When Emma was eight, her mother Rachael Sandaran gifted her a plastic lawn chair.
It was light pink and stained in a few spots. Most days it rested on the back patio of her house facing a brick wall, gathering dust and dirt. While it was technically owned by Rachael, she never used it and wouldn't punish Emma when she caught her sitting on it. A silent agreement had been written between the two that, as long as Emma didn't break it, that chair was hers.
Like an act of silent rebellion, Emma took this agreement as a challenge. She would jump on the chair, kick it, try with all of her strength to break it or at least crack once or twice. She never did. Regardless of how many attempts at destroying it she made or how many times she slammed into it, the chair stood strong and unphased. After a few hours Emma would give up and use the chair the way it was meant to. Exhaustion would lull her into a deep sleep, and she would sink deep into the plastic seat. It was during those times that she forgot that she was alive, and for an hour or so her brain would be convinced that she was back inside of her mother's womb, untouched by the world.
That feeling of unliving came upon her again as she woke up on a smothering October evening. She was a child again. Her tiny body was filled with an energy that only came from the belief that she couldn't die, because children don't die in the real world. She had sleepwalked out onto the driveway. When she woke up, she realized that she had been sitting in the chair for hours. Her eyes were glazed over, her arms were weak. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was staring into a pair of bright yellow headlights: Rachael's car.
Emma sank further into the chair, letting the plastic scratch her back as she curled her arms and legs into herself. It was still a little warm. She shut her eyes tight and desperately tried to recapture that sense of lifelessness. She begged it to return, to take her out of this dream because it was just a little too real. None of her prayers protected her as Rachael's voice brought her back into reality.
“Emma, honey?” It was loud and feminine and had an annoying rise in tone at the end of every word. It filled up Emma's head like blood rushing to her brain when she tasted something too cold. "Are you okay?"
The car door opened and slammed shut as someone stepped out in front of the headlights. Emma could only see their shadow, but she knew instantly who it was. There was only one person that could tower over a person like that. Emma stared off into space as the other door opened and somebody else exited. She couldn't hear them at all, even thought she remembered their voice being clear and concise. Her mind smothered the sound.
“Honey, can you hear me?”
Emma refused to move. Her body jolted once or twice, trying to scare itself awake, but nothing happened. It was like she was a doll without strings; there was nothing to support her, to keep her moving, so she simply didn't. Emma probably should have been panicking. She tried to make herself panic, because she was so sure that that was what she should have felt in that moment. But instead, she was tired. She just wanted to sleep.
Rachael talked with the voiceless, faceless shadow for a little while. Emma couldn't remember what she said. All of her attention was focused on a drop of sweat that was slowly making its way down her nose. Emma was sweating. The sun was gone already, and world was dark like her bedroom when the lights were off. It was cold, and that cold stuck to her skin.
That was when the dream froze.
Over the span of a single beat, Emma became free from her body, and was finally able to resist the chair's pull, stepping out of herself like a ghost. She turned and saw her eight-year-old self, cold and still like a corpse. Everything else remained trapped, allowing Emma to examine the scene. The figure in the shadows turned out to be just that, a figure. It was barely a thing at all; it was just a strange abnormality that didn't mean anything or matter at all.
Emma felt a great fear. She sat back down, trying to phase back into her body. The chair was solid and tangible and real. She lined up her fingers with that their fleshy counterparts, contorted her body into the same posture, and even squeezed her face into its original expression. The world was still. A cold thing wrapped around her heart as she realized that she couldn't get out of this. She couldn't escape this, no matter how hard she tried. Emma flew off of the chair and ran, a last ditch attempt to escape this thing that had taken over her dreams.
Her lungs wheezed as she sped past blurry sidewalks and brick walls and picket fences. The windows of her neighbors' houses darkened into ominous black squares. Emma didn't care. She just kept running until the sidewalks and the roads ended and the darkness of the rest of her memory began.
