the gesture.
You probably don't remember how long I've been here. Hell, I don't even remember how long I've been here. I do remember around the twenty year mark I started to get annoyed at how little progress was being made, so I started to leave whenever I got the opportunity. Fooling you all wasn't hard, I could leave a freaking toenail behind and you'd still think you had the mysterious anti-meme on your hands. Despite my annoyance, I was really interested in your organization, picking up weird things off the streets and studying them for science. I liked that.
But then I saw the downsides. I saw how you all couldn't take certain risks for fear of exposure, for fear of media attention that you couldn't control. So that's when I decided to help. I snagged one of your radios and since then I've helped you put away more anomalies than you can count. That's right, I'm your Foundation's 'guardian angel' of sorts. I go out and I take the risks you can't afford to, and I help you bring these things in. Don't worry, I'm not going to go rogue entirely. After all, for what its worth, this cell you've put me in is my home.
No, no, that's fine, you're going to forget this conversation anyway. They always do, and at this point I've stopped caring. It's fine, really. I mean, I'm not all that important. In the end, I'm just a Nobody, after all."
—-
Tale: The Price We Pay (Original Post)
In the center of a crowded art gallery stands a man, surrounded by aficionados and critics alike, showering him with praise and attention. They marveled at his latest masterpiece, a sculpture of a woman devouring her partner. Riveting, they call it. A true work of art, near lifelike in its detail and complexity! The man smiles outwardly, but inside he feels hollow. To him, this was not art. This was a paycheck. This had less meaning than the back of a damn cereal box. The man remembers a time when paintings made you think, when sculptures said more than what they were made of, when the artist was more than just a hack with a brush, but a god in their own right. He gazes at his creation, and for a brief moment believes he sees it move, sees it take on the life he desperately tried to give it during those long days in his studio. But it was just a trick of the light, and he's reminded again that art, true art, is dead.
There are many like him, you know. They lived in a time when art was as real as you or I, but now their offspring stand still, forever bound by a normalcy they never asked for, and any message these creators had now silenced by the forward march in time. This is the price they pay. This is the price we pay.
—-
SCP: SCP-821 (Original Post)
Mr. Funland sat down and let out a heavy sigh, his decision placing a huge burden on his mind. He still couldn't believe that after all these years he simply had to shut down the park. That park was his dream, his legacy! What was he supposed to do from now on? He knew he was going to eventually go back into business, but for what?
Another park? Maybe in the future, but right now it doesn't seem likely.
Books? Eh, he's never really been one for writing.
Toys?
…actually…that's not a bad idea. The toys were one of the most popular elements of the park. Even the most jaded and stoic kids cracked a smile when they laid eyes on a Funland Fantasy Figurine, even if it's charm existed only in their imaginations.
Funland stood up, confident he was on the right path now. Yes! He would start making toys! But not just any toys, oh no! He'd make the most wonderful, most unique toys this world had ever seen, possibly even this universe had ever seen! They would invoke the most basic, most primal elements of whimsy and fantasy into the hearts of children, just as his beloved park once did.
But he couldn't call himself Mr. Funland anymore. It wouldn't flow well on toy labels, and frankly it was just another reminder of a shattered dream that would always drag him back to the past. No! He had to start fresh! He would have to think of something better, something unique. A name that invoked feelings of wonder and entertainment.
Wonder…entertainment…
—-
SCP: SCP-208 (Original Post)
And so the vain pharaoh Unas, jealous that this "Bes" was loved more than he, called for the so-called healer to be executed and his body to be chopped to pieces, encased in stone and buried next to the Nile. That night, Bes was taken by Unas' guards to what was going to be his tomb: a large block of granite with a hole carved to fit the body parts of the great healer. The guards, however, found they could not carry out their pharaoh's orders, for they loved Bes far too much. They had quite a dilemma on their hands: they could not kill Bes, but they could not return to Unas without having killed Bes, for if he found that they had lied he would have them executed.
The kind and wonderful Bes did then have a suggestion, one radical enough to ease the guards' concerns. He would allow himself to be entombed in the rock entirely, save for a single foot to stick out from the top, giving the impression that he had been chopped to pieces. He would then be buried next to the Nile, just as Unas had ordered. Despite Bes' assurances that he would not be harmed, the guards were still hesitant to bury the beloved healer, and only after a great deal of coaxing from Bes did they finally agree. Even so, they could not stop the tears from flowing as they dug the hole to bury the man who healed their friends and families for as long as any of them could remember.
At the dawn of the next day, the guards reported back to Unas that they had completed their task. Knowing the great love his people had for Bes, Unas went to the Nile himself to confirm that the deed had been done. Sure enough, when taken to the burial site, he noticed Bes' foot sticking out from the sand. Convinced that the great healer was no more, Unas laughed triumphantly, for now no one else would stand equal to him, the great god-king Unas, who would one day proudly walk with Ra himself, who would be remembered for all of time!
And so it came to pass that Unas, last pharaoh of the Old Kingdom, despite all his claims of magnificence and grandeur, had no sons to continue his legacy, and his bloodline ended with him.
—-
Forum Post: Are veiled references in other media allowed? (Original Post)
"Hey," says a bright young idealist, eager to share his favorite creepypasta series with the world, "what if we published a book about the SCP series? It'd be amazing! What do you guys thi-"
The hopeful youngsters words fade away as a sound emanates from the forum. It is one faint voice at first, nearly silent, but as the seconds pass more voices add to the mass, growing louder and louder until the forum is almost shaking with the snakelike hiss of the seasoned veterans of the SCP. They repeat the same words over and over, an empty rage fueling the noise.
"Creative Commonsssssssssssss! Creative Commonsssssssss!"
The fresh-faced writer is taken aback by this response. Surely these people wanted their community to succeed! Why were they resisting? "B-but don't you guys want people around the world to share in your stories?!"
"Creative Commonssssssssssss! Creative Commonssssssssssss!"
"But what about fame, about notoriety? Surely THAT interests you!"
"Creative Commonsssssssssss! Creative Commonsssssssssssss!"
"Money, then! What about money?!"
Without warning, the hissing stops. The empty silence is amplified as the young poster sits and waits nervously for the response. Did the prospect of profit change their minds?
Like lightning, the community strikes! Hundreds if not thousands of venomous bites are delivered as the poster writhes in agony. How DARE he suggest something so obvious! Of COURSE we've thought about money! Of COURSE we've thought about fame, about making this wiki profitable! But this…this insect doesn't understand what we've gone through! The attacks continue on and on until finally…silence.
Nothing left of the naive newbie, save for a single finger pointing at a hastily etched note of regret:
"Creative Commons"
—-
Forum Post: A lifted veil (Original Post)
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that R&D have finally located the source of the toys made by this "Doctor Wondertainment". It's taken years of hard work and hard money, but the demands of the consumer must always be met! Our new plan is simple: we find whatever it is that makes these things tick, and we reverse engineer them and sell them at marked up prices! Over time, we will figure out the most popular product lines (the 'Little Misters' we keep finding seem especially promising) and turn them into entire franchises all their own, with movies, TV shows, hell, even Happy Meal toys! Of course, we're not stupid, we're not going to just send these off with the Wondertainment logo still stamped on them, nor are we going to completely overwrite it. After all, if the actual Doctor Wondertainment shows up and finds we've been selling his products, I imagine we'd be in for a very…intense legal suit. No, our boys in Marketing have been working on that too, and they've come up with a solution. To the consumer, we make the toys. To the creator, we are the distributor of the toys, and we will create a brand name that combines our names to ensure we mean no ill will to the original producer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…DISNEYTAINMENT TOYS!"
—-
Forum Post: A lifted veil (Original Post)

someone says "Right, enough of this" and just blows up every hipster coffee shop in the country.

