"I ordered the lobster bisque. Considering the car crash, I suppose we can call this my second mistake."

Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.1

Item of Interest: Document 0023
Associated With: PoI #0023/01, Dr. Annabelle Kraken, INK0023
Mastercopy Location: Document 0023 is to be stored in a bulletproof glass case in the second floor observation wing of the Pataphysics Department. The case is to remain locked at all times, in accordance with standard object containment protocols. Document 0023 is available to all Pataphysics personnel with appropriate clearance, should they wish to learn about it. Document 0023 is not itself an anomalous item, and poses no threat to researchers.
Following acquisition of Document 0023, Enkidu.aic has been programmed to report any Inciting Events similar to INK0023 to Pataphysics Site Head P. Panagiotopolous.
Description: INK0023 is the designation for a Multiversal Narritivistic Inciting Event2 shared by Level 4 Researcher Dr. Annabelle Kraken and Person of Interest #0023/01 (legal name O█████ ████████).
INK0023 occurred on 8/13/201█ at approximately 1500 hours, and lasted one minute and thirty-four (34) seconds. During this time, Dr. Kraken and PoI #0023/01 simultaneously performed the following actions in the following order:

Entered the right turn lane on the corner of █████ █████ Road and ███████ ████ Circle in ████████, Arizona, USA. Both subjects were driving a 2006 Toyota Avalon, painted dark green.
Performed the turn without checking the opposite lane for traffic.
Upon looking in the rearview mirror, noticed a vehicle about to hit her.
Swerved to the right to avoid impact.
Drove onto the sidewalk and made contact with a fire hydrant, causing irreparable damage to the vehicle.
Ceased movement and cut the engine, removing the keys.
Stayed in the vehicle for 23 seconds.
Exited vehicle, complaining verbally to self of chest pain.

As a result of INK0023, PoI #0023/01 developed anomalous cognitive functions that caused the spontaneous trigger of false sensory stimuli. These “hallucinations” mimicked the properties and anomalous functions of various SCP objects, seemingly at random3. Why INK0023 had this effect on its subjects is under investigation. The nature of Multiversal Narritivistic Inciting Events, and INKs in general, is currently poorly understood.
PoI #0023/01 began writing Document 0023 approximately five years after the conclusion of INK0023. From its contents, it has been determined that PoI #0023/01's native reality was swn-001. Interestingly, PoI #0023/01 herself was not a swn-001-1 entity, and had no knowledge of the Foundation prior to INK0023.

+ Access File: Document 0023

Close File

The following is an abridged version of Document 0023. An effort has been made to document all known anomalies that PoI #0023/01 references herein. Please submit any corrections to Site Head P. Panagiotopolous. All sensitive data, cognitohazardous phrases, and possible memetic triggers have been removed from Document 0023.

03/18/201█
Just finished moving back in to my parent's. Mom is serving soup tonight. Of course. That's my luck for you.
Threw the last journal out. Burned it, actually. Kept it longer than I should have. I didn't write much in there, but on the back pages I tried to draw that girl who can only half-finish stuff.4 Guess I remembered that one better than I thought because I drew her perfectly. I got her mopey expression down exactly how it was in the dream; all sad, her lids drooping, but tense, too, overwhelmed with fear. Well, I know the feeling.
When the hallucinations weren't keeping me up, I'd instead be kept up imagining her horrible sad eyes frowning at me underneath the journal cover. It got so bad that I started imagining her hand crawling out from under the pages in the dark. Maybe that really did happen, I don't know.
Anyway, yeah. Burned it. At the roast at A████'s house. When everyone went inside to get the sacrificial hot dog, I stayed out, knelt by the flames and slipped the journal through the grate. I watched Zena's hand twist in the flames as she burned. Or did I? Or did she?
A████ would be upset if he knew. Actually, no, he probably wouldn't see the significance of it. Not immediately. But it would dawn on him slowly, like a blood red sun rising,5 and with a suddenness that he can't quite comprehend, his entire body would dissolve into dread and fear and confusion (and red goo).
I know that for the same reason I know about the goo: I've seen it before.
I didn't do a lot of writing in the last journal. But it was around that time that I think A████ finally started believing me.
I was at his place. I started throwing up again. It came on quick this time, because I wasn't expecting it — he'd put on a loud, cheesy action movie in another language. That was usually enough to keep my attention, because I had to focus to read the subtitles. Unless, of course, something happened in the movie to remind me of the Foundation. Then the hell would start afresh. This was one of those nights.
The movie was some mystifying interbreed between “French arthouse” and “Fast and Furious.” We were about halfway through, this overblown car chase scene at the end of act two. Suddenly one of the cars gets flipped on its side and we're treated to a half-second shot of the driver's body scraping along the pavement through the open window. They cut away to an overhead of a long red streak on the pavement.
Basic stuff, but that's all it takes. Immediately I'm thinking about the nail.6 That D-Class with his torso 160 meters away from the rest of it. I put my hands over my face for a second and then look back at the TV. I tell myself I'm not going to look at the rest of the room.
But when I look up at the TV again, it's got a big glob of congealed blood over it. So.
The floor beneath me has been covered in gore. All of A████'s shit, covered in blood and bits of organ. But it's not a sea of it. Somehow worse, it's in a pattern. A long, mostly-straight line, a streak of blood and viscera, crossing from the front door, down the hall, over the couch, across the TV, and right to where I'm sitting.
The pain always comes second. Which is the worst part. If it came first, I would have time to actualize it — but my body knows what's happening isn't real. My pain receptors don't get activated until I see it, or smell it, or taste it first. Then the rest kicks in, trying to resolve an internalized paradox.
Pretty soon I'm on the floor screaming something about my kidney. A████ comes in from the kitchen with a spatula and a lot of panic. Somehow we end up in the bathroom.
“What is it? What is it?” he keeps saying, like he does every time.
“The… nail… on my shadow. It's, hrrk—” I hover over the toilet, on my knees. We haven't eaten yet. There's nothing there. I don't eat much these days, anyway. There's usually nothing there.
He holds my hair while I dry heave. With his free hand, he looks up the object on his phone. “Nail shadow SCP” is more than enough for Google to figure this one out.
“Jesus,” he says, reading. His tone is more derisive than disturbed. “So, you're seeing…?”
“The D-Class… who walked away from it before sunrise,” I mumble into the bowl. “He gets… pulled—” I stop, forcing down another gag. Talking about it makes the hallucinations more intense. “My kidney is on the coffee table,” I finish lamely.
A████'s quiet for an indecisive moment. Processing. I get that this is hard for him too, but I wish I didn't have to be so patient all the time.
“O█████, you have to get on top of this,” he says finally. “There's nothing out there. I am literally looking right at you and you're fine. You're just throwing up. There's no wounds. There's no road rash. There's definitely no kidneys in the living room. You're imagining it.”
I don't respond because I'm trying not to cry. Then I look at him and I say:
“No, I'm not. I know it's not real to you. And I guess it isn't real to my body, because if I'd actually been dragged several miles across the surface of the earth then I wouldn't be fucking talking to you, would I. But it's real to me. I see it, smell it, taste it, and hear it… I even dream it sometimes. And I certainly feel it.” We stare at each other a moment. I gesture. “My puke is real, isn't it? My tears? My suffering is real.”
Or something like that. I don't know. I probably said something much stupider in the moment. But whatever it was, it got through to A████. He stared at me with his eyes all wide and funny, like he wasn't believing what he was seeing.
And the moment he did, his face started dissolving. Like I was saying earlier. Dissolving under the weight of a red-hot impossibility.
I'm going to try writing more in this journal, I think. Enough with the drawings.

3/19/201█
Saw my therapist today. Most of our exchanges go like this:
Him: “Are you still writing?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “Is the writing still helping?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “That's great news, O█████!”
Me: “But it's not going away. The episodes are getting more frequent.”
Him, upbeat (forced): “We may want to look into a prescription. I can get you in contact with a psychiatrist who—”
Me, patient (forced): “They gave me medication at the asylum. Three different drugs for schizophrenia and eight for anxiety. None of them did anything.”
Him: “Realistically, we don't have any other ways of treating you.”
He thinks he knows everything. Which is how he reasons that my “special case” doesn't actually exist. According to him, I'm just a schizophrenic gone wild.
I guess he's technically right.
I know the Foundation doesn't really exist. Hell, I've literally had conversations with some of the people who wrote these stories. It's a website on the internet where people come up with glorified creepypastas. That's it. That's all it is. I'm just a paranoid barely-adult terrified of the shadows in her doorway, throwing up over a fear of the unreal, unable to sleep because of imagined monsters. That's it. That's all it is.
Except that's not all it is. Except it's so much more than that and it always has been. Except if it really was that simple I would have gotten over it a long time ago. Except that, the first time I dared to share what I was going through, at a craft fair at the armory, to some teen kid who'd just bought a knitted scarf from my fourth-grade teacher, I muttered quietly to him “Sometimes when I open a door, I walk into this dirty steel room with a statue in the corner”; and he looked up at me, sort of tilted his head, kind of squinted, like I'd offended him, and finally said, “You mean SCP-173?”7
It's one thing to be traumatized. It's another thing entirely to be traumatized by someone else's form of entertainment.
This thing has been going on since 2007. All by itself. When that kid at the craft fair gave a name — a number — to one of my tormentors, I misunderstood him at first. I assumed, surely, he was talking about something real. Because I'd been experiencing it in my head for months at that point, so I knew it wasn't fake. The Foundation was a real place. The boy had simply shown me how to find it.
I didn't talk to anyone back then. I was too scared. I was more than a few articles in before I noticed the discussion posts; the little upvote box in the corner. It wasn't real after all. By that point I just felt lonely.
When I went to look up the infamous rebar peanut for the first time, I hesitated a little. If only I'd listened to that hesitation. If only I hadn't looked.