As more and more around her disappeared, Emma soon forgot whether she was moving or not. There was no more road to run on. At some point, the ground itself faded away. There was no wind breezing past her face. There was no chill biting at her flesh. There were no signs that she was alive. Emma could feel her legs swinging, she could tell that they were doing something, but she remained perfectly in place. There was nothing around her.
No. That was wrong. There was still the chair.
It was far away, tiny and powerless, but it reminded Emma of the scratches it gave to her and how sore it made her back after she sat on it for hours and hours. That pain made Emma think of Rachael and the shadow people and the professors in lab-coats and the cruel children and Mrs. Swinsky. Those figures swirled around in her mind, fighting with one another to put themselves at the forefront of her attention. Images appeared in front of her. She reached out to touch them, but they drew back, beckoning her to step forward and follow. And Emma, not knowing any other way out, complied.
The rational part of her mind spoke up. This is a dream. You are dreaming, it cried. This wasn't safe. She wasn't supposed to surround herself in the dream, she was supposed to realize that it was fake and run from it. Emma knew that she was dreaming, and that meant that she had control over it. She could end it, dispel all of the fantasies and the images and those feelings and come back to reality. She knew it was all fake, and yet she continued to follow the images. Her legs had to run, her arms had to reach out and grab onto something, anything that reminded her of the feeling that that chair had brought to her. It had to be in this place, somewhere. Where was it hiding? Did it still exist?
She learned the answer to that question as she stepped away unknowingly into the night.

"What's your name?"
Emma look up to the figure standing above her. They were blocking the sun, causing their body to be completely black with shadow. Emma was sitting on a curb, careful not to get dirt on her off-white skirt and off-white dress. She didn't know why she was even wearing it — she liked shorts more. "I'm Emma," she said. Her voice squeaked the same way it did when she was six.
"I like your name, but mine is even better. My name is Charlie." The figure plopped down on the curb next to her. Now that they were out of the sun, Emma saw that Charlie was a plump girl with freckles dotting her face and thick ginger curls that fell in front of her eyes.
"That sounds like it's from a book," Emma said.
"Nope. I made it all up myself," Charlie responded.
"You took that from Mrs. Swinsky's book."
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did."
Having decided that she was bested at her own game, Charlie's head fell into her hands and she looked down at the woodchips. The playground was almost empty. There was only one other group of kids that were running around the swing set. It was so hot Emma had to squint just to see. Dust filled the air from where the other kids dug into the ground. Before her eyes could fully adjust, Charlie plowed through a small mountain of woodchips, which flew into Emma's eyes and caused her to sneeze.
"You hit me right in the face!" Emma turned away, her eyes watering up.
Charlie stood at a distance. She fumbled her hands around as she figured out what to do. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't meant to do that."
"But you still did!" Emma couldn't see the look on the fat girl's face and she didn't care to imagine it. As she brushed away the small pieces of wood, tears staining her hands, her voice fell and she said, "You're such an… idiot."
Charlie gasped.
"I'm gonna tell the teacher!" she squealed as she ran off towards the stick-thin woman in the thick blue dress that stood watching the kids like a guard tower.
Emma sprang up, her eyes still twitching with pain. "No, you're not!" She sped after Charlie.
"And… why not?"
"Because if you tell on me, then I'll tell her that you threw woodchips in my face."
Charlie skidded to a halt. "I didn't even mean to!" she said. Emma soon caught up to her.
"Yeah, but the teacher will think you did." She thrusted a finger into Charlie's chest. "And then you're gonna get the worse punishment!"
"No! Calling someone a name is way worse than accidentally getting something in your eyes."
"Yeah, but it is if you do it on purpose, then it's a lot worse."
"That's not true!"
"It doesn't matter if it's not true! I already said—"
"Is there a problem here, girls?" An old voice rang out above Emma and Charlie.
They looked up and saw the long-chinned, large-nosed, low-foreheaded, sick-and-tired face of Mrs. Swinsky. She had only been teaching at Emma's school for a few years, but she already had a terrifying reputation. Emma had seen her a few times thus far, but each sighting gave her shivers that lasted for days on end. There was something gutturally terrifying about that woman, but Emma didn't know what it was, and she was always too afraid to ask her mother for help.