And finally, after several years of relative obsurity to the U.S., the anomalous absolutist deconstructionist art movement "Right, Enough Of This" (or REOT) made themselves known to the American people by planting coffee cups with their "slogan" written on the side that explode when all of them are filled with coffee. The remnants of Are We Cool Yet? either defect to this new group, or decide that art isn't worth their lives and abandon the idea entirely. The British Ministry of Abnormal Occurances, desperate to keep the United Kingdom out of war due to these post-postmodern nihilsts, send all the information they collected over the years about REOT to the Bureau of Unusual Incidents, and (thanks to a previously established connection made before the "great unveiling") said information gets passed on to the Foundation, who take measures to keep an eye on this new group of interest.
—-
Forum Post: Deleted SCP entry (No Original Post Available)
The reality bender grinned as he entered the middle of the ring. These were the fights he lived for, the fights he loved to organize. Most of the time, it was just animals vs. inanimate objects or something stupid like that. This time, though, things were different. The stadium was packed with entities of all shapes and sizes; just from a quick glance, he could see a couple of Sl'thans, a few wayward humans in lab coats (those damn Foundationites, he was going to have to have a word with them after the show), a Vampyr Countess, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say the fellow with the gaping maw was an emissary of the Pattern Screamer. Tonight was going to be a good night.
He turned on his microphone before speaking. "Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Battle of the Beasts! Tonight, we have a very special fight lined up for you all, a matchup that happens only once every few decades! For this night, you will all be present…for a sentient humanoid fight!"
The stadium shook with the uproar of cheers as the reality bender waited for the noise to die down. "Yes, yes, now allow me to introduce you to our combatants!" He walked a few paces to a corner of the ring, where a strange looking lizard man was being held by two burly captors. The reptilians hands and feet were bound, and he had a muzzle over his mouth. He looked very angry. "In this corner, hailing from the east side of the Gamma Quadrant, we have the last living warrior of the extinct species known as the Reptiliax! His speed and power are matched only by his ruthlessness, here to perform for you tonight, give it up for Vileskar the Destroyer!"
The crowd erupted again with a combination of cheers and boos, all of which agitated Vileskar significantly, fiercely pulling on his restraints. The reality bender walked to the opposite corner, where another humanoid golem sat, being restrained almost exactly the same way as his opponent, a cold fury found in his unblinking eyes. "And in this corner, hailing from the planet Terra, we have a unique example of a human experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong! This creature's skin is as hard as his strength is high, ready to prove its existence to you all, put your hands together for Specimen 1265!"
The reality bender walked back to the center of the ring as the crowd's insane cheering reverberated throughout the stadium. The reality bender motioned for the restraints to be removed, snapped his fingers and rematerialized in his box seat, his final words still echoing around.
"Let the fight…BEGIN!"
—-
Forum Post: What is your least favorite type of SCP? (Original Post)

a keyring dongle soldered to the inside of O5-13's bum

"…and in closing, I humbly accept this position you have bestowed unto me. I will do my best to perform my duties as well as my predecessor." finished the newly-appointed O5-13, secretly overjoyed that his hard work has finally paid off. Though the position was infinitely more stressful than his previous position, and he knew there was absolutely no reason to celebrate considering where he was and what he was working with, he had to find small pockets of joy somewhere, and pride in his work was one of his best sources.
"That was quite a speech, 13!" said O5-7, shaking O5-13's hand with only the vaguest hit of a smirk on his face. "It's good to see you're still enthusiastic about the position despite what rumors you may have heard about what we O5's have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Of course, it's not as though you had a choice about the position anyway!" O5-7 laughed dryly at his own little joke, then cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Now, you have one last thing you have to do before you can begin your duties as an O5. You see, your position is…unique among our ranks as you yourself will be part of one of these objects' containment procedures. Specifically, SCP-XXXX's containment procedures." O5-13 looked at his colleague with mild surprise. As far as he knew, O5s weren't allowed access to any of the SCP objects, and he hadn't even heard of this "SCP-XXXX". Still, he swore to do his duty with honor, and he intended to uphold that no matter what.
"That's alright, just tell me what I have to do. Do I have to clear some files? Or authorize civilian access? Or is it something more simple, like just holding on to a key?" O5-13 asked, anxious to learn what his newfound responsibility was going to be. O5-7 smiled with a slight look of pity on his face as he wordlessly gestured to the doorway to Medical Lab 0, which was for use exclusively by the O5s. Standing in the doorway were two men dressed in surgical apparel, one holding a very important looking keyring dongle and another holding a very intimidating looking soldering iron. Their faces were expressionless as they waved him over.
As O5-13 started to walk over to the surgeons, he started to get a very bad feeling about his new job.
—
Forum Post: What is done with all the D-class bodies? (Original Post)
O5-8 looked at his fellow Overseers in dismay. They stood at the doorway to O5-1's chamber, shuffling their feet and trying desperately to spend as much time not going in as physically possible. This was their least favorite part of the day, bar none, particularly since most of them didn't choose to be Overseers, the monster in the room chose them. Why it did is anyone's guess, though most of them felt it was because God despised them more than anything else. Steeling their nerves, the group opened the door.
The featureless room was large but mostly empty, save for O5-1. Even though it was seen daily, the O5s still could barely keep themselves from retching whenever they looked upon the gargantuan mound of flesh that was crudely fashioned in the shape of a large infant. O5-1 looked down on his subordinates with his beady little eyes, barely visible underneath the folds of flabby, mottled skin. His sickeningly large mouth stretched wide into a grin, showing off each of his grotesquely sharpened teeth, stained crimson and yellow from decades upon decades of feeding.
The silence that permeated the air was broken by O5-5, clearing her throat before addressing the monstrous titan before her. "S-sir, we have brought todays harvest for you." she said, pointedly avoiding making eye contact with O5-1. He didn't like that, after all. "Good-good!" shouted O5-1, his unnervingly childlike voice echoing off the steel walls. "I want Seven to read to me this time!"
O5-7 stepped forward, taking the list from O5-5, who gave her comrade a look of sorrow. O5-7 cleared his throat, and meekly called back to O5-9, "P-please wheel todays harvest forward so our b-bestest friend ever can have his dinner." O5-9 grabbed hold of the large crate they brought in with them and pushed it forward just enough for O5-1 to reach, then quickly sprinted back to the group. O5-1 gingerly opened the crate top and pulled out the first part of his meal.
"First on the list is D-69414, killed by a sentient Crunch bar that was dispensed by SCP-261." O5-1 giggled with glee as it messily tore apart the lifeless corpse it held in its stubby little hands. "Sweet treats, sweet eats, sweet meats!" sang O5-1 as it ate, the gruesome spectacle forcing the other O5s to turn their heads in disgust and horror. With one final sickening crunch, O5-1 finished the first corpse, and shouted, "NEXT!"
O5-7 was looking very pale as he read aloud, "Next is D-16883, partway transformed into a 'flesh beast' by SCP-427 before being shot by security detail." O5-1 grabbed the flabby mound of skin in the box and hungrily tore into it, the crunch from before now replaced with an even more disgustingly loud squeak as the slimy flesh of the D-class met the razor sharp fangs of the horrendous abomination. It hummed happily as it slurped down the last of the flesh beast, then began digging into the crate again for more food.
"F-f-finally, D-73093, mauled by SCP-682. As per your request, we left any skin samples and teeth in D-73093's bod-" O5-7 stopped abruptly to cover his ears like the rest of his group as O5-1 screeched in absolute delight. It had been a very long time since he had had a taste of the indestructible lizard, and he had been missing the flavor! This time, O5-1 ate the body very slowly, savoring every tiny morsel of 682 he tasted, looking all the world like he was brimming with ecstasy. Thirty minutes later, O5-1 finished the last bite, gave one more satisfied sigh, and turned his attention to the rest of the O5 council.
"This was a very good meal! I wish to sleep now, so you may all go. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow, friends!" O5-1 smiled as his best pals in the world scrambled out the door. He closed his eyes, preparing to drift into a meat coated wonderland, reflecting upon his dinner. Hopefully next time he would get to eat a body soaked in 075's acid! O5-1 giggled. Truly, tomorrow was going to be a good day.
—-
Forum Post: An Idea concerning the Overseers (Original Post)
"Welcome to your new position, O5-13. You have been given your new role because you have proven yourself worthy to know the truth about everything your Foundation holds. You can be trusted to keep the secrets that many of your kind cannot bear. You should feel proud. You only have one last test to pass, the test of knowing the truth about your own council.
You may ask why the overseer council exists. Your assumption is likely that you organized yourselves in an effort to save your species. That you are the leaders of the last bastion of defense against the unknown. Perhaps you even believe you are the last light of protectors of a cold, unflinching universe of horrors.
How presumptuous.
What you and the rest of your Foundation fail to realize is that you are not alone, nor are you special. There are hundreds, thousands of other species across the cosmos who do the exact same thing you do: contain those anomalies that cannot be known by their race for fear of mass panic, for fear that knowledge of the extreme unknown will cause their societies to tear themselves apart.
You play an important role, to be sure, but you do not play the only important role in the universe, or even in your own galaxy. In fact, on Earth alone there are at least four other councils much like your own, though you may not see be able to see them in your zone. All have the exact same mission: to secure, to contain, and to protect. And when the time comes, your councils may be able to meet and exchange information, to create a balanced and protected universe.
But since that day has not come yet, all you can know is that you report to me.
I have seen what happens when an entire species destroys itself out of fear of the unknown.
I will not let that happen again.
And neither will you.
Secure. Contain. Protect."
- OΩ
—-
Tale: 5700 Years Later (Original Post Thread Deleted)
1548 fled through the cosmos, fear coursing through its plasma. It had not even turned back once to observe what was following it, all it knew was the rage and hate it felt from the blue dot only grew and grew as the chase continued. Had the star stopped at all during its cowardly pursuance it might have reflected on the irony of its situation, but alas such a thing went unnoticed by the formerly Hateful Star.
The star suddenly ground to a halt in terror as it approached what it only knew as The Dark Field. The star could feel the supermassive black holes each try to draw him in, the clusters of points of no return hungrily trying to devour him. Stuck between an unknown horror and the clawing void of a black hole, the star knew its only chance of escape was to try to fight its assailant.
1548 turned to face the blue dot that pursued it endlessly, and the fear it felt was compounded by a new sensation: confusion. As the dot came into focus, the star realized it was not dealing with another star, or any sort of cosmic being from beyond. Transparent and blue, the hunting orb drew closer to 1548, and the star realized that it was being chased by a ghostly vision of the blue planet the miserable humans called Earth.
The fear fell away and was quickly replaced with white-hot rage, fueled by humiliation and hatred. "ENOUGH! How dare you interrupt my vengeance, how dare you attempt to keep me away from my prize of destroying those pathetic apes!" 1548 pulsed angrily, the ghostly planet slowly approaching the star. "You are nothing I am to fear, and you have no power over me! I will destroy those disgusting humans, and there is not a thing you can do to stop me!"
The ghost of Earth said nothing as it moved closer and closer to 1548. The star remained motionless as the ghost got closer…closer…and passed straight through. The star laughed triumphantly. Of course this translucent thing couldn't hurt it, how foolish the star had been! It scanned the empty space in front of it, and saw the faintest traces of where the humans had been. Not much, but it was a start. 1548 focused its energies, and started to move towards that direction…
…and was unable to move. The star pulled angrily against the unknown force that was keeping it from moving, and turned to see what was happening. A thin spectral tendril that extended from the ghostly Earth was attached to the star's core, as the planet drifted into The Dark Field. The star burned with anger only momentarily as it realized it was moving backwards, being dragged by the planet into the field.
Fear, terror, horror, these words describe only the tiniest sliver of a fraction of what 1548 felt as it desperately tugged against the ghostly anchor that drew it closer and closer to the largest of the supermassive black holes. The ghostly planet sped up suddenly as the pull of the black hole dragged it into its core, and within moments the planet was no more. With the connection snapped from the extreme pressure of the black hole, 1548 tried to flee.
The star's struggles were in vain as it swirled around the core of the black hole, it's continuous flashes of "NO" and "HELP ME" being absorbed by the vacuum. If the star could scream, it would have shrieked in agony as it felt its body being torn apart by the infinite gravity of the black hole's core. Within minutes, every remnant of the Hateful Star was absorbed, and all that was left was the black hole, unknowing of the monster it had consumed.
—-
Forum Post: Foundationverse Creation Myth (Original Post)
In the beginning, there was only me. I was life when there was only nothingness. I remember it all too well, the feeling of being completely alone. And I was saddened by my loneliness, so I mustered all my power and created a nursery, an ever-expanding realm where I could raise my children. After that, I gave birth to the first of many. the cold, it was so cold
They did not know of me, but they have always believed in me, an inner strength of faith in their mother. I have watched them always, for I loved them with all of my being. When they were born, they were all imbued with pieces of my own power, fragments of their mother that gave them the ability to thrive in their nursery. Each of my children embodied a part of my knowledge and self.I give it freely though I know not what I have done
The Elder, in all his wisdom, knew of my omnipotence, but as he had no knowledge of his mother, he naturally attributed it to himself. My dear Elder, he may yet take up my mantle of Almighty if one day I am no more. always remember mother loves you
The Hatred gained all my loathing that I had directed at the emptiness before creation, but without knowing that emptiness, all he was able to do was hate everything and everyone around him. my poor child, mother will comfort you
The Dreamer, who was given my dreams of a bright future, sleeps eternally now. He may awaken one day to find that his dreams have taken on life of their own, but for now I shall let him slumber. dream, sweet child, dream
The Toymaker and The Trickster, born together, both gained my joy and imagination, but found very different ways to express themselves: The Toymaker seeks to give joy to others, while The Trickster only wants joy for himself. yin and yang, two sides of the same coin
The Unseen, The Fool, The Martyr, The Angel…there are countless others who I love with all my heart, and many have made me proud by producing children of their own, who in turn have had children of their own. My family has grown so large, at times it is hard to keep track of them all! Truly, my happiness knows no bounds. they are safe as long as they believe
Almost. bliss interrupted with naught but pain
You see, some of my children are starting to upset me. The Humans, who gained my resilience, have begun to use that resilience to question the innate belief they were born with. I can't begin to describe the sorrow that I feel for my children abandoning me, and even moreso the grief I already feel for losing them. why do they refuse to believe
My poor, poor children, how I wish you could see how difficult this is for me. I will come to you in your final moments, and I will say my goodbyes, tell you of my love and shed my tears. this did not have to happen
And then I will banish you to the ether of nothingness. why must you force my hand
That is how it must be. I refuse to go back