3/20/201█
No episodes today. Rare occurrence these days.
I remember back in 201█, after the car crash, when all this first started. Back then, it was almost unnoticeable. I would only get it in flashes: very brief, very vague, and very inconsistent. Usually it would only feature one of my senses, too. The smell of blood at a restaurant. The echo of a bird call warping into the off-kilter ping of a reality anchor. Opening the door to my bedroom only to walk into an endless control tower.8
(That last one made for a particularly noteworthy episode. The first time it happened, it was a vision that only lasted a few seconds. But it happened again, about two years ago. I trapped myself in my room for 29 hours. When A████ finally figured out how to pick the lock on the front door, he found me collapsed with a makeshift shank and the ceiling covered in tape. The only coherent phrases I could muster were “it wouldn't stop knocking” and “the wind was too strong”.)
But for the most part, just random images. Mostly unidentifiable. Largely meaningless.
I would think about it every now and then. Occasionally I would draw what I'd experienced. Most of the time, I got on with my life. I was in college at the time. And writing, too. Lots of writing. I was so focused on my work. Nothing else mattered.
Not to mention, none of it meant anything to me. I didn't know what the Foundation was back then; I had no reason to believe any of these hallucinations were any different from the “hallucinations” I have daydreaming about my writing. A little more visceral, sure, but I'd just gone through my first-ever car crash. Certainly a bit of weirdness was to be expected.
Then the insomnia kicked in.
The first night it happened was far from being the worst of my life, but it's up there. It was also my first run-in with the soup.
The roast wasn't happening that night; A████ forgot to buy more hot dogs. He convinced the rest of us to go to Red Lobster with him. Me, A████, [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REMOVED] They gave us a booth, of course. I sat in the middle because it's my favorite place to sit. At the center, at the heart, surrounded by everyone else.
I ordered the lobster bisque. Considering the car crash, I suppose we can call this my second mistake.
I really wasn't even thinking about the food by the time it arrived. Everyone was talking and I'd already chewed my way through a couple bread rolls. I wasn't even that hungry; but I'd never turned down food before. I don't think I knew how to. God, if only I could eat like that again.
When I brought the spoon to my lips I was mid-sentence. I didn't start gagging immediately, though I'm sure it looked like that to the others. I tried to hold it down at first, to resolve what I was tasting as something other than what it was.
Semen. Bloody semen. Little hard knobbly bits of flesh mixed in, sticking to my teeth. And all of it congealed, married into homogeny, sort of syrupy, thick in my throat like lacquer. Somehow, the worst part was how cold it was.
I realized I was about to throw up in front of all my friends. I didn't have a lot of time to parse this realization before it actually happened.
In the moment, I kept my cool. I told everyone I'd had a nausea spell and I didn't want to eat anymore. Within five minutes, the tense conversation — the nervous looks in my direction — had faded. All was back to normal. Hell, even I was back to normal. I didn't dare try the soup again, but my nausea had rapidly disappeared. Like all the other episodes up to this point, it was extremely brief, and very random.
I got a ride home from A████. I actually didn't think about it at all, if you can believe that. I listened to some music. Wrote a bit. Went to bed. Couldn't go to bed.
Well, okay, I could go to bed. But I woke up barely an hour later, stirred into consciousness in the dark of my room by the disgusting imagery in my dream. I couldn't remember any of it, and woke with nothing but a vague sense of unease.
Tried to sleep again. Did, a little, maybe a half hour. Woke up again. The unease had graduated into anxiety.
If I'd ever had sleeping problems, it was oversleeping, not under. With a determined vengeance, I went back to bed after a brief walk to tire myself out. I put on a livestream to help calm myself down. This time, when I woke up again, it was to the sudden onset of a raging fever. Now the anxiety had transformed into paranoia.
I was remembering bits of the dream too. Malformed bodies writhing together, warped into a heaving pink surface. They smelled like the soup tasted. They looked like the soup tasted. I went to the bathroom and threw up and threw up and threw up, for hours. I'd only taken one bite but the taste was back in my mouth. No amount of retching would make it go away.
I'd never been this sick before. In fifth grade, I got food poisoning from a quiche at a school potluck. Within mere minutes of my eating, my vision blurred to the point of blindness. Like those videos where people melt crayons with a hair dryer. Everything was swimming. Lurid, violent color. A few minutes later, I was just retching and retching. The pain was unbelievable and constant. Some little black thing chewing through my insides. Throwing up didn't alleviate it, the way it normally does when you're sick.
This was worse than that. It wouldn't end. The nausea came in waves, but never faded entirely; just plateaued. And I hadn't eaten, so there was nothing there. My throat flexed up and down with all the force of a piston, torturing itself without end or purpose.
Finally, exhausted, eyes going full Crayola, I called A████. He sat up on the phone with me for the rest of the night. I didn't sleep. Just laid there in silence. He did the same. Occasionally I would mumble, “Are you awake?”
“Yeah. Still here.” He sounded so tired. But he always answered. He never fell asleep.
Later — a lot later — I figured out what this horrible thing was.9 That was one hell of a night, the first time I read that article. Not only did I hallucinate eating human excreta — it gets worse! But that's a tedious story. Forget it. I'm not writing that.
I think about that night with A████ a lot these days. At the time, I couldn't explain to him what was happening; just that I'd had a nightmare and couldn't sleep. I'd just thrown up in public and refused dinner. I never did stuff like that back then. Despite the lack of explanation, despite the complete absence of any satisfying conclusion, he readily helped me anyway.
What I don't understand is why he doesn't do that now. Now that he does have an explanation — I'm hallucinating nightmares from a fictional website — the explanation isn't good enough. Now that he knows what the problem is, it's like he doesn't want to help it anymore. He wants to judge it instead. And it's not just him, it's everyone. The therapists and doctors and my parents especially. It's not real, so therefore I am crazy. That's all that matters to them. It's the only thing they can see.

3/21/201█
Who am I?
I am God;
According to the Pataphysics banner.
But I'm not
Because I
Haven't written a word of that scripture.

3/31/201█
Haven't written in a while. Something weird happened. Did something weird because of the weird thing.
I burned the last book so I'll have to explain this again. Sometimes I dream about the Foundation instead of hallucinating it. And the dreams? Aren't as bad.
I've had dreams about Zena. 2599, I mean. I dreamed her. The researchers talking to her. The way reality fractaled when she lost control and screamed at them. Knowing, without knowing how I knew, without having to prove it, that the vision-breaking offshoots of a reality bender were more than enough to tear holes through the people supervising her. They were afraid, but they sedated her anyway.
The dreams are also how I found out about Sopdet10 and the Jell-O.11 One dream for each. The second one was much worse, given the anomaly — that was one of the bad dreams. I wasn't hurt, at least, but when I woke up I was miserable and paranoid. Snapped at everyone. Unable to stop thinking about what it had done.
Neither of those are on the website, by the way. I've looked. I've looked everywhere. They don't exist. I don't know why that is.
The best part about the dreams is that they're dreams. I only remember vague details, and sometimes not even that. Nine times out of ten, I don't have to wake up full of horrifying images. I just have to deal with whatever feeling the dream imparted. Usually dread. Paranoia. Sometimes disgust. Rarely, very rarely, if I'm lucky: comfort.
But there's that one out of ten to consider. The dreams I do remember — vividly. On the 21st, after getting down that poem, the one out of ten happened.
Not that I'm complaining, but it was probably the most boring Foundation dream I've ever had. It was from the perspective of a senior researcher. A containment breach had just been discovered; most of the dream consisted of an emergency conference between high-ranking Site staff. Yes, that's right, my subconscious made me sit through a fucking board meeting.
I'm not totally sure what skip it was; they were talking in code the whole meeting, to avoid triggering any cognitohazards. At the beginning, mnestics got passed around — just in case. Apparently, an off-site Unit had gone down. All the data was corrupted, so they had no idea what had actually happened.12 The heads of the board (I don't think they were O5, I can never tell) were mostly just trying to brief the staff on-site. No one was anticipating any immediate solutions.
Afterwards, the researcher I “was” went out into the hallway. In dreams, you don't notice details until they're relevant. I didn't realize I was dreaming her perspective until she walked away from the meeting hall, down a long white corridor, and ducked into a bathroom.
She didn't use it. Went to the mirror instead. Adjusted her hair, washed her hands. Kept looking up at the mirror. Adjusted her coat, her ID badge. Paused at the badge. Looked into the mirror as she reclipped it. Twisted to the side so she could get a good look at how it rested on her breast pocket. And I got a good look, too.
It said:

DR. ANNABELLE KRAKEN
RESEARCHER (CLEARANCE LEVEL 4)

Now here comes the weird part. Like I said, she kept looking at the mirror. But she wasn't looking at her reflection. She was looking at me. I know, without knowing how I know, without having to prove it — I know she saw me.13 She knew I could see her. She knows who I am.
And she wanted me to know who she is, too.

4/1/201█
I know about Pataphysics, of course. I've hallucinated it like anything else. The hallucinations don't follow any sort of pattern or system, at least not in terms of the anomalies. Nothing is off-limits. Tales, SCPs, test logs, joke articles — even a few of the particularly robust author pages. If it's on the website, it's in my head. That seems to be the only rule.
The actual triggers are a bit more specific. I just wish those specifications weren't so easy to achieve.14
I wrote yesterday that I did something weird because of my dream about Kraken. I almost thought I shouldn't write it down. In case I get in trouble for it somehow. But I need to tell someone, and a piece of paper is a good listener.
I made an account.15
Not… for any reason, really. What could I possibly do? Try to sabotage the website to save my own sanity? There's already an SCP about that.16 It won't work. I'm not stupid enough to try.
And anyway… I don't want to. That probably sounds insane. But it's true. Those people. They're happy. Making monsters together, and stuff. Who am I to take that away from them?
After my dream about Kraken, I went and looked her up. But she wasn't there. Not a trace of the name. I even checked the mainsites for other countries. No Kraken. She doesn't exist.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the Pataphysics Department. In that whole mess about Roget17 they talk about targeting a specific swn01-1 in order to plant an idea. I'm not a swn01-1, but I'm close. Maybe that's what Kraken was doing. Targeting me.
It's delusional. The Foundation isn't real. I know.
But…
Well, it's just an account, at any rate. A symbolic gesture. Nothing more.
I exist now.
Hello.