"Speak up. I can't hear you." Mrs. Swinsky's voice was harsh and bitter, like she was restraining herself from outright screaming at the two girls.
"T-There's no problem, Mrs. Swinsky," Charlie said. Emma turned to see the girl's bright red face turn pale. Her thick hair seemed to have retracted like a scared pack of dogs that had just stumbled upon a forest fire.
Emma followed suit. "Yeah, we weren't doing anything." Mrs. Swinsky took a long, careful look at her. Emma tried to solidify her face into a blank expression. She tried to take all of the life out of it.
"Are you sure? I saw you two bickering at each other like you were about to tear each other apart."
"Well," Emma began, "I guess—"
"Don't guess, girl. I don't have time to guess about what might have happened. Just tell me the truth."
"I'm sorry." Emma stared at the ground as blood poured into her cheeks and ears and forehead. Looking back on that incident, she had wondered many times if that was a sign from the universe, a second chance to get it right this time. Regardless, even though she hadn't realized it then, Emma took that chance. "We were just talking."
"Yeah!" Charlie piped up with an enthusiasm that didn't last five seconds under Mrs. Swinsky's cold stare. "Oh. Um, I move around a lot when I talk. My mom says I talk with my hands."
"Are you sure about that?" Mrs. Swinsky took one last hard look at the girls, searching for any sign of deception. Charlie's face was slowly turning red with shame. Then, the teacher spoke, "Alright. But you two should have been more quiet, and stop fighting each other. You're distracting the teachers. Understand?"
"Yes, Mrs. Swinsky," the two said in unison. Mrs. Swinsky, satisfied, marched back to her past near the swing set as a group of boys sped past her. She waved at them to slow down, but did nothing more. Emma felt a little sick, but she didn't understand why. She just pushed the feeling down and hoped it went away.
She slowly made her way back to the curb, globs of sweat forming on her nose from the heat. Charlie followed, albeit staying a safe few feet away. When Emma sat, the only thing she wanted to do was cry. She wanted to cry and to scream and to kick the ground just like Charlie did. She was sad because she had lied; she was scared because of how easily it came to her; she was frustrated because she knew she wouldn't be able to tell her mother without getting in trouble. She would have to deal with it herself, and she had no idea what to do.
"So…" Charlie spoke like she hadn't just done something terrible. It was light and slightly aloof, and it just made Emma feel worse. She wanted to scream at her, stop acting so nice! Charlie said, "Do you want to do something else?"
"What else can we do?" Emma scoffed, hoping that that would drive Charlie away.
"Well, there's the swings. Those are kind of fun. Oh! I tried jumping off them once, but a teacher told me that was dangerous. I still do it, but now I know it's dangerous at least. And the monkey bars are pretty fun and there's a few games that…"
Charlie's voice faded into the background as Emma dove into her thoughts. The heat was becoming unbearable. Every second, she felt another layer of skin burn away. Mrs. Swinsky's voice still bounced around in her head, forever repeating itself until Emma wanted to physically tear her eardrums out.
"…but all of those are things I only do with my actual friends. So I guess we have to be friends if you want to do that. So, do you want to?" Emma turned to see a massive closed-lip smile on Charlie's face.
"Okay," she said.

Emma sat in her living room mindlessly staring at the television screen that was playing another episode of a cartoon that she didn't know the name of. She was wearing jeans that were tight around her legs and a navy blue shirt that was a few sizes too big. The air looked almost blue as the evening approached. If she squinted, she might have been able to imagine that she was on a cold alien planet that had been long abandoned.
There was a soft rumble as a car pulled up in the driveway. Bright lights flooded through the windows. Emma, like a moth, instinctively began moving towards it, not even realizing it until she was halfway to the door. She stood in front of it, waiting for something to open it. Mother was speaking to someone on the other side. It was a voice that Emma didn't recognize — a man's voice.