It is over.
There are but a few of us left, and it is good. Our purpose in this world was to protect it from things it could not understand, things that defied comprehension, things that we all secretly believed would one day overcome our meager defenses and consume everything. But then, one day, they were all gone. Just like that. At first, we were relieved, but as time went by, we began to understand what it all truly meant. Without the storm clouds of the anomalous to cast their sheltering shadows over our empire, it soon began to crumble, dissipating like the remnants of some primordial night before the new light. The light of quiet days. Still, a few of us remain, flesh-and-blood ghosts watching over what is left. Over those left behind.
He is, to all outward appearances, the very image of a respected academic. Clean-shaved, neatly dressed, infallibly polite. It all fits his image like a well-tailored glove, all but that ever present glimmer of panic, just beneath the surface of his eyes. He is sitting in a lecture hall, surrounded by students thirty years his junior, absentmindedly scribbling with his pen in his notebook. The only notebook in a room full of laptops. A few years ago, he was a senior researcher, one of the best of us, the world's finest expert in the new, groundbreaking field of Applied Hydrabiology. He had spent most of his adult life studying this field, learning all that is to know about it. As a young man, he headed massive symposiums, traveled all around the world. His name was respected. His life had a calling. When the anomalous world disappeared, so did all of that.
The professor throws a question at his direction, and to his horror, he discovers that he doesn't know the answer. While he was studying a field that no longer exists, that to most never existed in the first place, the rest of world marched forward, and he was left in the dust. He wilts under the professor's critical gaze, and mumbles something about cells. A subdued laughter echos throughout the hall. The professor simply shakes his head and moves on to younger, more promising students. The aging researcher returns to his notebook, knowing that he will never lead again. He sighs. At least he has his pension.
There are many like him, you know. Careers destroyed, bright minds dulled, curiosity riven. That's the price he pays. That's the price we pay.
He sits embalmed in starched uniform, sweating like a hog as he looks out the window, eyes squinting in the blinding light of midday. Air conditioner must be broken again. The dry expanses of the savanna pass slowly under the wheels of his armored jeep. In the seat next to him, a subordinate drones on and on about this morning's attack. It seems like the Ubyd Tribe once again assaulted the village of the Muthu, targeting, as is the way around these parts, mostly the women and the children. The man scratches at the rash slowly forming around his neck, and asks for a death toll. The subordinate says it's too early to say. They haven't finished sorting the bodies. Tomorrow, the Muthu will most likely counterattack, and the man and his score or so of soldiers will most likely spend that next day doing much the same as they did today. All of this for a dispute over two hundred years old. A dispute over which hill the Sacred Sow of Nys crossed on the first day of her holy pilgrimage.
The man remembers other days. Days in which he fought for something greater, for the good of all mankind. For something he believed in. In those days, when the Abyss gazed up at him, not only did he gaze back, but did so through the scope of an anti-materiel rifle. Things were simple back in the Coalition. Life in the Peace Keeping Force was anything but. It made sense, he supposed. When one encountered a twenty-tonne, fire breathing sloth with thirty eyes and a nasty temper, one usually knew what to do. Not so much with a host of desperate, starving people locked in the midst of a civil war. That the GOC killed the Sacred Sow of Nys ten years prior with an air-to-surface missile only made things so much worse.
There are many like him, you know. Knights left in a world with no more dragons. Knights in a world of windmills. That's the price he pays. That's the price we pay.
A dark study, in the middle of the night. Someone flips the light on. Slippered feet glide over the soft, carpeted floor, a form sinks into a comfortable chair stationed before a work desk. The room is lined with shelves, covering every wall, and on the shelves, toys. The soft light shines over bright red firetrucks, over plastic guns and glass chemistry sets, over large boxes where, if one looks closely, vaguely humanoid figures can be seen, blank smiles plastered over faces no longer animate. The owner of the slippered feet rises again, approaches one of the boxes, one hand caressing the glossy cover. "Introducing Dr. Wondertainment's Mr. Motion!" the box exclaims in big, bold letters, "Multiple grip action! Unique high-voltage pseudo-transmogrification! Fun for all ages, just twist his shoes and watch him move!". The hand drops from the box, from the motionless figure within. Not anymore. Sighing, the owner of the slippered feet turns off the light and leaves the study, returning to the desktop computer in the living room, to the Excel sheets that needed to be filled by tomorrow. One had to make a living somehow, after all.
There are many like them, you know. They tried to keep faith to what they once were, but in the end, it didn't matter at all. What was once was, was, and never will be again. They will make no more toys. That's the price they pay. That's the price we pay.
If he was anything other than what he was, you could say he was just a face in the crowd. Nothing about him is all that memorable, unique or interesting. If he was anything other than what he was, he might have upset because of that. But he isn't. Instead, he just feels that it isn't enough. He knows that if he speaks to someone, they'll hear him, and remember, if for a while. That if he does something, people will notice, and they'll remember, if for a while. That for the first time ever, his actions will have repercussions. He is now a prisoner of the cruelest of all jailers. Permanency. And it's a life sentence.
There are many like him, though no two are quite the same. He knows that every little thing he does will last forever. He knows that every move he makes can be observed, and thus controlled. He knows that he will never truly be free again. That's the price he pays. That's the price we pay.
A young woman, sitting on a seemingly empty subway train. We can try and be poetic, say that the train is heading from nowhere to nowhere, but that would be a lie. She's returning from the hospital, where she visits the fertility clinic once every week. The doctors keep telling her that she shouldn't come back, that they've long given up on trying to understand exactly what's wrong with her. She won't, though. If it were up to her, she might have, but she's thinking on the man waiting for her at home. She's thinking about the warmth in his eyes every time he sees her, about how safe he makes her feel, safer than she ever remembers feeling. How the nightmares become just a little bit more bearable when he's around. She thinks about the box of old toys he keeps in the garage, about how he always wanted kids. About the disappointment he kept trying to hide every time she came back. So she still goes, every week, just to hear the same reply over and over again. He doesn't know she's still doing it, and she's not about to tell him.
There is only one like her, and for that we are thankful. Knowing that lets us sleep at night. Sometimes. We had to make sure, you see. It was hard enough to make ourselves release her to begin with. The risk was too great. We had to make sure. She'll never be whole again. That's the price she pays.
That's the price we all pay.