4/8/201█
It's been a weird week. But that's not saying much. “It's been a weird week” for a long time now.
Yesterday was the conclusion of a hallucination that lasted for four days. Never had one go that long before.
I don't really want to write about what happened. I'll start thinking about it a bunch and that might trigger another one. No… No, that will trigger another one. They're so frequent at this point, there's no way it wouldn't.
Basically, the chickens were there.18 And MalO kept sending photos.19 That should be enough to get the point across.
If I check my phone now, there'll be nothing there. I haven't checked yet. I don't want to see the nothing. You can't imagine how depressing the nothing is. Maybe I'll just burn my phone, like I do with the journals. Get a new one. Start over.
No. Can't afford that. Lost my job over a year ago now. I was a secretary at a TV station for a while. Good place to start my life. But the hallucinations had me saying weird things to customers, so they let me go. Ended up at a deli. Refused to get within 30 feet of the toaster.20 They let me go, too.
Now I'm back at my parents because I couldn't afford to keep my place anymore. At least it's better than the asylum. I've convinced them that I'm lucid enough to take care of myself. But if I don't get a job, they're probably going to send me back. And I can't get a job. So, yeah, they're going to send me back. Eventually.
Burn this journal, get a new one, start over. Burn this job, get a new one, start over. Burn this life, get a new one, start over.
It's not a very healthy way to live.
But I don't have much choice these days.
What's funny is… I'm writing all this depressing shit, but since that dream with Kraken… I don't know, it's like I'm detached from it. For four days I hid in my room while my phone kept buzzing with images that didn't exist and my bed was crowded with chicken monsters that also didn't exist. And I… didn't really care. I sort of just… ignored it. Each time I could smell one of those disgusting things, or each time I got a shot of MalO's skullface in my peripherals, I would think of Kraken. I would think of her living in a world where this stuff actually does exist. A world where it could physically stand in front of you and touch you. A world where it could fill your biology with contaminates and viruses and cognitohazards. A world where it could reach inside of your body, or your mind even, and rewrite it with a thought. A world where at any moment, in an instant, you could be killed — and not because you did something wrong, no, but because you did something normal; you bought a toaster, you went upstairs in a control tower, you referred to something by name, you fucking blinked. That's it. That's all it takes. You're dead.
I guess real life is sort of like that, too. You can die doing benign shit. Wrong place, wrong time. When someone dies, it never makes sense. It always feels like a random, senseless, unpredictable, illogical, unfair accident.
Like my car accident was. Like that sleepless night with A████ was.
Maybe that's why they wrote the website this way. The monsters aren't real; they're metaphors for different fears. Fear of the random, senseless, unpredictable, illogical, and unfair. Fear of the violent, cruel, sadistic, gory, and painful. Fear of the dark, endless, encroaching, inevitable, and predestined. Fear of fear. That's the one I have. Fear of fear.
I am afraid of being afraid.
When I was a kid, people would ask me what I was afraid of. Heights? No. The dark? Not really. Bugs? Meh. Death? Only as much as anyone else.
I could never give a good answer to that question. I didn't grow up on horror movies like most kids. My mom hates anything with gore or violence. So we would never watch stuff like that. The first “scary movie” I saw was Nightmare Before Christmas; they were playing it on TV during Halloween when I was seven or so. I thought it was a horror movie. I thought I would get in trouble for watching it. That's how detached I was.
When I started watching it, for what must have been one of the first times in my life, I felt afraid. Properly. Afraid of getting caught, but also… afraid of what might show up on the screen. The longer the movie went on without any blood or jumpscares, the more afraid I became. Anticipating what I falsely believed to be the inevitable. Unsure of how it would make me feel. Unsure of how seeing it might change me.
I didn't finish watching it. In hindsight, maybe we can call that my first mistake.
I'm still deathly afraid of jumpscares. It's so childish. But I won't play games that have them. I fast-forward past them in YouTube videos. I let my fear seize me up.
And I'm afraid of the SCP Foundation, too.
There. That's what I came here to say. I AM AFRAID OF THE SCP FOUNDATION. I am mollified by it. It haunts me. But no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try — no matter how many journals I burn or friends I tell “I'm never reading it again” — no matter what I do, I can't escape it. Because it's inside of me. It's in my dreams and my heart. It's a part of me. Just like my fear is.

The following entry is listed immediately after the previous one in the original document.

10/10/20██
Hello, old friend. We haven't talked in a long time. It's because last time, I finally got what I needed out of you.
But you didn't get what you needed out of me. The end of the story.
I've been doing a lot of research since my last entry. I've read all sorts of things on the site. One article in particular stood out. I'll get to that in a minute.
You're likely wondering about the hallucinations. They haven't gone away. They've gotten much worse. Actually, they don't stop now.
This afternoon, for example, I was walking to the baseball field, and there was a man hunched over at the drinking fountain. As I walked towards him his body suddenly bloated comically, inflating like a fleshy pink balloon, and held its shape for just a moment before exploding in a shower of red viscera.
That's not from a skip, I don't think. The images are so dense that I can't even identify the source material anymore.
But it was fine. I didn't react. I kept my poker face. I stepped back to avoid the curtain of red. And then I kept walking, shoes squishing.
I'm okay, I told myself. I'm fine. I just saw something scary. It's over now.
And somehow, that worked.
When I turned around again, there he was, drinking his water.
This stuff happens constantly now. I keep it down. Background noise. It's hard, but I do it. Because I have a reason to. I have a goal.
One SCP I read was about a person like me, who tries to get into their reality.21 Obviously it goes horrifically wrong. This is the SCP Foundation. There are no happy endings.
Which means mine can't be, either.
Anyway, he does a ritual. Thaumaturgical symbols and all that. It's kept vague, but after so many years of following along at home, it's not hard to put together the missing pieces. I think I've replicated it. Or at least, the instructions for it.
Not for myself, I should clarify. For this journal. This isn't about saving me from my torment — it's about ending it. Plus, they should know. In baseline. They should know what happened to me. They should know, once and for all, that swn01 isn't full of their “Gods” enacting torment on the Foundation from afar — if anything, it's the opposite. They're our Gods. They live inside our heads and give us the images we write into existence. They orchestrate the pieces of the grand design of their universe, and we are little more than pawns in the act. And they hurt us. So much. Just as much as we've hurt them.
It should go without saying that I'm probably about to die.
I'm sitting, now, in a church parking lot just outside my neighborhood. It's night. The pavement is cool and slightly pliant from yesterday's rain; the chalk symbols stick well. I feel that what needs to happen is what's going to happen. In fact, it feels like it's already happened.
The ritual requires a written component — which stands to reason, given the objective. The journal is both the object I am trying to deliver, and the engine that will power its delivery.
For the sake of the thaumaturgy, the contents had to be particular and discerning. Which I hope was obvious. I mean, A████? Living in Arizona? Come on, they would never. They barely lasted the six months back when we were dating. And if I put any of their real information, like their gender, I risked involving them in the spell.22 I just needed a character to bounce dialogue off of. But the important bits all really happened, of course. The car crash. The dream with Kraken. The nightmares. The insomnia. The violent illnesses. And that night when A████ stayed up with me. It was just on Discord instead.
If you're mad, I don't know why. This is how stories work. To paint the whole picture, to create a scene, some details need to be bent. Moments need to be dramaticized. Pregnant pauses need to be added. The timeline of events needs to make sense. No story, reality or otherwise, can perfectly fit these parameters — there must always be some level of adjustment.
In preparing the ritual, I was thinking about this a lot. Whether or not I should be faulted for making changes. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what I was doing was perfectly natural. I'm making an adaptation, after all. I'm taking something that happened to me in real life and adapting it for the Foundation. And as everyone knows, there is no such thing as an adaptation that is a perfect one-to-one with the original. Because every medium has its own vices and limitations. The story must be structured to respect those limitations; if you tried to adapt something exactly to the parameters of the source material, it would be bad. It wouldn't be tailored to the new medium.
Maybe this place, swn01, the one we call reality — maybe it's just another medium. Another way to tell a story. It has the appearance of reality, which gives it authority… but then again, don't most stories have the appearance of reality? You believed this one, after all, up until I told you not to. I believed the Foundation, up until I noticed the rating box. Verisimilitude. Maybe swn01 is nothing more than a masterclass in verisimilitude.
“Just as you have swept through me. Just as I now sweep through you.”
I suppose I ought to finish this up now. I'm done drawing the circles, and I made sure not to talk while I did it. I just need to put the journal in the center.
Oh, one more thing, before I go. Those articles I dreamed, that I couldn't find on the site? Kraken? Turns out, not much of a mystery there.
They simply haven't been written yet.

Addendum: As of 29 Jan 2024 14:21, POI #0023/01's status is unknown.

Footnotes
1. Danielewski, M. Z. (2000). House of Leaves (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
2. An anomalous pataphysical phenomenon in which the same series of events happen in the same time and place, but in two separate narrative constructs.
3. Similarly, Dr. Kraken began experiencing false sensory stimuli of material originating from PoI #0023/01's reality construct; but due to the relatively benign nature of PoI #0023/01's reality, Dr. Kraken was not aware of the anomaly.
4. SCP-2599.
5. SCP-███.
6. SCP-272.
7. SCP-173.
8. SCP-3333.
9. SCP-835.
10. Reference unknown.
11. Reference unknown.
12. SCP-3005.
13. Dr. Kraken has been thoroughly interviewed regarding her involvement. There is no reason to believe POI #0023/01's statements regarding this interaction.
14. Based on document analysis, it is believed that PoI #0023/01's hallucinations could be activated by the following non-exhaustive list of triggers: 1) thinking about the SCP Foundation; 2) viewing the fictional SCP Foundation “database”; 3) overhearing, or participating in, conversation about the SCP Foundation; 4) viewing any image that is also hosted on the fictional “database,” regardless of the actual location of the image upon viewing; 5) seeing the acronym “SCP” in a context that is not relevant to the SCP Foundation; 6) reenacting the events of INK0023; 7) being in the general proximity of the location where INK0023 took place; 8) viewing, entering, or talking about any vehicle of the same model that was used during INK0023; 9) taking any form of medication orally; 10) experiencing a sudden mood whiplash, regardless of whether the change is negative or positive; 11) experiencing a skipped heart beat, due to a startling or unexpected stimuli; 12) experiencing a feeling of dread and/or panic; 13) seeing any human excreta (blood, saliva, semen, sweat, stool, etc.), esp. in the context of an injury or accident; 14) seeing any non-human excreta (as above), esp. in the context of concurrent hallucinations; and, 15) the most frequent trigger, attempting to write an SCP.
15. Identified as Deadcanons.
16. SCP-3309.
17. SCP-3500.
18. SCP-3199.
19. SCP-1471.
20. SCP-426.
21. SCP-2758.
22. Records indicate that “A████” refers to A████ ██████████, [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REMOVED] who has lived in ██████████, Massachusetts their entire life. While they have made several verifiable trips to the Arizona area, they do not live there. Furthermore, records reveal that their assigned gender at birth [SENSITIVE INFORMATION REMOVED]