There was a click and a creak and the door opened. Mother entered first, but she didn't notice Emma standing right there. Emma kept quiet as Mother set her purse on the kitchen table and grabbed a water bottle. The man stood in the doorway, just out of sight. Mother was wearing red lipstick. Emma had never seen her wearing red lipstick before.
Mother's eyes widened when she finally looked down and saw her daughter. "Hey honey," she said. "What are you doing up so late? Your bedtime was an hour ago."
Emma mumbled out a mess of words. It took her a second to get all of her thoughts in line. Why was she up at all? "I was… I was waiting for you to tuck me in."
"Oh, Emma." Mother's voice had a low growl to it like a dog. "I can't always tuck you in at night. You know I have things to do, don't you? You're a smart girl, you should have been tucking yourself in. Matter of fact, aren't you a little old to be tucked in?"
Mother was wearing sleek black heels that were red on the bottom. Emma hadn't seen those before either. She said, "I mean… I don't know how. Could you just do it? It'll only be a few minutes—"
"Is that what I asked, honey?"
The man said something and Mother said something back. They were only noises to Emma's ears. Her eyes were locked on those two red smears on Mother's lips. They took up all of her vision, blocking out the kitchen table and the walls and the ceiling and the floor. They almost expanded off of Mother's face, like they were chasing after Emma. Those lips smiled when the man spoke, but not when they were listening to her. She was so sweet to the man.
"I don't know," Emma said. "I guess I am a little too old. I'm sorry. I'll go to sleep now."
"Mhm. You go do that." Mother spoke with the man a little longer while Emma walked to the stairs. The floor was cold on her bare feet. It was like walking on the flat sides of glass shards.
She never saw the man's face. By the time he had entered the house, Emma was already at the top of the stairs and his face was out of view. Emma sat at the top step and watched him speak with Mother. He only said a few words, then suddenly he turned and left. Mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. Steam billowed from her ears as she tapped her shoe on the ground. It looked like she was on the verge of breaking something.
Emma got up and went to her room, like she should have done hours earlier. The carpeted floor bruised her feet now as punishment. She heard the television switch off, and Mother sigh, defeated. Emma inched closer to her room, darkness slowly filling her vision.
She felt like a ghost. No, more like a robot: something that walked and spoke like a person but fucked everything up right when she was on the verge of doing something right. It had to be something with her programming. There had to be some bug or anomaly in her brain that made her act like this. She had no control over where and when she would mess everything up, she just knew that at some point, it would come. There was no reason why she sat on that couch for hours, terrified of turning off the television, she just did it. And that was a problem.
She wished that things would stop, or at least slow down enough for her to tell what was wrong. She knew that, somewhere deep inside of her, something was going horribly, horribly wrong. Everything felt fine, though. Maybe that was the problem. Would she have felt fine if she had gone crazy and stabbed Mother in the chest with a knife? Would she feel any kind of regret whatsoever? She felt like a selfish god, one that Mother constantly had to appease to keep her from destroying everything with a flick of her finger. If Emma had the chance, she would cut off her wings and dethrone herself. She would give it all away, because being powerless was better than whatever this was.
Reality melted around her as her brain rejected the rest of the scene. Everything was wrong, it decided. It wasn't just with her, but with everything around her. That was the only way her actions made any kind of sense. This couldn't just be the way that things were. They just couldn't.

"Tell me what happened between you and Charlie, Emma. This is very serious, so you need to tell me the truth. Do you understand?"
Emma sat inside of the principal's office along with Mother, Charlie, and a large round woman with orange hair that Emma assumed was Charlie's mom. The principal sat behind a wooden desk with ornate designs that made it look almost royal. There was a giant bald spot right on the top of his head. Emma could almost see the hairs falling off as he scratched his neck.
"Emma, do you understand what is happening right now? You know we have a zero-tolerance policy for fighting, so you and Charlie could both get in very big trouble if—"
"Mr. Fischer, I think she understands." Mother's voice took on a formal tone that it didn't possess when she was home. It was almost robotic, but still held a charismatic inflection to it.