Whether one passes on or remains is all the same.
That you can take no one with you is the only difference.
-From the death poem of Tokugawa Ieyasu
Another world, another life, another name. I like this planet so far. It sounds very different from when Mather visited it. Now the dominant life forms are bipeds with a bilateral symmetry. And they only have two genders! That's so cute! I've settled in a quiet little metropolis. My job is not exactly illegal here, and it's not regulated either. Cool! It will be easier to stay unnoticed. But the weather sucks.

I'm making friends with a few other workers. Such nice people. Life is lonely sometimes, wandering across the galaxy. I wish there was a way to have friends that I would not have to leave. Nancy brought me to what they call a Costume Party and everyone complimented me, although I'm not sure why. Nancy is trying to convince me to use their strange technology to meet gentlemen. It would be easier, safer. She told me to just use fake pictures; a lot of the more homely ladies do that all the time. I told her trickery is against my nature. I'm honest and I give a genuine service. People can feel that and that's one reason why they love me. Doing the negotiations in public places is more risky here and I have to be extra careful not to attract attention, but it's soooo much more fun. I love the direct approach; to see the struggle between doubt and desire on their face, and to finally win them over. Like tonight's john. Poor baby had never been with a woman. Well, he still hasn't of course. Anyway, most of the people here have never seen real tentacles before. It's like a first time for all of them.

They rarely come with me more than once and it's all for the best. Except for that funny little old guy, Dweing or something. I can never get his name right. Most customers need a bit of convincing, but not him. He seems to have a fascination with what local people would consider bizarre. He said he finds something interestingly arborescent about my figure; my slender ramified tentacles, my elegant copse of antlers. A weirdo, but a harmless one. He always takes two hours and spends most of his time chatting and talking about stuff. ''Lecturing'' would be more accurate. I'm not sure what he's doing now for a living, but he must have been a teacher or something. When he paid me the first time, he opened his old wallet and pulled out some leafs of Zoon Mandragora, my favorites, still fresh and juicy with warm blood. I was not yet familiar with their local currency, and it was a while before I learned that this is not usual behavior. Speaking of money, they have someone that looks a bit like me on one of their coins, and when I ask people who it is they just laugh like they think I'm joking.

I could never stand the greedy lovers who don't understand when their time is over. I've learned much from Dweyn and now I can better express what I only understood intuitively before. Nothing lasts forever. The sooner we see the beauty of that truth, the happier we are. People think true love must last a lifetime, but eventually everything is forgotten. That doesn't mean it's worthless. What does it matter if passion lasts for 2 years, for 2 to the power 1972 years, or just for an hour of 50 minutes? Every new lover is a rebirth. The previous ones forgotten, but still a part of you; another dream in our eternal transmigrations. We don't measure the value of a life by its length; why should we measure the worth of a relationship by how long it lasts? Of course, things are never so simple. There are other practical considerations.

Some policemen came to see me concerning a complaint from the neighbors. I guess they had no idea how they would write their report, so they just gave me a warning. It's so easy to manipulate these Humans by pretending to be an empty-headed floozie. The law enforcers here are especially laid back compared to others I know. I'm not worried about them, but I'm starting to attract too much attention. Time to move on again soon (and just when the weather was starting to warm up!) Who knows how all this will end? The vagaries of Fortune are irrelevant; there is only the Way. One peak, with a thousand paths leading up to it. Some people make flower arrangements, some people practice carpentry. Like Dwaeng thought me, ''we all shape the same energy to improve ourselves and make the world a more beautiful place in any way we can''. I have an idea that will improve people's lives here a little. Maybe it will compensate for some of my past mistakes. ''Put yourself into it. Work hard and you will get results.'' I won't have time to finish that project before moving on, but Nancy can take care of the rest. She knows some people in the fashion industry.


Dr. Kiryu hummed absentmindedly, prodding the back of his assistant's chair with his foot.
The assistant in question gave a long-suffering sigh of annoyance. “Mark, what are you doing?”
“Practicing my flamingo stance, Riven,” came the easygoing reply. “Hii-yah.” Dr. Kiryu kicked an empty water bottle off his assistant's desk.
Riven groaned. “Okay, okay. The new item went through preliminary scans alright, nothing dangerous noted, so they're letting you check up on it in two hours.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Kiryu hunted for the water bottle on the floor. “Where was it recovered from, again?”
“Some high school,” Riven replied, kicking the water bottle away from the doctor out of spite. Kiryu simply rolled his eyes, shoved his assistant's swivel chair, and recovered the water bottle while Riven tried to prevent himself (and his chair) from crashing into a wall.
“Background if you please, Riven?” Dr. Kiryu lobbed the bottle at the recycling bin.
Riven shrugged. “The notepad was some sort of urban legend. If you were worried about something, you could write about it in the pages, and the fear would be completely gone by the next day. It never ran out of pages, and it would randomly turn up in people's backpacks, purses, even athlete's sports bags.”
Dr. Kiryu nodded, standing up and adopting the flamingo pose once more.
Riven looked at him deploringly. “You're not going to evict my stapler to the floor next, are you?”
Kiryu didn't move. “No. Keep talking.”
Picking up a stack of computer printouts from his desk and rifling through them, Riven continued. “Hmm… no one tried to keep a close eye on the notepad, since there was apparently some rumor that if you hogged it to yourself, you'd suddenly be scared of everything written there. One kid kept it for three days and ended up needing to see a psychologist because he kept having panic attacks about stepping on sidewalk cracks.”
Wobbling slightly, Kiryu frowned. “That sounds terrifying.”
Riven nodded. “The retrieval team sent over a few scanned pictures of the pages and the things written. Most of them are the usual things, for high schoolers, I guess. Dating, grades, getting a car. Riven flipped a page. “Some weird stuff though. Did you know that anatidaephobia is the fear of-”
“-being watched by a duck? Wasn't that a joke phobia?” Kiryu walked over to his potted bamboo and prodded one of the leaves. “Certainly out of the ordinary, yes, but it doesn't seem like it'd be debilitating… anything else?”
Blinking, Riven flipped another page. “The kid's favorite food was roast duck. Oh, and the first page had some sort of repeating design. Two sentences printed over and over. ‘Think you have it bad? Walk in someone else's shoes.'”
Kiryu had obtained a tissue from somewhere and was wiping dust off the bamboo stems.
“So you'll look into the query, Mark?” Riven said in exasperation, tossing the papers back onto his desk.
“Yes. Go ahead and take your lunch break, and say hello to my sister for me. Fellow researchers should communicate and all that.” Mark flopped into his own swivel chair and closed his eyes, thinking.

My chest felt tight today. When I woke up. last time that happened, I panicked and blacked out a few minutes later. What if I'm going to have a heart attack? What if I already did have a heart attack? when I was asleep? I know I've been stressed out because school and shit, I bet I'm overworking, but I can't have a stroke or something now why now?

Everything is supposed to be perfect for tomorrow. I've got it all planned out, I've already asked a bunch of people to help out, already bought the dance tickets, so why am I still worried?