Contains themes of transphobia.
The woman holds on to the back of her husband with wet, porcelain hands. Her whole body is shaking. They sit at the edge of the bathtub, surrounded by empty soap bottles, razorblades, and well-worn vanity magazines. Her head is buried in his chest so he can't see the bright red shame on her face. He feels warm and rough like leather. His arms are wrapped tightly around her waist, pulling her closer and closer to him until they're nearly chest-to-chest. Tears begin to form in the woman's eyes.
She wishes she had worn a bra, but she remembers she doesn't own one — she was too scared to buy any. There are no clothes in her closet, only malformed pieces of fabric that make her want to vomit whenever she puts them on. The thought dredges up a bad memory, one from when she was a kid. Her father had forced her to wear a tight leather jacket to school. She remembers how all of her female classmates looked upon her with lust in their eyes, how all of her male classmates started talking to her like a real human being. She hated it. She hates it even more now.
The man can't resist his curiosity anymore and looks down at her legs. They're covered in a thick blanket of hair, coarse and thick like a forest of black trees. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine her as a woman with legs like that. Guilt sets in when he realizes that he can't. God dammit. He hates his brain, how stubborn it is, how stupid it is. He tells himself that this woman is a different person now, but that does little to assuage those thoughts in his head.
She says that she wants him to start, and after a moment of hesitation, he nods.
The bathroom is silent as he turns on the epilator and watches the loud, buzzing blades spin. He presses it against her skin at the base of her leg. A mixture of excitement and pain fills the air as he begins to drag it up. Fuck, no, he's doing it wrong. There's no gentleness to his touch, no love in his strokes. He splits three, four, fives hairs in half without extracting a single one. The woman sucks in sharp, painful breaths and tries to suppress the pain.
She can't control it anymore. Tears fall down her face as she tells him to stop, that it hurts too bad. The man's face becomes flooded with guilt as the epilator slips from his hand onto the floor. He lets go of her leg. He doesn't feel worthy to do this. He doesn't even feel worthy to be here right now. He turns to leave and gets halfway to the door when she calls him back. Gritting her teeth, biting her tongue, she asks him to stay. She asks him to try again. She needs him to understand this; he needs to know what this feels like.
He flashes a weak smile at her.
It's better this time. The epilator glides across her calf, moving all the way up to her knee then back down to her foot. He's gentle and kind, and it makes the pain feel bearable, even a little sweet. She caresses his head, twirling his hair with her fingers, when something inside her begins to doubt. Is this really helping him understand? When he describes her to his friends after this, will he still call her handsome like he used to? Does he still love her like he used to? She knows she's still the same person he loved beneath the name and the makeup. At least, she really hopes she is.
She gazes into his chestnut eyes as he finishes, trying to peer into his mind. He doesn't know how to feel. He can't tell whether this act, this small intimate moment between he and his partner was enough to change him. He doesn't know if he still loves her or not, and he's too afraid to find out.
Her legs are soft now. They're clear save for a few red spots that'll disappear with time. However, the woman can't shake the feeling that this whole ordeal was for nothing. No matter what she does, he will never understand her. Goddammit, she hates this. She feels so cheated. If love is as strong as everybody says it is, then how can it be destroyed by a name and a dress? If love is so strong, then how can it die in just from a few months of conflict? If love is so fucking strong, then how can he promise to love her for the rest of his life and then sit here and break that promise not one year later? Was that promise even real? Or is she just such a different person now that he can't uphold that promise anymore? She doesn't know, but she wants to. She really, really wants to.
When she finally accepted herself, when she embraced the woman she truly was, it felt like a part of her had died and another had taken its place. She had been reborn with nothing but bad memories and a good heart. When she and her husband had first locked eyes, it was like they could see into each other's soul. Now, they see nothing but the lifeless face of their marital partner. What happened to them?
The man tells himself that the man he married, the man he hugged and kissed and loved, was sitting right there in front of him. He's cold and he's terrified, but he's happy. Is she actually happy? He moves in to kiss her, but he doesn't feel anything. It's like cutting his tongue with a knife. She needs to speak to him and explain some things and he needs to listen and understand and use whatever empathy he has left in his skull. Fuck. His head feels empty. They need a middle ground somewhere, anywhere. They need to meet for the first time again.
Then the couple embrace, and they find that meeting.
In each other's arms, their thoughts disappear and are replaced with a silent language. They listen to the other's heartbeats for what feels like hours, neither having to utter a single word. All they need to do is love each other, so they do. They sit at the edge of the bathtub, holding each other tight. The night is cold and dark, but in that small bathroom, it feels warm. She whispers into his ear.
I feel so warm with you.


A ROUNDERHOUSE Joint

Coming Soon - Rounderhouse

▸ More by this Author ◂

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F.A.Q.

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The words had barely left Tilda's lips before both figures vanished from the interrogation chamber. Tilly closed her eyes as the warm light enveloped her.

She opened them again. They were standing on the side of a brilliantly green hill in a deep valley, while the orange glow of dusk settled. The snake-woman next to her was still smoking the cigarette as if nothing had happened.
"Where are we?"
"You tell me."
She looked up. In the distance, she could see the contours of a city, but no city on Earth looked like this. It was gleaming white as the sunset reflected off massive panes of glass. Spiralling skycrapers served as trellises for snaking vines meters wide. Overhead, white machines shaped like teardrops and the size of teardrops shot through the sky.
"Well, we're not on Earth."
"Mmm… technically incorrect. It's Earth, alright. But a different reality than you're from. A better one, most would say."
"What's the difference?"
"No containment. Anomalies are known to the public. Their magic has been… integrated into society. Disease and suffering is largely a relic of the past."
"That's impos-"
"You know it isn't."
Tilly looked at the city, glittering in the dusk. It was too far away to pick out people, but there was an obvious aura of movement to it. The city wasn't just alive, it was happy.
"They seem to believe it's possible."
She tore her eyes away from the structures and they settled on two figures uphill. A man in a labcoat the same as hers, and a small tabby cat sitting next to him. Tilly began trudging uphill.
"Sstop."
She looked behind her. 6000-A was looking at her as it continued in its hissing manner.
"This is not your ssstory. You are jussst an observer here, ssame as I in yours."
"So we're in a story?"
"Everyone's in a ssstory, Tilda. This one just had a happier ending. The boon companions reunited and the world was free to ssseek its own fate. Not bad, all things conssidered."
She looked up at the pair. They were laughing as they exchanged an unheard conversation. Then, for a moment, the man blanched and stared at his feline companion before relaxing and both collapsed into giggles. The empty bottles next to them explained a bit of their story.
"So, why? Why are we here, if I can't speak with any of them?"
"Well, we can always go somewhere else."

The island was doused with an impenetrable atmosphere. Everything was grey, crushingly so. The stormy sky was grey, the sea was all rageful grey waves crashing on a rocky grey shore. The grass crumbled to ashes beneath Tilly's boots.
In the distance, the anomaly jutted above the horizon. It was some sort of tower - smooth, featureless, impenetrable. It made for a stark contrast against the dreary cloudline.
"What is it?"
"Nobody really knowsss. The island can't be reached unless you're looking for it. And the Foundation has had… difficulties, in investigating it."
Tilly started. "The Foundation? I don't remember anything like this ever coming across my desk."
"That's because it didn't. Once again, a different story. Maybe this story doesn't have a Tilda Moose, or maybe she's still a member of the Serpent's Hand."
Moose was silent. The rain came slow and light, in a drizzle.
"In any case, no, this story and yours never intersssected. Doesss that bother you?"
"No. Why would it?"
It was silent. It matched pace with her brisk walk, slithering across the brittle blades of grass.
There were two men standing in front of it, dressed typical to Foundation researchers. A gap opened in the side of the structure, and one disappeared into it. The rain continued to come down.

The pair stood in the corner of the shadowy meeting hall. In the center, 13 people sat at a circular table, illuminated from above.
"What's- Oh, shit, is that-?"
"Yes. The Council. Not your council, or even the council you're on."
"What?"
"Oh, yes. In some of these stories you would be on the O5 Council. Difficult to believe, isn't it?"
".. Not really, honestly. Is this some Ghost of Christmas Future nonsense? Showing me what could've been?"
The Council seemed to be voting on something. Tilly caught a few stray words - the fate of a prisoner. Someone called O5-0. Lots of yelling at someone who appeared to be One. It was a blur.
"No-"

"- None of this ever could've been. These stories ran parallel to ours, you see."
Now they were in a flat countryside. A rocky prairie. In the distance, simple thatch huts dotted between simple farms, and people dressed in simple linens carrying crops and tools between them.
"This doesn't seem so bad at all."
"This is Daevastan. A country resulting from a catastrophic containment breach of SCP-140."
"They seem awfully peaceful for Daevites."
"Your view of the Daeva was… misinformed, to say the least. Or not yours - this Foundation's."
The wind wafted over them, billowing Tilly's labcoat. Distantly, she heard music on the wind - a string orchestra, playing something that seemed familiar. It made her sad.
"For stories, these feel awfully real."

"Now you understand how I feel. I'm an outsider to your story, as you are to these."
They floated in a dark void.
"What is this, three-double-oh-one?"
"Not quite so depressssing."
They were falling, she realized, not floating. Then they stopped, and before them floating a titanic red sphere. Covered in some sort of fluid - it dripped down the sides, dripping, dripping. It glowed with the same eerie red light, casting the shadow of the young woman in MTF gear standing in front of it.
"The understanding that you can't change what's about to happen to these people, but that there's always something to move on to, no?"
"… Yeah."