"Let her speak for herself," Charlie's mom said.
"She can, and she will." Mother put a hand on Emma's shoulder and squeezed tightly. Emma bit her lip lip to avoid expressing the pain she was feeling. All eyes were staring at her.
She had to tell them the story of what happened, and it had better be good.
"Well, um," Emma fumbled, "Charlie and me were out on the playground, near the swings I think, and we were talking about how we really don't like… like, the homework we just got. Charlie is really big and really… active and things like that. I think we might have gotten angry, but we stopped after a little bit."
Mother said, "You stopped after she hit you, honey."
"You said you weren't going to interfere!" Charlie's mom grew three shades redder as she hurled an accusatory finger at Mother.
"I'm just clarifying what she meant."
"Ladies," the principal piped up. "Let the girls speak for themselves. Charlie, can you tell me what happened?"
Charlie tried to squirm in her seat, but the weight of her mom's hand forced her to stay in place. It seemed like every time she pushed against her mother, she just pushed back with twice as much force. Charlie seemed to deflate them.
"Okay. Well, it's like what Emma said. We were talking and then I got kind of angry, but I didn't hit her at all. We were just having a conversation. It didn't mean anything."
Emma's mother began to bury her nails into her daughter's shoulder.
The principal asked, "Is this what happened, Emma?"
After a few seconds, Emma nodded.
"Okay. If both parties agree that this incident was just a misunderstanding and there was no real harm done, then I don't feel the need for there to be a punishment. I see this kind of thing all the time on the playground, boys being rough with boys, but not so much with girls. I encourage you, moms, to have a chat about your daughters' behaviors, but you two are free to go."
Charlie's mom dragged her out of her seat, and began marching towards the door. Mother stayed firmly in place.
"Excuse me, Mr. Fischer? Are you seriously going to allow that girl to walk out of her after what she did to my daughter?" Mother asked.
"Oh, calm down," Charlie's mom replied. "You heard what the man said. There was no harm done. Stop being so ridiculous."
"I am absolutely not? You were the one that's been accusing me during this conversation."
"Ladies…" the principal began.
Mother snapped towards him. "Do not call me, 'lady'. I have a name, use it. Thanks." Her words wrapped around the principal's mouth like a snake, preventing him from speaking.
"And there she goes again," Charlie's mom said. She continued on her way to the exit when Mother lifted Emma's arm and flashed the underside to the principal. There was a large red mark on the other side.
"Do you think this was the result of play-fighting? Hmm? My daughter was seriously injured by that girl and you're just going to let her walk away? Are you delusional?"
The principal's face darkened as he looked at the bruise. He raised a finger, beckoning Charlie's mom back inside. "Now, what is this?" Charlie slowly waddled back to her seat, unable to look at Emma. "Did you do this, Charlie?"
A red stain of embarrassment grew on her face. After a few seconds, she slowly nodded her head.
Mother let out a triumphant breath. "There, she just admitted it. So don't tell me that I'm acting—"
"But it was an accident!" Charlie blurted out, salty tears forming in her eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt her! I just got excited and kind of accidentally scratched her a little."
"Shh, Charlie," Charlie's mom said. "We know it was an accident. You don't have to explain."
"Yes she does, actually," Mother said.
"Mom!" Emma interjected.
"Quiet, honey. Listen, I don't want this girl in my daughter's class anymore. Clearly, she is reckless and unable to control her emotions. Just look at what she did today. Who knows what she'll do to the other children. Until she is able to control herself, I don't want her anywhere near my daughter."
"Excuse me? You heard what she said: this was an accident. If my baby needed counseling, then why hasn't something like this happened before, huh? Charlie has known Emma for how many years now and nothing like this has ever happened."
Mother beamed her eyes at the woman. "Then something must have happened to your daughter. Or something has been happening and you never noticed."
"Mom…" Emma turned to Mother. Her face was burning red, and she was on the verge of breaking down in tears. She was met with a finger telling her to stay quiet.