I wish my house wasnt so far away from school I heard about one family that died because they left a candle burning and their house caught fire. What if my house starts burning while no one is home? Some of my friends live close and theyd be able to see smoke if their house was on fire why cant I be so lucky?!?!

Fucking math teacher made me retake the fucking test during first period instead of after school like he promised. What if my test gets mixed up with all the other stuff on his desk? What if I was supposed to put it in the inbox and not the desk? By the computer?? I don't remember. This used to not be a problem. I thought about going to check, but what would I do if I did really misplace it????? I can't stop thinking about it. Everyone's saying that the test doesn't count for much but I really need good grade on this.

I don't trust cars. Mom and Dad are always away at work and at night its dangerous to drive so far. What if they crash? What if no one is there to call for help? What if something bad happens?

“I thought you reserved the testing room for the next session.” Dr. Kiryu looked up as his assistant closed the door of the testing room.
“I did, but since no one's using it now and no one is scheduled, I moved my time half an hour earlier. The notepad is rather fascinating. A plethora of fears, mostly irrational, I think, all in the palm of my hand.”
Riven glanced at the small spiral-bound notepad, smaller than the doctor's hand. “How far have you read through it?”
“About halfway. Some D-class took a look at the pages earlier, so I'm decently sure the notepad is safe to read. Precautions, though. I'm going to run a few more tests.”

Preliminary setup: Notepad was placed on table in center of testing room, various empty bags (backpacks, purses, shoulder bags, sports bags, etc.) were arranged around the table.
Procedure: D-3549 instructed to copy a short paragraph detailing agoraphobia into notepad.
Results: No immediate effect. Written paragraph noted to have disappeared after roughly five minutes.
Procedure: D-7231, noted to possess arachnophobia, instructed to write briefly about his fear.
Results: No immediate effect. Five minutes after D-7231 was allowed to leave the room and the notepad was placed in one of the bags, it was discovered that the notepad was missing. Notepad discovered in one of the other bags placed in the testing room.
Note: Due to information gathered, I'd suggest that D-7231's condition be confirmed after 24 hours. - Dr. Kiryu
Results: (24 hours following test) D-7231 shown various pictures of spiders, demonstrates no aggravation or uneasiness. However, it was noted during mealtime that D-7231 has since developed an extreme aversion to provided food, citing worry about allergic reactions. Medical records pertaining to D-7231 indicate no recorded allergies.

Riven paced around the shared office, reading the test logs. “So it relieves your fear and trades it for someone else's, I guess?”
“The grass is always greener on the other side,” Kiryu commented idly, tapping away on his laptop.
“Will it be destroyed?”
Mark looked up from his computer screen. “Perhaps. I'm going to submit a request that it be properly locked up, though. I don't know what will happen if someone tries to damage it, and until I know for sure, I don't want to risk part of that rumor about a fear explosion being true.” He stretched his arms out and glanced at the digital clock hanging by the door. “There may be more we can still learn from the object.”
Riven began stuffing the printouts into a filing cabinet. “How so?”
Glancing out the window, Mark continued lightly. “Everyone's got that little voice in the back of their head nagging them about something.” He stood, walked to the window, opened it. A faint breeze fluttered the leaves of his bamboo plant. “People lead their own lives, have their own circumstances and worries. But in the end, there's a sameness in the fear, inconsequential or silly though it may be. It's natural to worry about things.”
Pausing in his filing, Riven was silent.
Kiryu laughed. "You're not afraid a duck is watching you right now, are you?"


It wasn't his drink from the party
Where the tranquilizers were hid,
The cocktail on the cocktail napkin
Is what gently closed the lid.
What's one more reveler out cold
In a culture of thrills and excess?
The Spring Cleaning Partnership
Was there to clean up the mess.
"Nobody's going to find this skip,
Nobody's going to care."
Truer words were never said:
Nobody was already there.
Nobody struck without warning,
And somebody fell to the ground,
The agents tried to defend their prize,
But Nobody won this round.
He woke to a note on his nightstand:
"The next time you're out, take care."
One minute, Nobody stood in the hall,
The next, nobody was there.
Everybody needs help sometimes,
And Nobody answers the call,
Everybody has to be Nobody once,
Or nobody will be at all.
—Discovered in the uniform pocket of Agent ████████ after failed retrieval attempt of SCP-████


"Explain to me the appeal of this, John." Dr. Reese leaned on the counter as she waited for the popcorn to finish. "I mean, those shows are just so trashy… not a shred of scientific fact behind them."
Johnathan West snickered. "That's exactly what makes them so fun, Margaret." He looked in the fridge, taking out a bottle of Vanilla Coke, the king of soft drinks. "It's so much damn fun to just sit down with a few guys from other departments, and laugh at History or Discovery or Science." Of course, he was talking about the various "educational" channels that were on cable TV.
"What about The Learning Channel? We're not going to watch… you know…"
Dr. West frowned, and shook his head at Dr. Reese. "Margaret, please. The Foundation is cold, not cruel. I don't think we even let D-Class watch those." He snickered at the thought of it. "Now come on. Tonight is a rerun of Ancient Aliens, and then that damn Mermaids…" He made quotes with his fingers on each syllable, "Documentary".
The popcorn finished, and was soon on its way to the employee lounge in Basement Level 3.

Dr. Tristan Bailey was in a giggle fit over the images on the screen. "Oh my God. West, pause it. For the love of God, pause it." And paused it was; on screen was an alien apparently within an ancient Egyptian bas-relief, the picture in black and white. Dr. Bailey pointed right at the alien. "Someone look at me right in the eye, without… without laughing, and tell me that looks real."
"…so much artifacting," said Dr. Hendricks, adjusting his eyeglasses. "My god. Aliens are not that blurry. Are they even trying?"
"This is made for the American Public, Dr. Swatter." Dr. West took a handful of popcorn and munched on it, Dr. Hendricks cringing at his nickname. "Most of them have to look at the back of Encyclopedia Brown books to get the answer. Besides, they eat up anything paranormal."
Dr. Bailey snickered, unpausing the video. "Kind of funny, though, isn't it? I mean, aliens do exist, along with half of the stuff that's featured on shows like this." He started counting off on his fingers. "Bigfoot, tulpas, werewolves, ghosts…"
Dr. West chimed in. "Cities on Mars, demons, the occult, dragons…"
"Goatmen, melonheads, The Loch Ness monster." Dr. Hendricks, who was part of the cryptozoology department, decided to start listing some as well. "Living dinosaurs, mermaids, unicorns…"
"Really? Unicorns? That's a new one on me, Hendricks." Hendricks stiffened, before remembering that Margaret was technically cleared to know about those and relaxing. Dr. Reese shook her head. "You'd think that they'd find just one bit of convincing evidence instead of having to fake every damn thing."
"That's the appeal of the show, Dr. Reese." Tristan reclined on the couch, sipping a stolen bottle of Vanilla Coke, the prince of soft drinks, only second to Mountain Dew. "The masses can believe, the rest of us can laugh."

"I've developed a theory," said Dr. West as he returned with another bowl of popcorn, "Explaining why these shows are so popular." The Ancient Aliens episode turned out to be a two-parter, so they needed more snacks. He sat next to Dr. Reese and offered her the bowl.
"Care to explain, Johnathan?" Dr. Hendricks chewed on a bit of gum. Without realizing it, he was actually making some very loud popping noises; Tristan gave him a dirty look, and he stopped.
"It's simple, Dr. Hendricks. The further the scientific credibility of something falls, the more popular it becomes. TLC became much more highly rated after it turned itself into the freakshow channel. Discovery became far more popular after Mythbusters came on the air-"
"What's your problem with Mythbusters, John?" Dr. Reese glowered at him. "My sister's kid watches it all the time; it at least tries to be educational."
West threw up his arms defensively. "I'm not saying it isn't educational, but it's pop. It doesn't teach any quantum physics; just basic science and chemistry, and maybe how to handle firearms."
"Normal people can't handle quantum physics." Tristan chuckled. "Hell, I could barely handle it when I first started getting education so I could work in Multi-U." He shook his head. "Trevor was always the one that was good at that, and he got diplomatic work. Go figure."
West sighed, stretching and totally not casually trying to put his arm around Dr. Reese's shoulder. "I call it the Theory of UnScientific Credibility." He looked around his seat. "Where the hell's my Coke?" West gave Tristan a suspicious look, shaking his head. "Whatever. What's this show on, anyway? Last one was about alien mummies."
"It's about how aliens killed the fucking dinosaurs," sighed Hendricks. "I'm glad we don't have a paleontology department here. They'd have killed this TV loooong ago."