They remained like that for some time, jumping from story to story. A cavern underground with a demon hanging from a tree. Another tree - this time a gigantic seqouia in California's redwood forests. A forest clearing in Cascadia as it poured rain, turning the ground to mud. Carnegie Hall, its interior turned into the setting for an epic nautical play. Pillars of purple in the Amazon, and a window in a cell in Site-17. Countless, countless others, all that deserve to be remembered.
"You understand now, don't you?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Then let's go."
6000-A let the cigarette stub fall to the ground. Tilda squashed it with her boot. And then they left.


« Where There is Desire There is Gonna Be a Flame | Where there is a Flame Someone is Bound to get Burned | But Just Because it Burns Doesn't Mean You're Gonna Die »

"Get the CT Scan ready!"
Warm stickiness matts the hair of Queen Hege Aquailian: blue eyes half open, flickering, unfocused; breaths escaping clenched teeth.
"Blood pressure is dropping, pupils dilated and unfocused."
The wheels of the gurney roll over the uneven rise and dips of black and white tiles. Slight bumps and jostling prompting tiny shoots of stinging pain through her mind.
"She's still bleeding!"
"Get more pressure on that wound, and fresh dressing!"
Voices both known and unknown swim into and out of focus, as an endless hallway stretches out from where her head is propped up. Like pendulums, lamps swing back and forth overhead. Too much noise. It's impossible to focus.
"Get an IV ready."
Her eyes roll in their sockets. Short, staggered breaths escape between clenched teeth, heart thumping loudly in the Finnwoman's emaciated chest. A still lamp, brighter than the pendulums overhead, looms menacingly as she is wheeled closer. It mocks her, whispering in her mind. Unworthy.
"She's lost a lot of blood, we need a donor. Are any of you compatible with her?"
Half formed letters and thoughts tumble in an incongruent stream, her mind unable to conceptualize, solidify them into something, anything sensible. A soft whimper escapes her dry lips.
"I am."
Brynhild's voice.
A face appears in that horrid lamp, Skreyja. His beam hones in like a spotlight, enveloping the entire hallway.
Perish!
Yellow flashes chew into the fabric of reality all around her, the hallway, the tiles, incinerating them all. Then she is incinerated.

Except she wasn't. Time ticked backwards, not in seconds, but years, hundreds of them. The spotlight streamed in reverse; reality reforming.
Incinerating light retreated along an unlit familiar long tunnel. The whispering incandescence fled before something imperceptible, something older than old. In its wake it left swinging pendulums, dimly illuminating the darkness.
Quiet whispers beat against her skull like war timpanies.
"We've done many things, but this may be too far."
"You are thinking about it too? If this is discovered, Skreyja's head will not be the only one to roll."
"Our brothers already died in her fire. Are we next?"
"Seal your lips. Do you wish to end up like her?"
Singed flesh stung, singing out over the sharp and foggy pain of a cognitive ice storm. Hege's limp legs dragged along the ground. Strong arms wrapped underneath her armpits. Dazed, vision pirouetting, her battered body shivered in the damp and cold air of the tunnels.
"Imbeciles. Ingrates. I told them we needed her alive. I told them we needed her as a puppet, that I needed to save her from the fire." Icy cold fleshy fingers pushed her chin up, and a lime green blob distorted by twisting sight appeared. "Argr! We'll be lucky if she can even speak!"
THWUMP SMACK. One of the arms supporting her fell away. Before she could fall, another arm took its place. The meaty reverberations of a body hitting the floor echoed through her skull.
"Should we seek a healer, your grace?"
The Finnwoman's stomach flipped, the pain, the noise too much. Acidic vomit burned in Hege's esophagus, before splattering on the ground, horrific twisting of her guts ejecting any pleasantness of the previous meal.
"And risk them figuring out what has happened? Fool! Do not speak further if you cannot think."
A long pause then, silence. Welcoming stillness, a quiet reprieve for the princess.
Her eyes squeezed shut, hiding from the sneer of the lime-green demonic face as he turned back to face her.
"Look at me you ungrateful worm." Cold and slimy fingers pried open her swollen eyelids. The distant spotlight burned her vision. It moved closer, consuming a pendulum lamp. It framed the awful face as terror surged through her gut.
"All you had to do was come with me and you would have lived. Unbelievable, stupid child. Born into luxury and spends all her time on what? Books." Cold saliva splattered against scorched scales. "Could you have been more worthless?"
A whimper escaped her smoke-burnt lungs.
"Pathetic. Lock her away." Brief silence. "Now, before I toss you all out into the cold seas!"
And so they dragged her. Toward the demonic spotlight, leaping closer with every passing step. A screeching dissonance rang through her soul, warping through her skull. Pathetic!
The ravenous yellow light yearned to consume her; to torture her. It sheered away everything. Uncaring and cruel.
Die already!

But she doesn't. Time ticks forward. Seconds. Hours. Years. Hundreds of years. The demon screeches, retreating. Something large, something older than old just beyond perception. But it's weaker now.
And he knows it. Demons linger in the fluorescent lights, a thousand voices screeching against the walls of her skull. Worthless!
Stop. Her eyes screw shut.
"Lift on 1, into the machine. 3. 2. 1!" Motion spurs swimming agony as strained eyes open into the intense brightness of many lamps. All shine their spotlights down onto her face. Electricity crackles through her skull as a quiet and pained cry escapes her lips.
"IV drip status?"
"Hold on, Hege." A whisper now, and a soothing familiar touch that anchors her, however briefly, through the madness and haze.
"Blood pressure rising. No sign of negative reaction."
"Your Majesty, if you can hear me, this is Dr. Sherry Andrews. We're going to be running a CT scan to see how hurt you are. You're going to need to stay really still."
The words jumble through her mind, as she grasps at comprehension, and yet fails to hold onto them. Thoughts bring agony. Another small whimper.
Mechanical whirring roars, more dizzying motion as she slides away from the torturous cruel lamps into the interior… and all relief is instantly banished as the horrible massive spotlight laughs cruelly in her face. With many voices the demon screams, "Die! Die! Die!" all the while laughing. Blind terror builds in her chest.
"What… what on earth is that?!"
A scream tears from inside her lungs, but the tables are turned. Everything burns away. Streams of incinerating fire roar from every orifice as Aldrnari sears into the scales of her flesh.
"Holy shit, turn it off! Turn it off!"
Mechanical screeching, metal screams, horrible grinding in her mind.

In one last futile effort, her eyes slam shut, desperate to escape. But there is no relief. There is no escape. Death has come.

Or maybe it should have. Maybe it should have taken her there and then in the long tunnel.
Maybe it should have taken her as her vision swirled like a spinning top. Maybe it should have swept her away in the cold and dark of the dimly lit tunnel. Maybe it should have come as her lungs burned. As her head is split by searing pain from multiple blows. Perhaps as the scream bounced from wall to wall worming its way down the tunnels, it should have consumed her.
But it didn't.
"Beiskaldi, shut your miklimunnr!" The anger-tinged voice of the demon. The lime green blob swam back into view, moving rapidly.
Hard metal impacted against the princess' abdomen, her breath stolen, scream silenced. SMACK. SMACK. SMACK. Again, and again they come, the taste of blood welled against her tongue. It dripped hot from her chin.
"Your Grace, she cannot handle this." Crack. The princess's chest burnt with agony. Shallow, stuttered breaths desperately grabbed for oxygen. Bloody coughs spattered against the floor.
"In the chamber." Hazy vision threatened complete darkness as she fought for consciousness. Pointing, maybe? Hesitance, a delay. "Are your ears clogged with 'weed?! NOW!"
"Your Grace, you have injured her too severely for her to survive the night."
"And? Have you forgotten the library was burned in her known reading hour? It matters not if she lives, she is already dead in the eyes of the people." Eyelids fluttered, dizziness, brain fading.
"What if she lives my lord?"
"She won't. She doesn't deserve it."
Skreyja's vile breath beat against her brow. A stinging, vibrant pain raptured into her abdomen. Cold, icey, cruel parting of flesh. Alien freezing metallic sensation, pushed deeply into soft tissues. It twisted. It violated her. It created an orifice that wasn't meant to be.
A wound.
A deep wound.
A fatal wound.
A knife.
Covered with blood, her blood.
"Now throw her in there or I'll throw you in her place."
The door opened, dim light leaking through, blood dripped in a stream. Then there's motion. She was spinning, flying even? No, there was gravity. A THUD was anticipated.

A single thought cuts through the concussion of her fading consciousness. This is where I die.
No.