"I'm just saying what everybody else is thinking," Mother said. "Your child is hurting my daughter. And that is something that I am not willing to put up with under any circumstances."
"You don't have to 'put up' with anything because nothing has happened. This wasn't even a problem until you made it one! My baby and Emma were perfectly fine just talking it out, but you had to get involved, didn't you? How dare you…"
That was all Emma's brain could take before the voices fell away, degrading into wailing sirens and loud static and mindless drumming in her ears. Mother's hand faded away like a ghost. A feeling came to her. It was something more powerful than anything she had ever felt before. If she could have, she would have smiled. When she tried, however, she found that her face was paralyzed.
She wasn't worried about anything. She wasn't anxious about a monster lurking around the corner. Even if she had suffered years upon years of screaming and yelling and fighting, she knew that this room in her mind existed now. Emma could visit it anytime she wanted and leave reality behind. It didn't matter if she were on her deathbed or just eating lunch with a friend. She could always leave.
And that was better than anything else in the world.

Emma stood in her back patio, her arms cold, her legs trembling, as Mother looked her up and down. She held Emma's lawn chair in one hand, dangling it ever so close to her daughter. Emma remembered that there were tears in her eyes. There were wet stains on her sleeves and her stomach was aching with hunger and fear. The only sound was that of the summer wind scratching against her skin like sandpaper. She looked up at Mother.
Her face was something unworldly. Her bangs casted dim shadows on her eyes as she ran her tongue over her chapped lips. She was wearing a white lab coat. There were dark red stains on the bottom of her pants and her shoes that smelled like rotten flesh. Emma kept her eyes on those stains.
"It'll be fine. You'll be fine, honey. I even found a new school that I know you'll love. You'll meet new friends, new teachers. They might even be better, you never know. I'm sure it'll be okay."
"It's not okay!" Emma screamed. Mother shushed her before looking over to the neighbor's yard to see if anybody noticed. "I don't want to go!"
"Why don't you want to go?"
"My…" Emma mumbled to herself for a few seconds. More wet spots appeared on her sleeves. Her vision started to blur, but she didn't wipe her eyes. She kept her hands at her sides, defenseless. "My friends don't want me to go."
"Who doesn't want you to go? Oh, it doesn't matter. Why are you complaining? You can just call them, or do any of the other things kids can do nowadays. Why are you crying? Come on, tell me."
It was Charlie. Charlie didn't want her to leave. But Emma could already see the disdain that was filling Mother's eyes and the punishment she would dish out should Emma say that name, so she kept quiet. Emma wasn't supposed to talk to Charlie anymore. She still did though, almost every single day. They shared little moments together: passing each other in the hallway, sitting at the same table during lunchtime, and swinging next to each other on the swing set. To Mother though, none of that mattered; Charlie was her enemy, the girl that dared to scratch Emma's beautiful, pristine face.
Emma hung her head low. It was better for Mother to think that she had no friends than for her to know that she talks to someone like that. A familiar warmth began to fill her body, but it only got halfway before stopping suddenly, leaving the rest out to freeze from the chilling wind. She needed her chair back. She needed to feel the plastic scratching her arms in just the right way and she need to feel her back being forced into an uncomfortable position and she needed to feel reality run far, far away from her for just a few minutes.
In the distance, dark storm clouds rolled into view. It would rain that evening.
"You can tell me, honey." Mother reached towards Emma. She suppressed her instincts to pull away as Mother touched her hands. Mother squeezed tight until Emma's wrists turned white and numb.
"Ow… um, it was Mrs. Swinsky. She said that she would miss me."
"What?" Mother pulled Emma unbearably close. "I thought you didn't like Mrs. Swinsky? Why are you so… ah, but you'll have better teachers at your new school. I'm sure you'll find somebody you like."