They flipped to Animal Planet next. Mermaids: The Body Found was on; it was about midnight. "Last one," Margaret said, looking at Dr. Hendricks. "Jason, is it true what they say about this one?"
Jason Hendricks frowned at Dr. Reese, scratching his birthmark. "What do they say about it? That it's complete and utter scientific garbage?"
"I think she's referring to the rumor that this is a Foundation cover-up," said Dr. West, rubbing his stubble. "Which it isn't… right, Dr. Swatter?" Jason swatted his own forehead at the nickname and sighed, West giving an apologetic look.
"No, it is not. It is, however, a travesty against common sense, cryptozoology, and the documentary genre." He threw his hands up at one of the merpeople on the screen. "I mean, for fuck's sake, an Atlantic Homo aquaticus isn't going to look the same as one from the Indian ocean. It's just so implausible!"
"…Is that really the only problem you have with it?" Tristan groaned. "I swear, if you're going to spend this entire mockumentary pointing out all the inconsistencies with actual merpeople, I'm leaving." West threw an empty soda bottle at the back of Tristan's head.
"Don't be an ass, Bailey. You'd be doing the same if this was an episode of Through the Wormhole." Tristan muttered something about how that show was actually okay, and John looked at Dr. Hendricks. "You were saying?"
"Well, for one thing, they're not evolved from apes; they're evolved from fish. They shouldn't look humanoid, they should look piscine. Their arms are too long, and they only have two of them, and there's absolutely no decoration for mating rituals." He looked at Dr. West. "I actually have a thesis I wrote about freshwater Homo aquaticus that you can probably get from the archives, if you want."
"I'll look it up some time, Jason." He leaned back on the couch. "…Wait, aren't those baleen whales? Why the hell would they eat something humanoid?"
"Everybody?" Tristan raised a finger into the air over his head. "3… 2… 1…" He brought it down.
"It just raises too many questions," said the entire group simultaneously. They all broke into a snickering fit afterwards.

"Welp," Dr. West stood from the couch and started stretching and turning off the TV. "That was bullshit. All of it. 100% bullshit."
"At least it makes you think," said Hendricks, rotating his shoulders and heading for the door of the lounge. "It makes you think about a universe where the laws of evolution are sideways and backwards, and where aliens killed the dinosaurs." He looked at Tristan. "I… is there a universe like that?"
"I've counted at least ten," said Dr. Bailey, chewing on a stick of gum he had borrowed from Hendricks. "In five of those, the Dinosaurs fought back during the Cretaceous; in two of them, they're the dominant species. The dinosaurs, not the aliens."
"Well," Dr. Reese yawned. "That was fun, but it's bedtime for me. I have tests to run tomorrow on that thing we recovered from the crash site. Hendricks, your department is co-supervising that, yes?"
"Considering that the creatures on there may have been sapient, it's a bit of a gray area until proven otherwise. But we'll be checking in every now and then, yes." Dr. Hendricks rubbed his eyes, and started walking off. "Well, g'night everyone."
"Night, Dr. Sw-Hendricks!" Johnathan managed to catch himself before he said "Swatter", and looked at Tristan, as the remaining three started walking down the hallway. "Say, Bailey, maybe we could invite Ewell to the next one? Or Sinclair or someone else?"
"Now that you mention it, there is something on about Nazis and demonology next week on History…"

|Hub|


...
On the table there behind the glass, time was about to break.
Thad smiled cautiously as numbers flew past his vision and he checked the math again and again and again. It should work—or rather, it should stop working—just as he had predicted.
“Ms. Anastasakos?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Athena replied confidently (a statement, not a question) as she pulled her hair into a tight bun to keep it from her eyes. Scrupulously she scanned the tiny ant-farm on the table with its houses and simple electric lights, and tiny microphones and cameras and little cars running along their little tracks, all laid out meticulously about a miniature AM/FM/VHF/UHF transceiver. “We are powered off. Ready for control test.”
Five years now since SCP-176 went tits-up and trapped several dozen good young researchers and at least four paramilitary pukes in an endless cycle of creation and destruction. A full year of that had been spent trying to solve it. When that proved impossible, Xyank tried to break it for another three years. And finally, out of ideas, the last year was used to bottle it. The Euclid classification was little more than a formality at this point. And he'd learned a lot. The Foundation learned a lot. That was something.
And as a way of saying ‘thank you', they'd given him another tachyon emitter to dissect.
“Alright,” Dr. Xyank said, cracking his knuckles. “I'm about to activate the snooze alarm on SCP-281. Mr. Kitterman, if you would kindly roll film on my mark.”
“Ready,” said the lithe Jr. researcher from behind his panel.
“Three. Two. One. Mark.” There was a loud crack. Several ants had died from the temporal pressure. All the little electric cars jumped instantly to their new places. Two light bulbs had burned out. Video captured in excess of 9 minutes, 57 seconds in the space of 1 millisecond. “Alright, now we're cooking,” Thaddeus said with a nod. “Mr. Kitterman; talk to me about ambient radiation,” Xyank demanded from behind the glare of ancient lenses.
Marcus Kitterman spun and slid his way down the bank of instruments and stopped himself before the correct panel, making little humming and clucking noises to himself as he built the various readings into a gradient and overlaid that gradient into the room in which they all stood. Fingers crossed and breath bated, three scientists prayed for an end of time as they knew it. “…Nothing even close to hazardous. We'd have to be in here about eight years just to be sure we had cancer.” Marcus delivered a smiling thumbs-up. “We're green.”
It came to him one evening as though from a dream. SCP-1950 was the same as SCP-176, but the field was too powerful, and the loop was still open. SCP-281, 1979, 119, and 1859 all stemmed from the same basic anomaly, with different dilation and constraints. There were patterns in these anomalies. Even weird ones like 982 and 1309. The tachyon field model could accommodate them all, and some even made his ‘event boundary' hypothesis look less like desperation and more like a legitimate explanation.
And that was when a time before whispered in his ear, and reminded him of Item # SCP-084.
“Initiating transmission… For the experimental record: we'll be using video from the Ed Sullivan show at 1.28 GHz, and live-feeds from FM 89.3, 99.9 and 107.1 MHz, and AM 545, 890, and 1240 kHz,” Attie said, fingers storming across the keypad before her. “The signal will be broadcast at power of 10 watts, and should keep our area of effect under 2 m in radius.”
“Outstanding.”
They were calling it ‘the Static Tower', probably because ‘Temporospatial mind-fuck' had already been taken. Documentation back home had clearly labeled 084 as a temporal anomaly in its own right. But whether through clerical negligence or prevailing attitudes of a different nature, the Foundation of 1997 had labeled it a ‘radioactive space-time anomaly'. Not incorrect, but not the most descriptive interpretation. One look at the ‘flicker' phenomenon and it was obvious. The spatial distortion was a result, most of all, of the temporal distortion around the tower. And why, among all other temporal anomalies, did 084 alone exhibit this odd spatial reflection and scattering? Because the tower was pumping out a thronging mass of EM radiation at nearly 100 watts. All of it, every last nanosecond could be explained without the need of anything so vulgar as a temporal paradox. Paradoxes don't exist in nature.
Hypothesis: tachyon fields can be manipulated with powerful radio signals. Procedure: hook up a known tachyon emitter to a transmitter. Transmit from it on multiple frequencies and see if you get something like 084.
At least, that's how it looked on paper. Maybe it was a risk to try reproducing it in a lab. Strike that, it was absolutely a risk. But without risk, there is no gain. And if Xyank could break time so thoroughly, and put it back when he was done, that meant he understood time. It meant he understood time travel. It meant it was only a matter of a few (relatively) safe experiments to find a system to predict travel frequencies from now to anywhen.
It meant he could finally go home.
“Begin transmission, if you would please.”
Several oscillating waves overlaid one another on the screen above, and Marcus Kitterman let out a whistle at what to him appeared to be a gibbering line of chaos. “Radiation is still steady, thank god.”
“Good,” Xyank said, brushing some silvering hair back away from his face. “I'm going to try turning 281 back on. Mr. Kitterman, let's see about film capture on my mark.”
Marcus opened his mouth to let out one final objection, but thought better of it. Jr. Researcher versus tenured Doc. That would be a really short conversation anyway. “Ready.”
What was that saying? Something about finishing what you start, he'd think of it later. “…Mark.”
No sharp spark. Nothing, actually. An eerie silence as everything in the bubble seemed to freeze for a second, and fitfully start forward. And back…
“Holy…” Kitterman said softly. Ants fluttered in clumps and trails and over houses. Cars leapt willy nilly upon their tracks. Lights flickered. The film from the cameras inside ran back and forth and was useless. “…We did it.”
“Save it. We aren't finished yet.” Xyank flipped a switch and took hold of a small joystick. “Commencing drop test one.”
084 produces a spatial anomaly around itself such that no object can approach within 200 m of the tower; it is surrounded by infinite space. If this was an accurate scale representation before him now, the ball in the basket directly above it should fall forever, never growing closer to its target than two meters.
It wasn't. The ball fell straight and true. And at the same time the 'anomalies' they had all witnessed stopped happening wholesale.
“Ms. Anastasakos?”
“We're still transmitting,” she replied, disbelieving.
“Mr. Kitterman!”
“Radiation level in there is still consistent with an active field,” he shrugged. “But I don't see anything that would lead me to believe there's a distortion present. Film is even coming through now.”
Fuck! What had he missed? It wasn't supposed to go like this. “The model said…” Models are only as good as the math behind them. So what about this math? Had it been perfect? Had he fat-fingered a digit somewhere? Floated a decimal? Forgotten to carry a one? “Stay here, I'll be right back.”
“Uhh…” Researcher Anastasakos began to ask.
“Run a few more trials. If I'm not back in twenty minutes exactly, turn it off.”
“Yes, sir.”
Double doors out of the observation room, down a quick hallway to the end where his office and his whiteboards and his notes were.
Damnit it looked so clear, and now it didn't work at all. Had he been too conservative with the interference pattern? Was the signal strong enough? Equations flowed past his vision as he jogged, second guessing and wondering and hypothesizing and desperately trying to find his answer.