No thud comes. No solid impact. No further jostling of broken ribs, burnt flesh, perforated internal organs. SPLASH. Instead, Princess Hege Aquailian plunged through the floor, the very stones literally turning to fluid on contact. Warmth spread through chest, her gut, the haze of concussed nerves fading like a retreating fog.
This is wrong.
Shakily, her hands drift down to the deep ugly knife wound, flesh and scale miraculously weaving together right in front of her.
I refuse to play by the rules of this game any longer.
Exhausted, the princess drifts into and out of consciousness, sinking through the fluid of the former floor. An ephemeral glow dances around her battered and burnt form, vibrant green against the clear blue of the surrounding liquid.
I have shirked them once, I shall do so again.
Colorful shapes swirl through the dim light. Creatures, long and spindly, short and fat with many fins, tentacles, whiskers, shrimp with many legs, crabs with the body of dolphins and sea slugs, impossibly alien things dance around through the ocean of astral liquid. Distant stars blink into existence, galaxies of golden sheen far far away.
Chains may bind my body, but they do not bind my heart.
Nebulas of pink and purple and greens dance into view, shaping into a familiar form, a Mother and Child before the pillars of Heaven.
A moral code is nothing if the other players do not abide by them.
Gently, her motion comes to a halt as large writhing appendages wrap around her finned legs. She's stunned; the pillars of Heaven approach and truly reveal reality.
I was foolish to think that I was above them for doing so.
Fingers the size of planets outstretch as Hege is set gently into a grey skinned, starlit palm that would dwarf the largest stars. Impossibly huge, and yet scale doesn't seem to matter. Hege dwarfs a nearby swirling gas-giant with many selenium rings spinning in a bright neon thunderstorm.
They care not for the small and lovely things in this existence.
The pillars of eternity draw her through liquid starfields, winged colorful whales twirling through the liquid before swerving off towards a great forest of pink astral weeds.
I will not let them take anymore. I will not lose another to the uncaring tide of this world that the nine wrought.
Swirling faded teal and blue tattoos dance across the arm as it comes to a halt before an immense figure, trapped between many bent and swirling disks of inwards sucking darkness surrounded by gas. Event horizons leak great horrible black chains, pinning the being in place. Flesh sizzles and burns where the chains wrap.
Child of my heart.
Four terrible yet kind golden orbs regard the cosmically tiny Hege. Scrunched brow and pursed lips turn to compressed shoulders, and wide terror, scooting back in the enormous palm as the Princess attempts to make herself as small as possible. The Entity before her shifts back and forth continuously from a many armed impossibly tall humanoid shape to undulating mass of infinite claws, tentacles, eyes, hearts, and mouths embedded in grey star-tinted flesh, all writhing beneath dark and undulating black chains.
Look at what they have done to us.
Another arm, one of many, burns from the chains but rises and descends slowly, a single digit extended. Hege scoots as far back along the cupped palm as she can. Collision with the starry flesh of the pillars of eternity brings her to a halt.
Do not frighten her! You have to explain everything gently, she's just been through hell.
She is not ready.
She'll never be ready if we don't tell her, if we don't prepare her.
It matters not, she will not remember.
But one day she will. Then it will matter. So do it.
The cosmic unknowable stops. There is hesitation. She speaks, with a voice unheard in an eon, permeating every corner of Hege's soul. A call. Nostalgic. A longing for a place and a time she does not know, and will not remember.
"Child, I am that which is both known and unknown. I am the Mother, the protector, the starry sea in an unending loving sky. Do not be afraid."
Talk to her normally, like an equal. She is a child, but she understands.
I will talk to her as the child she is.
Teardrops of joy streak Hege's scaled cheeks. "The Mither." Slowly, she rises, knees trembling. Webbed fingers brace against the wall of sparkling, starry flesh as support.
Four unreadable yet warm and welcoming golden eyes sink down. The goddess's hand rises, through dusty nebulas, shattering spinning rocks and icy comets into many fragments. Motion of the rising palm nearly flings the Princess onto her back. She clings to the closest of the five pillars of eternity, hunched against the pulsing flesh. And then, it stops, palm resting even with the base of a smooth chin. Jaw half open, she scans the gargantuan face. In turn, The Mither's stare pierces through the princess, examining every detail, every contusion of her soul.
You're terrifying her, no fast motions.
Quiet, resonant seconds tick past. Awkward almost fails to describe the feeling, as an incomprehensible, imminent primordial being found herself lost for words.
Say something, talk to her.
"Hello."
Not quite what I meant, but it's a start.
On the other hand Hege Aquailian was no better, but for vastly different reasons. She simply stood there, staring. Standing on the palm of a cosmic being, so vast and incomprehensible would break most lower beings. Hege Aquailian was certainly no lower being, but even she struggles to not shatter.
"Come child, I sense your questions. Ask them."
"You-you are The Mither?" the Princess asks. She steps forward on aching legs, eyes wide with awe.
"That is a name given to me by your kind, and it is not inaccurate. It is acceptable."
Doesn't she deserve honest, complete answers?
The goddesses' eyes close. Your interference is disruptive. Be silent.
Hege glances around, biting into her lower lip. "Where am I? Is-Is this the astral plane?"
"You rest in the place between, that from which all magic pours, and unto which all magic returns. Astral plane is one such term that many call this place."
Her cheek scales ripple as quiet realization dawns. "Have I passed, my body failed me, and drifted beyond life into the film between material and astral? Is this the plunge? Is this the judgement which the holy song speaks of?"
Do you see now?
She straightens, sucking in a breath, and trying to stand tall, contrasted by tears welling in her sky blue eyes. "Have you come to show me the path to the gates of Eynhallow and the crystal city of Finnfolkaheem?"
She thinks she's dead. Comfort her.
Why? What makes you care about this one above all others? Why does she get that extra effort?
I—
The goddess's emotionless expression softens, galaxy sized jaws mechanically work, faded black lips opening and closing multiple times. "That is not your fate."
Why would you say it like that? Why would you present it so cruely?
"What?"
"The gates of Eynhallow remain closed to you."
Damn you, show some compassion!
Teardrops spill over and down trembling scaled cheek, off her chin. A moment, stunning silence. "Why?" A quiet gasp, as she glances down at her hands. "Am I judged unworthy? I-I… did I fail my people? Am I being punished for being too weak?" And then more quietly, "Do I-I not deserve to know, really know, my Mother?"
There's a long pause, unfeeling expression unmoving. The Mither breaks eye contact, and looks to one side. Locks of sweeping hair burning with crimson starlight shatter a gas giant that ventures too close. "No child. Your worth has no bearing on this matter."
This is not what she needs.
"Then why!? Why are you keeping me here after I have perished? Why will the gates not open for me?" She looks up at the Mother of All Krakens, the skin beneath her scales shifting to a bright red from crying, mixing with the yellow of her scales to produce a stout orange.
"Because death is not your immediate fate. Perhaps on a day beyond my hindered sight, but that day is not this day." She turns back to face the princess. "You yet live, and I can rend no judgement on those who live embedded with my power."
stop
"I still draw breath?" There's a long pause, lips pursed, scaled brown wrinkled, confusion dancing through bloodshot eyes. "W-w-why? I was stabbed… burnt, beaten. I should not be alive… and if I am, why am I here?" Hege looks down at her hands again, shaking.
Stop.
"You are burdened with a great and terrible destiny. Your death was not meant to be here or now." Another arm, less chained than the others, gestures broadly, sweeping through galaxies and sending stars scattering like dust on the wind. "You are here and not here. You have been here many times before. And you will come many more. You are not yet ready to remember them. You slip into this realm as you sleep and when you are hurt beyond all reason."
STOP! You're hurting her!
The great being closes her eyes.
Ah, I see it now. You've done it again. You interfered. You copulated. You hath wrought this one before me.
Yes. I did what was necessary. I did it because I want for more. I want to feel what they feel. And I understand why they feel, while you don't. This is how we break free. This is what you threw me across the stars to do.
You sow suffering by creating these beings. She is of their flesh, their blood, but my heart and soul. She will do as you say. She will free Pangloss from her scarlet wrought prison. She is a breaker of chains, who will slay the spire and the chainmaker in his cowardly hole. But she will suffer. She must suffer to do these things, and she must do it alone. This is what you have done, and you must not interfere further.
Why won't you listen? Are… we even the same?
Because you indulge these childish games. In pranks, and pointless illusions. You must learn.
The goddess's breath sucks inwards, and she trembles, the palm on which Hege stands vibrates, nearly knocking her off her feet. Her head leans back, body straining against the chains. The greyed skin brightening, dark greens and bright swirling reds of a gaseous nebulae pouring vibrant pigment into her chest.
No.
What are you doing?!
A cosmic hand grasps at her chest, her body undulating. A shape, illuminated against the pigment rocketing outwards into many limbs. A heart beats where one was not before. 12 gazes all rotate. 12 gazes turn in their direction. They felt it.
You have lost your way.
Nine were afraid.
You can't. You're too weak! St-stop!
One felt joy. One felt rage. One felt a game beginning.
No It is you who is weak. I listened to you. It was your advice when I—no, we lost them both, our love and our child. It was your advice when we sacrificed them to seal him underneath the Orkney sky. You had your chance, and now it's time for you to go.
The pigment spreads into the goddesses' head, subsuming every part of her.
You won't win without me.
Watch me.
Hege retreats along the palm, terror and despair in her eyes. Shaky legs collapse beneath her, as the princess falls to her knees. "I-I don't want it." Her voice breaks. "Please.. don't send me back."
The Mither's eyes open, softer, glimmering with a gentle kindness and understanding. "I know."
"There's nothing left there. Mom. Dad. My books and scrolls. I have nothing left. Nothing to live for. Please." The golden scaled princess looks at her shaking hands. "Please just let me die. Let me go."
It's not often that one gets the rare opportunity to see a goddess cry. Cherish this one.
"I'm sorry child, I truly am. I let her hurt you. I will never forgive myself.
"Please." Hege says quietly, weeping. "Let me go."
"I'm so sorry. I wish I could have been here sooner. I wish you could know sooner. In time you will have so much. You have so little idea of what is to come. Often, it will seem impossible to continue. Just know that I will be there. I will be in here." A gentle finger prods her chest.
Clicks. Shifting flesh. Screeches in the darkness, the great being looks up and out into the infinite swirling color voids.
The coward is coming with more chains. Tears which could fill entire oceans spill down the cosmic face, and when she speaks the voice of Queen Astrid the Wise resonates. "Even if you must remain ignorant until the time is right, I won't abandon you again. I won't abandon my daughter. But right now, I have to send you back alone. I'm so sorry."
The great being leans her head forward, as Hege's eyes widen in shock. In a soft and broken voice, the princess manages, "Mom?"
Teal lips contact Hege's forehead. The entire universe seems to throb around her. Every nerve in her body fires at once. It is like her soul and her mind are jerked forward, just clear of her body, before being violently thrust back inwards.
The astral void around the hapless princess throbs again, a sharp gasp of breath drawing inwards. Shifting tattoos worm down from her forehead, across her scaled flesh, whirling, undulating, shifting from blue to green in a river of teal fluorescence. Down, out, across every inch of scaled flesh, jutting into her eyes which ripple with golden luminescence. The world tilts on its side as the young Finnwoman collapses, everything going black.

Hege.
Consciousness did not return easy. You can't really blame it, not when the reality its owner returns to is filled with throbbing agony and utter darkness.
Wake up Hege.
A gentle touch against the princess' cheek, as if it is being cupped. Small waves of warmth slowly wash over her. Congealing around the pain, focusing on it.
I'm here. Everything will be ok.
An Ethereal figure hovers in the darkness. Guarding. Protecting.
Streaking hot pulsations from a freshly carved orifice in her belly. Flesh shifts inside, reliving the events in reverse.
Just call for me.
It remembers the cold metal that violated her, remembers the shape and how it twisted.
And I will come.
Axons scream as flesh stitches back together.
Every rise and fall of her chest brings a fresh quivering wave of stuttered and pained coughs.
Shattered and bruised ribs reform. Remembering the metal rod that fractured them, and the shape they had before.
Rest for a little while. You've earned it.
She lies there, drifting into a light and fitful slumber…

Two loving people, complimentary crowns on their head, stood with you beneath a great tree underneath a starry corundum sky. You held two hands, one soft but strong. The other worn, but firm.
"Someday my little scholar. Someday we'll get to see them. The real stars."
"But Móðir, I can already see the stars." You said, glancing up at your mother, obscured by the glowing lights of the stars.
A quiet chuckle from your right. "Astrid, darling. I think she is too young to understand."
"You are never too young to learn love. That's the joy of living." The taller figure kneeled down to be level with the princess, with you. "We live underneath an illusory sky little one. One day, you'll get to see what our ancestors saw. I can feel it." Her eyes were a striking gold. Just for a moment, but enough to remember. "Remember, I will always love you."
The world seemed to swirl like a matte painting, and then they were in a field. On a blanket. Biting into seagrain sandwich's packed with giant lysterian crab meat and kelp.
Muffled chatter obscured by a sudden hazy fog as the vibrant pinks and yellows and blues drain away. The taller figure collapses. A crown rolls down the hill, wedging in the rocks.
The lines and definition of the world swirled away, and new lines swirled in, like fresh paint being applied on a canvas. You were in a grim place. Hone from hallowed crystal. Seated in a chair, dark and uncomfortable.
A solemn looking Finnwoman had approached, and entered the room in which you weren't allowed. They tried to hide it from you. But you knew, didn't you?
"Is there anything you can do?"
"I'm sorry Your Majesty." Then everything was muffled, as the canvas was drawn blank again, the world swirling away.
And then it swirled back again, in the palace kitchens. Skreyja, unattended, gently applying something to a Sandwhich.

She drifts back into lucidity like a leaf falling into water, slowly. Jumbled dreams stuck in the back of her mind.
It's damp and the scent of mold, stale air, and ancient dirt permeate the blackness.
Water drips not far away, in perhaps a corner?
In the near total blackness, a small hole in the ceiling leaks the tiniest bit of dim light, just enough to trick her eyes into thinking they can adjust.
I'm alive?
Minutes tick by or maybe it is hours? Who could say? She lay there, remembering. Processing. Hot tears welled in her eyes, wakefulness providing the starkness of her reality.
H-h-how?
Shakey webbed hands trace her abdomen. Down, past the layered flesh of her chest gills, her hands trace over the ugly, but rapidly healing scar. A wince accompanied Hege's quiet sobs.
He stabbed me.
The wound burns, the unnatural orifice that was there before lingering in the memory of angry nerves. She allows her hands to slide back down to rest on the ground. Laying there, processing.
Why am I alive? I should have died three times now.
Gentle warmth pools in the princess' muscles. Her mouth is cotton dry. Biting back more tears, she gently grips at the ground, staring up at the distant dim light.
Get it together. You-you'll think of something. Water. Need water.
Tensing the muscles of her arms and legs, she gathers strength.
C'mon. You need to move.
With great difficulty, the princess manages to roll, biting her lip hard to suppress a cry as her muscles and bones scream. With belly on the floor, the healing knife scar gives an angry reminder of its existence. She bites her lower lip in exasperation.
There will be a way out. There always is.
Arduously supporting herself aching fingertips, the Finnwoman manages to push herself up into a kneeling position. The burning palpitations of the scar in her abdomen dull. The princess pauses. She takes a moment to breathe, regain limited strength.
There'll be a way to escape. There always are in stories. Right?
Extending her hands, she traces through the darkness in the direction of the dripping water. The motion drags sluggish knees along the harsh pebbled ground scraping them.
But what if there isn't?
Her fingers contact dampness after several minutes of methodical scraping. A small, almost assuredly disgusting pool of befouled liquid has congealed in the corner. Slime sticks between her digits as her hand dips in experimentally.
What if he planned this?
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He… he poisoned mom.
Droplets of water impact her head. She tilts back.
The tiny hole in the ceiling is a vent, leading up to an indescribably distant source of light. And water.
She opens her mouth as the drops continue to come, and adjusts, catching the cool liquid as it falls. Refreshing and cool, it prompts another wave of tears.
Did he plan all this?
She gently turns, allowing drops of water to splash against her hair. Tired digits trace along the ground until she scrapes against a wall. Turning, she presses up against it, and slides to the floor, to rest. Just for a moment.

Watercolor paint brushed across a canvas, stroking into definition the gleaming crystal halls of the palace. The Princess— no, you walked away from the ornately decorated doors of her Fathers chambers.
"Good evening Magister." Rang your voice in the politest tone manageable.
Skreyja Hologata regarded you, thinly veiled contempt leaking into his expression. "Princess." Guards flanked him. They nervously regarded Your Majesty.
But you didn't notice. How could you? The next design had been right there, swirling around right before your eyes. A darkness descended on the hallway. Hushed maliciousness swirling through the watercolor.
You paused, having just walked past him. Something clicked. You hadn't been paying close enough attention. You'd just barely missed it. Arms behind his back, a syringe quickly concealed as you turned, hidden beneath the sleeves.
"A little late to be seeking an audience with Father, Magister?"
"A very important but short matter Princess. I will not keep him long, I promise."
Colors drain from the canvas, as the lines fade into nothingness.
And then fresh strokes pour in, as defined lines form the interior of your father's study. Papers displaced onto the floor, a lamp knocked over, books upended. A struggle had taken place. On the floor, the limp form of the king lay.
"Majesty no, Majesty please you must stay bac—"
"Let me through damn you! He's my father!" You pushed past the guard, knocking his trident away and flew to the collapsed man on the rug next to the expansive desk. You lifted his head, you cradled it, whispering his name. It was for nought. "No… no not again. Father. Father! Please… please don't go."
Tears of despair washed out the color and lines of a Smokey canvass.
Bitter dark colors flow in like a river, draping lines of a rain soaked field on a grassy hill. Dressed in black you stood. Two urns, one in each arm. You set one down, tears drowned out by the rain. Muffled words, prayers of departure left your lips. The ashes scattered into a multi-color dreamscape, the thaumaturgic essence released in one last swirling watercolor display of life's celebration. And there, there you realized how alone you were.

Consciousness returned with the quiet murmur of a babbling stream. She sat there, against the wall, lost in a thousand memories, all connected over a short and painful lifetime.
He poisoned Dad. Murdered both of them. She would sink lower into the floor if she could.
Slowly, using the wall as support, she repositions on her knees.
I should have seen it. How could I have been so blind.
Webbed fingers trace against stone, chipped and worn from time. Slowly, and with her body protesting at every motion, she scuffles along the perimeter of the cell.
He must have maneuvered everything to seize control. I was so lost in my books. So deep in my inventions. I didn't put the pieces together.
Her leg slams into a metal post, prompting a series of quiet and exasperated, colorful curses.
How could you be so oblvious, so blind Hege. I failed them. I failed everyone.
Tired fingers trace the post, revealing the frame of a cot, a thin and barely passable mattress laid across the metal grid. Working up the strength to overcome the residual aches and cold, Princess Hege Aquailian lifts her battered body onto the cot, nearly collapsing from the effort.
Even if I were to escape, to get out, who would help me? He'll replace the council. He'll replace the Astashin Guard.
It takes time for her to recover from the exertion. Scooting back, she uses the corner as leverage to sit, pulling her legs up and into her body for warmth.
There'll be no-one left. Quiet realization settles in her stomach. He— he took everything I had left. A quiet and strangled gasp escapes yellow lips. Slamming her eyes shut, the princess only just barely suppresses the urge to roll over right there and die.
A sharp breath fills her lungs and a fourth round of rivulets run down her face, chest vibrating with stuttered shuddering gasps. Golden hair flows between webbed digits, head held in her hands.
I'm alone. A prisoner. There's nothing I can do but wait for them to come and finish me. She shrinks in the corner, and closes her teary eyes, a river rolling onto the tatters of her shredded and burnt robes. I wish-I wish I could have done more. I wish that the Mither had granted protection of the crown, that I had received the thithings and blessings for passage through Eynhallow. But he denied me even that.
The frame of the cot rocks from the deep and shuttering inhale before a soft cry breaks the silence of the room.
Now I won't even get to see mom again.