“Alright,” Thad1 said, wiping some sweat from his brow. “… Everyone listen up, because-” the door opened and Thaddeus Xyank6 stepped inside, closing the door behind him before even looking up. Xyank1 cleared his throat. The newcomer stopped dead, looked up to a sea of his6 own face looking back at him, and sank dumbstruck to a perch on a shelf by the door. “…As I was saying,” One continued. “I don't even have time to explain this once.”
“Based on what we are all experiencing, our 084 experiment was
was
was
was arguably a success.” The whole room winced in unison. Thads 1 2 and 3 wiped blood from their ears and swore and cursed the day they ever had this half-cocked idea.
“I thought it wasn't supposed to hurt!,” he4 hollered, pressing his temples together and stamping his feet.
“Electrical components,” the Doctor2 snipped curtly, and tapped himself on the temple.
“Stop! Just move past it,” Xyank1 said, eyes plastered shut. A two second beat to collect himself and put his glasses back on. “The point is, we seem to have initiated some kind of temporal isolation event. An open infinite loop.”
“So,” Thad6 asked timidly, “it… It actually worked?”
“Oh yeah,” Thaddeus1 smirked, watching the clock on the wall advance and fall back and advance and fall back as causality wobbled all around him. “It worked.”
“And we're sure it's not a multiverse event?” Six said, still blinking in a bit of shock.
Two scratched at his nose and pulled his lips tight. “Employee ID numbers anyone?”
“0927-7182-3740-0918,” said all in unison.
“Paradox,” Thad5 said, head hitting his desk. “God. Dammit.”
“Okay, good.” Three stood up and tapped himself
tapped himself
tapped himself
tapped himself a cup of water which he immediately dropped when another brief ripple of spasm leapt across the room. Xyank3 hit the water cooler with the heel of his palm and it bubbled its unconscious reply. Enviable, these inanimate objects. Especially at a no-time like this. “If it's a paradox, there's got to be a way to resolve it, right? Paradoxes don't exist in nature!”
“I'm getting to that,” Sub-1 said, and started drawing a diagram on the board. “Say this is the world line, like a river, flowing from past to future. What we did was take a bubble”(here he drew a small oval on the side of the line) “and replicated it at regular intervals all over the surrounding space.”
“How far?” Five asked.
“At least twenty, probably more.” Dr. Xyank2 replied, arms crossed as he followed along. Six whistled and let his head bounce off of the cabinet. How much had he6 missed?
“One of these bubbles just so happened to land right here on this room. Something about how the other 281 bubbles are interacting with this one is causing us to, at regular intervalsslavretni raluger ta ,ot su gniing us to, at regular intervals…” Thaddeus Xyank1 braced his arms on the desk and bowed his head, two drops of red hitting the table and jumping back up his nose. That one hadn't been so bad. “…Every so often we run into the external world line and another one of me—or all of you, even—walks through the door.”
“Has anyone tried leaving?”6
The second most haggard looking member of the party shook his head. “That's how I got here.” Thaddeus1 and Xyank2 tightened their lips and nodded together. “Not going to work.”
“But!” four jumped up. “We might be able to keep it from getting any worse if we keep the next iteration from entering YES!” He4 clapped in excitement. “BRILLIANT! He can even go turn it off, and then it'll be over!”
“For whom?” Three asked solemnly.
And he was right. There were two possible outcomes to this scenario: Void and Eternity. There would be no ‘escape', at least not for these assembled. 084 creates infinite space and infinite time within its boundary. Even if they turned the device off, and even if the anomaly subsided from an exterior perspective, and even if they could actually prevent Lucky Number Seven from passing over the threshold into this little pocket they had created for themselves, it would not be over.
Infinite loop.
Infinite loop.
Infinite loop… Thaddeus let it sink in for a moment, making sure he all understood.
“So… So we just die here? Is that it?” Six asked.
“If we're lucky.” Thad2 said, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
The handle of the door began to rattle. All twelve eyes locked upon it as their owners froze in place.
“…Should we rehearse something?”5
“There isn't time,” Xyank1 answered. “Once that rattle starts we have thirty seconds to two minutes subjectively… It's hard to tell when you're just talking to yourself all the time.”
It felt good to chuckle, for all of them. The damned must also laugh. But the moment was not destined to linger. The latch began to slip and unslip and slip and unslip.
Sub-two, nodded and grabbed up the just-in-case shotgun from its place behind his filing cabinet. “Still. We have to try, don't we?” The others silently agreed.
“Pay close attention to what you say,” the Doctor1 warned as he picked up a marker and began to write. “I'm going to see if I can't figure a way out of this… shit-fest.”

He was so absorbed, that when he laid hands on his door and opened it, it took the open barrel of a very familiar Remington 870 in his face, and what looked an awful lot like a rifled slug at the back of it to snap him out of his mathematical haze.
“Well, that's one way to do it,” Thad heard his own voice say, but was sure he didn't speak.
“Step back, Dr. Xyank. Step back across that threshold right now.”
Eyes never leaving the front-sight, he complied. Switching focus he beheld a visage not unlike his own. A little older. More worn. Blood was slowly trickling from all of their ears and noses, and their sleeves were all covered in smudges where they had wiped it away. Six of them. The whiteboard had been erased and rewritten, and erased again, and as he watched, the figure standing at it unwrote a line and re-wrote it, pausing only to press his temples and groan before moving on to the next. Before him, the stranger version of himself grew stubble and lost it, and a tiny red rivulet ran forwards and back, up and down his neck as desperate, pained eyes fixed on him.
“What you are experiencing,” The Xyank behind the shotgun said as four other injured selves looked on, “is some kind of temporal decohesion event. We haven't figured out how to stop it yet, or even if it can be stopped from in here. But we can keep more of you from coming in here with a little timing.”
“I don't—”
“Understand?” one over the gunman's shoulder said sarcastically. “No shit. Neither do we, and who knows how long You Prime over there at the board has been in here.” Without turning, the man at the board grunted and continued writing. Dr. Xyank did his best to take a photo of his work, but the pain at the back of his neck said something had gone amiss inside.
“But—”
“You are number 7. We are numbers 1 through 6. But you are also number 0. And that means you have to stay out there while we puzzle it out in here.”
“…the model?”
One of the copies in the rear threw his arms in the air and suddenly stifled himself. “…Decimal error. You were off by a whole order of magnitude. Congratulations, you just ended time as we know it over a radius of twenty goddamn meters.”
The man behind the shotgun nodded, shoving the barrel into Thad's chest and thrusting him back out into the hallway. “Now get back out there and turn it off before you break this whole site!”
“But what about—!”
The office door slammed closed and locked. No further answers would come, even when he beat against the door until his knuckles cracked open. Not a sound save the steady atonal rhythm of frustrated failure against the door of his own mausoleum. It did not echo down the hall.

“…Jesus Christ he's been gone a long time,” Marcus mumbled as he pressed the button and watched another ball fall directly into the center of the model. There was a pile forming now, building up slowly around their little transmitter. “How long has it been anyway?”
Attie didn't look up, just stared intently at the screen in front of her. She was like that, though. The Foundation never hired stupid people, but Researcher Athena Anastasakos was so professional it made Kitterman's teeth hurt. Couple that with a sort of fanatical devotion to figuring this kind of shit out, and it was little wonder she was such an award winning conversationalist. It didn't even occur to Marcus that anything was amiss until he picked up his paper cup and crossed to the water cooler. He felt a sort of a… is hiccup the right word? Ah, probably nothing.
“MARCUS!” she yelped, jumping backward from a screen steadily turning to static. “…Oh god, you scared me! How on earth did you get over there?”
“I… I walked. With my feet.” Kitterman rolled his eyes and pressed the watercoolerreloocretaw eht desserp dna seye sih dellor namerttiK “.teef ym htiWith my feet.” Kitterman rolled his eyes and pressed the watercooler's valve.
Athena bit her tongue and watched.
A slow trickle of water overflowed his cup in a matter of a quarter second. He dropped it in surprise. Two faces turned white. “…How long has it been since he left?”
“Not more than three minutes.”
“So how did I drop all of those?” he asked, pointing to the pile of tiny foam balls.
They ran to their panels and typed in commands, slapped display screens, flicked at status lights as everything started slowly to go bananas. “Turn it off Turn it off Turn it off!” Athena yelled, fingers blurring takka-tak-tak just in time to watch Marcus pull open a panel and start pulling out wires. They sparked and smoked and fumed and slapped back into place.
“Oh really, should I?” Kitterman yelled back. He ran to the door and threw it open, and sprinted what must have been 30 meters down a two meter stretch of hallway to the chamber door. Secured with electronic locks and they would not budge. “FUCK!” The noise fell flat in the sterile hall as he threw himself through the air back to the observation room. “Where in hell did he go?”
“Probably the same place we're going if you can't shut that damn thing off!”
Panic comes in waves. At first you're not even sure it's happening. Everything goes red, and a tingling feeling grows out of your gut to the tips of your fingers and toes. It grabs your brain and won't let go. Synapses fire faster than you'd believe as every possible solution cycles through your brain once, twice, three times a lady. All of them are shit. It was about at this level of disoriented stupidity that Kitterman first picked up the stool and slammed it against the glass. A crack ran up and then back down and then sealed itself again. So he tried another five or thirty times (who counts?) before he reckoned the sanest thing to do would be just to drop the stool and scream at the pane's stupid face.
“That's enough! You're not helping anyone!” Attie yelled as she squinted at a screen of static, desperately hoping a distortion would come through to smooth the electronics out, if only for a minute. Just long enough to impart some sense about how the field looked and what the Snooze Alarm was doing and if it was ever going to stop.
A shoulder was thrown into the door and Xyank fell through it onto the floor. “We have a problem!”
“No! Really? I hadn't noticed!” Marcus hollered as he ham-fisted a wad of wires from beneath the console and grabbed out his pocket knife.
The Doctor0 wiped blood from his ear and spat some to the floor which dried in an instant. “What have you tried so far?”
“Wiring panel, input commands, B and E, refreshing the transmission—” Ms. Anastasakos answered.
“Pretty much everything but whistling show-tunes at it!” Kitterman barked as he cut a cable and watched it stitch itself up again for the third time.
Shit. This was bad. Really bad. Everything already broken, everything already resetting. But causality was still flexible, and the fact that he had made it back into this room meant it wasn't final yet. They were not completely isolated, and one last Hail-Mary was absolutely not out of the question. It's not as though there was much to lose. “Ms. Anastasakos, what is the correct time?”
“I don't see how—”
“Dammit, Attie, it's a temporal anomaly! What bloody time is it?” Thaddeus demanded as he hopped to the breaker box on the wall and threw it wide.
“Its… it's 0600? That doesn't—wait! 1023…1747?”
“Do either of you know what time we started transmitting?”
“0930! … I think,” Marcus offered, recoiling and sucking his fingers from a minor electric shock.
“You think?”
Marcus shrugged and raised his hands, looking equal parts horrified and apologetic. It would have to do.
“All right, this is a long shot, but it's all we've got. Ms. Anastasakos, you need to tell me when—”
“NOW!”
Everything went black. An emergency light came on. Their pulses hung in mid-air as they waited. And waited… and waited.

0945 came and went. The anomaly did not resume.
After a couple Mole-rats rooted around for a day or so and scanned his office with every instrument he had clearance to know about (and a few which he didn't) and found no detectable temporal fluctuation; after a painful, exhausting ritualistic interrogation to ensure he wasn't acting under anyone else's influence and remained loyal to the Foundation's objectives; after a psyche evaluation that revealed a little post-traumatic stress but otherwise a clean bill of psychiatric health and two weeks paid leave, Dr. Xyank sat in his office tapping his temple, staring at the last thing he had written on the whiteboard.
Red marks were everywhere, shooting this way and that, too and from impromptu diagrams and flow charts and equations that would make most J.R.s blush. All of it spiraling into, out of, around, and through one central feature: an enormous Black Box.
Yes, the experiment had been a ‘success', in a manner of speaking. No, no one had died, at least not in a verifiable way. Yes, Thaddeus had confirmed that certain long-wavelength electromagnetic signals of sufficient power could alter the shape, rate of flow, direction, and endurance of any extant tachyon flux. But had he actually learned how to create a tachyon flux to manipulate?
No. The Black Box remained Black. And it was too costly to keep going. Dozens were dead. Six copies of himself were irretrievable. He had nearly turned Site-17's anomalous experimentation wing into another SCP of who knows what designation. 084/281-A, maybe? His name very narrowly avoided censorship on every document he had ever touched as the Foundation disavowed all knowledge of his activities or that they had ever even deigned to hire him.
It was time to stop.
But as he stood to grab the eraser, silence took hold of him. He glanced upward and noticed the clock had stopped. He perked his ear and heard no movement outside in what should be a rush-hour end-of-day shit-show of a hallway. When he turned he saw a shadow at the door. Just one. It cleared its throat and passed a parcel through the slot in the door before leaving.
The clock resumed its forward march. The hall resumed its noisy bustle. On the floor, a manila envelope. Inside, a watch.
His watch.
His very own Model 442i automatic winding perpetual perfect-time watch. It had probably been languishing in anomalous item storage these last…well, there was no telling how long, he supposed. Only that he hadn't seen it since he was picked up after… After. But who else would have known that?
Bound up in the band, a note, hand written, in red fine-point felt-tipped marker. In reflex he crumpled it and tossed it into the wastepaper basket.
Before the second ticked over he was back in his seat, across the desk, hands folded, staring at it.
But then that got him thinking. He would write that message, some time in the future. Absolutely. It was the only way to avoid a break. He would know the time and date (it was 1946 on August the 18th, 1997. Thad logged it in his memory and stored it somewhere it wouldn't get lost.) and place to deliver it…
He now had to make sure he knew the message and its contents, so the loop could be completed. Or else… Or else, he was sure he didn't want to know what else.

'In for a penny...'

'...in for a pound.'

…
“I don't—”
“Understand?” Three said, wondering if he was getting more condescending. “No shit.” Yes, definitely. He'd have to tone it down. “Neither do we, and who knows how long You Prime over there at the board has been in here.”
He1 didn't grunt. He stopped writing and sighed. “What's the point?” He whispered quietly.
“But—”
“You are number 7.” Two continued, an edge in his voice clearly directed in One's direction. “We are numbers One through Six.”
“No, he isn't.” Thaddeus1 put the marker down.
“You're right, number one! He's also number Zero.” The other four glanced furtively at one another, horrified. What was he doing, breaking containment like that?
“Stop it, Two.”
“What are you doing?” Five hissed, wide-eyed and wild. “You're going to break—!”
“NO. I'm not lying anymore. He's not number 7, he's number forty-two thousand, eight hundred and seventy-two. And he has a right to know exactly how bad we fucked up.”
Two dropped the barrel of the shotgun and let the threat hang loose in his hands “Goddammit, One.” He turned in slow resignation and locked eyes with force. “You just broke nearly two and a half years of symmetry.”
“Symmetry? Is that what you call an infinite number of alternate time lines due to one cocked-up experiment?” One demanded.
“Well, it wouldn't have been if you'd just stuck to your own goddamn plan!” Three said, throwing an eraser across the room.
“WILL EVERYONE JUST SHUT UP?” Four said, rummaging through the drawer. “I swear there's an emergency Class B in here somewhere! Just shove it down his throat and we'll do it right and send him on his way!”
But before he could grab it, the door slipped shut.
Six of the same man gasped in unison. Lucky Number Seven simply sighed. It wasn't great. It wasn't even good. Hell, it was hardly a solution at all, but with damage done and time being a factor (the other versions of him would not have been nearly so urgent if it wasn't), he wouldn't have a chance to take a Class B. They'd probably make him forget too much anyway. No… This was home now. This room and these people and this awful experiment. He had made this sacrifice before. Precisely Six times before.
And he would make it again. That is the way the Foundation operates. We Secure. We Contain. We Protect. Even if, sometimes, it means one must contain oneself.
“Room for one more?” He7 asked with a smirk as the
as the
as the
as the
as the first ripple sent a spine of pain in one side of his head and out the other, and blood trickled unhappily out of his left ear.
“… For what it's worth, I'm sorry.” Thad1 laid a hand on his7 shoulder and bit his1 bottom lip hard, keeping the torrent back.
“Don't be… it's my fault, too.” Just that moment, a little early actually, the knob began to rattle. Lucky Number Seven, the true number Seven and no longer number Zero, rolled his eyes. “…I'll just… hide in the closet, or something.”

Heh… funny how you remember things at the last minute.

Eve's cardinal sin was NOT biting the apple.
It was failing to chew, swallow, and finish it.
Do not make the same mistake or so help us both…

-Tx
…

Part One: Iteration 0 | Hub | Part Three: Erstwhile and Again