crunch. A quiet disturbance of loose gravel breaks the oppressive and deep silence. A warm tongue draws across Hege's face, half-lifting her out of the corner on its own.
If you keep crying like that, you're going to dehydrate yourself, A quiet warm voice fills her mind.
Hege's eyes open slowly, with great difficulty. Where the chamber was formerly dark, dancing fluorescent lights wander across the walls, illuminating the barren cell. Seated on its haunches before the Princess is a familiar creature. In lines across it's dancing flesh, blue, green, and teal swirls, fluorescent markings. Large triangular, expressive, finned ears jut from a feline head with four golden eyes. A neck crest attached to a long neck connects to a lanky feline body with six legs. A long, finned tail wraps around where the creature is seated.
"You… you were in the library?" The finnwoman whispers with a croak, recognition, shock and then confusion dancing through her eyes.
Yep. She could swear it was smiling at her, in that smug knowing way that cats often do. "Mrow." The meow carries a connotation that is unable to be ignored. Impossible even. A simple meaning. 'Damn Straight.'
For the first time in days, a curious light returns the Finnfolk Princess. "Are-are you bigger than you were there?"
The cat tilts its head in one direction, it's tail flicking. Maybe a little bit. The deep-gill rats down here are quite big.
She regards the cat carefully. Abnormal fluorescent markings, golden eye coloration, very unusual. Careful consideration as she puzzles through the physiological limitations of your average fishercat, attempting to rectify the scale with diet. Could just be another illusion, it is speaking directly into her thoughts after all. Fishercats in the wild were quite elusive, making cataloguing of true size difficult. At least that's what all the tex—
"Wait."
The tail flicks in the dirt, as the cat tilts its head in the opposite direction from before. Been waiting dear.
"Did you just talk in my head?"
What happens if I say yes?
The Princess and the big cat stare at each other. This goes on for quite some time.
"Thought… speaking… cat?" Hege blinks very slowly, and reaches a webbed hand out towards the cat. Hesitantly. The cat watches the approaching appendage, and makes no moves to resist. Flesh contacts fur. The battered princess sits there, extended, hand pressed into the fur on top of the cats head, right between the ears. "Real?"
Of course I'm real. Soft eyes stare back, as the cat pushes its' head against webbed digits. Gentle murmurs, followed by a soft rumble, vibrate against the palm as the feline purrs.
Reddened blue eyes scan the chamber, searching for some sort of rational explanation as to how a Fishercat the size of a hákarl managed to slip in. Sitting up, she repositions her legs to sit cross-legged, invoking several painful winces. "You're real. Lucid, and not a dream."
Really struggling with this one, aren't you?
"You're real, and not a vision." Her eyes scrunch up, lips wobbling as tears return.
Ah geez, here comes the waterworks again. I wasn't warned you were a big crier.
Hege hugs the fisher cat about it's neck, clinging like a small child does to their parent's leg. Deep silence settles over the cell. The finned tail wraps around the princess, offering security as if it were a weighted blanket. Gentle muffled gasps and tears leak into the fur. The tail gently pats against her back, a comforting hand.
"How-how did you even get in?" squeaks out of dry lips. "What are you? Who are you?"
When it comes to small spaces, I am fur-midable. For even in this dark hour, the most groan-inducing wordplay drew forth the slightest bit of light in Hege's heart. This is of course expressed in one way. Attempting to chuckle, and sucking in a mouthful of fur.
As for who or what I am, you can think of me as… frændi. I am here because you called for me.
A long silence lasts between them. A feeling of warmth, security, and comfort settled in Hege's chest, as if just being close to the strange abnormally-sized fisher cat would make everything okay. Everything was going to be okay. Her breathing slowed, exhaustion slowly washing through her limbs and mind.
"What-what should I refer to you as." The words drag against her tongue, sluggish.
Whatever you wish. That is how it has always been when I am called.
"Puss…" Hege trails off.
Oh child, you know not what wordplay you have opened yourself too. A pause as no further response comes from Hege. The Finnwoman's grip loosens, and she slides, only to be caught by the finned tail. Gently, Puss lifts her limp exhausted form, and hops onto the cot, setting her down, before gently curling her lanky feline form around the princess as the latter balls up. Rest easy daughter. I am here now.

"So…"
"So?" Sherry Andrews looks at her spouse directly. The large imaging core of Site 212A's complicated medical facility is relatively quiet, fluorescent lights gently buzzing overhead. Black and White polished tiles line the floor.
"Why don't you run me through what happened one more time?" Leep Andrews responds, not taking their eyes off the scene in front of them.
Sherry blinks. "Erm, well. I had just hung up the phone, and pushed open the doors to go outside. But some jackass designed this place with no windows on the damned heavy metal doors, and someone at the office of health and safety administration signed off on i—"
"Sherry."
"Right, sorry." A pause as she looks back at the machinery. "Well I opened the doors, and I hear this awful noise, like metal smashing flesh. Walk outside, and… there they are. The Finnfolk procession, and the Queen on the ground bleeding. And I'm like 'Ah Fuck.'"
"Your report said 'Bugger.'" The sandy haired enby returns, pushing up their glasses with one finger, still not looking away.
"Well you know, you said I should work on not cursing in polite company. So I'm trying." She looks at them again.
"Proud of you." Leep pulls out their phone and starts taking photos.
"Eat shit." The redhead rolls her eyes, trying and failing not to grin. "Anyways, we get medical ASAP, get her on a gurney and wheel her here, taking one of her guards off to draw blood for a transfusion."
"You double checked that the Finnfolk can do that?" they say, sparing a glance from their phone at Sherry.
"She'd lost a lot of blood Leep. A lot. It was a risk, but one that we had no choice but to take." She gestures emphatically.
Leep taps their phone again, taking more pictures, with the flash illuminating the back half of the room. "Well, based on the fact she isn't dead I'd say it was worth it."
"Anyways, we get her in here, and onto the tray for the CT scan machine. Now, it was pretty obvious there was some serious brain trauma going on. Babbling incoherently, talking about some fantastical stuff. So we get her in the CT scan. That's when she started screaming."
"Risky move putting her in there. We have no idea how Finnfolk magic interplays with Magnetic Resonance."
"Yeah something tells me it was the noise more than the Magnetic Resonance. Anyways, lights start blinking, computer flickers, and then…"
She gestures at the CT scan machine, the top half completely cut away as if someone had perfectly sheered the metal and machinery apart. A large CT scan-shaped hole has been punched out of the ceiling. Leep and Sherry both step forward and look up, the hole going all the way to clear blue sky. A few fluorescent lights hang spinning from the shattered remains of their former holsters, suspended by only a wire.
Leep frowns. "That is going to be expensive."

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“It's gone! It's fucking gone!”
“Calm down, please. What's gone?”
“SCP-1162. The Hole in the wall. We just used it yesterday and it's not there anymore! And I'm the only one who has even noticed!”
Site 31 Director Trisha Jones sighed. This was not how she was hoping to spend her day. “Alright, give a minute to pull up the documentation…”
She went from irritated to confused when she read the words on the screen.

SCP-1162 is a three-bedroom, two-bath suburban house located in Vastitas Borealis, the largest lowland region of Mars. It does not have a visible lawn, surrounding street, or other obvious signs of permanence. SCP-1162 resembles a standard suburban American home and is, along with its contents, anomalously resistant to damage, as the inhospitable conditions on Mars' surface would have quickly destroyed a nonanomalous structure of similar make.

Once she realized the implications, she went back to being irritated.
Goddammit! A reality restructuring event on a Monday?
“Adrian,” she said wearily, turning back to the researcher, “contact the exclusionary site you were just at. 1162 hasn't moved, it's gone from our reality.”

In July 1963, a non-standard shipment of D-Class arrived from SCP-5865. Approximately half of these D-Class had their memories altered in such a way that would enable them to recall their previous lives on 5865-Earth. The Foundation was instructed to monitor all prisoners to determine their reaction to this knowledge and follow standard termination procedures thereafter.

Jonathan Winter was finally done being a D-Class.
In the months before his personal revelation, he had generally resented both his status and the Foundation itself. He was a prisoner, and believed himself to be entitled to freedom. His memories told him of a crime related to theft, one that would have been punished with a fairly minor sentence in the time before-
He shuddered as he remembered the revelation. He was not a prisoner. Well, he was in a technical sense. But not one from this reality. He had been brainwashed, and made to forget he was from another world. The world of the Invaders.
Somehow, Jonathan had kept the secret of his memory recall to himself. Something told him that the Foundation wanted to know if he had discovered the truth of his past, and something else told him that keeping up the appearance of a baseline D-Class was important to his survival.
He had always been good at maintaining a facade of normalcy under even the most stressful circumstances. His latent reality-bending abilities had already manifested by the time he was 12, his age in 1934 when the world was conquered and repurposed for the Invaders. On the surface, he was yet another Experimental Region test subject. But once the day's varied forms of experimentation at the hands of the Invaders was over, he had returned to his residential domicile and healed himself.
More than that, he had taken items from an alternate reality (this reality, he now realized) to decorate his childhood domicile with posters. Wonderful posters that told of a world where the Invaders never came and humanity used the mighty power of “NASA” to reach the most distant stars. Nobody ever found out about his secret room, the one place in their wretched world the Invaders could not reach.
But through sheer chance, he had been among the stock of Experimental Region residents “imported” to this world. And through yet more chance, he had also been among the D-Class selected to discover his true identity. Jonathan Winter was a prisoner of not one warden, but two.
Until today, that was - Site 31 was where he wound up when he wished he was “somewhere far into the future.” And if he could pull off the hat trick, it was going to be his last stop before freedom.

“D-67395, please approach the Hole located in Containment Chamber 4.”
He nodded, doing his best to appear as casual as possible. This was the first time he had used his special abilities since the Foundation had taken him from the Invaders. He had convinced everyone here that he was meant to use SCP-1162, the Hole in the Wall, for testing purposes. He had convinced them that his sudden appearance in this time, this time that was obviously not the 1960s he had come from, was an entirely normal occurrence. Nobody questioned the oddities that came from being a sudden time traveler. That was a good sign.
He approached the Hole, his body becoming warmer as his nervousness increased. Finally, he kneeled down and channeled every single bit of anomalous energy he could muster into his hand.
Take me away from here. Away from the Foundation, away from the Invaders, away from everything! Take me to a nice home with my parents, like it was before everything horrible happened. Please, just take me away…
He reached into the Hole…

…and pulled his small, childlike hand out.
He blinked and stood up, staring at the room around him. It was a children's room, and…
He gasped.
The posters! His posters! They were here, and they were the same ones that had kept him comfort during the worst days of the Invaders' reign. Looking into a nearby mirror, he recognized the youthful face as his, and it didn't take him long to reach the correct conclusion.
I switched into a young me's body. His life…my life…it's all over!
He grinned widely, and started looking at the room more closely. It was furnished in a way that seemed…off to him, probably because he had traveled through several different time periods to get here. But it was still recognizably the room of a little boy, thanks in no small part to the crude cardboard spaceship at the center.
“Johnny, time for breakfast, sweetie!” He heard a voice coming from downstairs, and realized that he recognized it.
“Be right there, mom!” He called back. Mom. He couldn't believe this had actually worked!
Before he joined his parents for breakfast - which would no doubt be his best meal in decades - he couldn't resist indulging himself. He pulled himself underneath the cardboard spaceship and let his imagination wander. He thought of himself as a great explorer on the surface of Mars, uncovering new secrets and blazing new trails on the Red Planet. He wished he was there.
Unfortunately, his wish came true.

On 22 Oct 2021, an exploratory Foundation shuttle reached SCP-1162 in Vastitas Borealis. Upon inspection of the upstairs bedroom where the corpse of a small child had previously been found inside a cardboard box, a small hole was found in on the eastern wall of the room which had not been located there during the initial exploratory mission. Data stored in exclusionary sites led Foundation researchers to conclude that the previous SCP-1162 (now SCP-1162-A) had been incorporated into the current SCP-1162 via a CK-Class Reality Restructuring Event. The exact method by which this occurred is unknown. SCP-1162-A has not moved from its current location despite being left unactivated since its initial discovery.