Emma bit her lip. Would she find somebody better than Charlie? Mother said so, and Mother was almost always right. Emma couldn't imagine anyone better than that girl, the one that hit her a lot and said stupid things all the time and screamed a little too loud. And despite her faults, Emma had never found anybody like her in the decades that she had been searching. Every time she got close, she just saw that chubby face and those ginger curls and wouldn't be able to talk to that person. There was something about Mother. Emma could sense something behind her eyes and her lips that still smelled like something toxic. When they contorted themselves into a smile, it never seemed genuine — and when it did, it was never genuine happiness, but something dark and sinful. No matter how hard Emma tried, though, she couldn't figure out why a pit formed in her stomach upon seeing her. Her brain would shut off and start yelling exactly one thing at her.
There was something deeply wrong with Rachael.
"Okay," Emma said.
"Oh, I'm so proud of you!" Rachael replied. "Now let's go and get your things ready. The flight is tomorrow morning. There'll be a whole new house waiting for you when you get there. It'll be an adventure with just you and me."
"Yeah."
Thunder brewed in the distance. Rachael peeked away towards the sky, her hand still wrapped around Emma's lawn chair. A raindrop splashed on the ground nearby. She let out a soft groan, and dropped the chair. Before Emma could scramble towards it, Rachael grabbed her and began to pull her inside. Emma gave way instantly, unable to resist Rachael's grasp.
"Rain's coming," Emma whispered, to herself mostly. On command, rain began to sprinkle onto the bushes and the trees. The air grew wet. Emma watched as her lawn chair was left behind in the backyard. Cries of panic, sadness, and frustration rose in her throat, but they didn't have time to escape her mouth before the world disappeared and she was left in the darkness of her mind.
Emma's feeling burned away and were replaced by an overwhelming warmth that made her feel like she was floating. Those subconscious, somnambulant waves carried her gently, ever so gently…

…back to her driveway.
Emma sat in a plastic lawn chair. She had never left it. Rachael and the shadow of her lover were still frozen in the car's headlights. The moon was stuck in the same spot in the dark sky. Even the leaves were in their exact same position. It was like she had never left at all. Right when Emma noticed it, the world started again.
"Honey, can you hear me?" Rachael reach out to grab Emma, and the little girl didn't have any strength left to resist. "Why the hell were you out so late? Don't you know what happens when you leave the house? Why can't you just do what I tell you…"
The figure reached out. Emma saw their fingers, and they were all black. All she wanted to do was sleep. She wanted to sleep and to forget that this mess ever happened. She wanted to forget how she lied to Mrs. Swinsky and how she had ruined her relationship with Charlie and how much shame Rachael had to endure having her as a daughter. As Rachael cradled her like a baby, all Emma wanted to do was be murdered right there. She would have forgiven Rachael instantly.
"It's okay. Everything's fine," Rachael whispered. The night and the cold were gone, and all that remained was the sound of Rachael's manic heartbeats. Warmth dripped down from her shoulders and accumulated into a pool that grew and grew until it consumed her and all she could was float. Emma promised herself that as long as that warmth remained, as long at that plastic lawn chair stood, she would be fine.
And for a long time, it did.

Post-Foundation
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Mindfall
By: UnnaHuz
No resorts in Lethe.

Description: SCP-3848 is the designation for a collective memory loss phenomenon affecting all residents of any one specific region at any given time. Manifestations of SCP-3848's effects are referred to as ED-K Lethe Events, and occur at random with no historical correlation to each other.

Now it was dusk.
Fierce wind swept the clouds in the grey, wan sky. The sun almost dived beneath horizon, into the stars. The world was like the river of Hades pulled up from hell and poured down to the ground. Between the dilapidated buildings, she stood straight, closing her eyes, with her golden hair waving in the wind.
Researcher Phate, of Site-133, coined this behavior "pause." It used to be "meditation," but since some unknown time this word became really hard to conceptualize. When the idea of "I'm thinking of something" came to her mind, a strange headache would pierce through the eyes, torturing her mind. So she had come up with a way to meditate without thinking about "thinking". To do this, she wrote a note to herself, "go to the periphery of the site, close my eyes, sense the wind, and do whatever I want to." Since ED-K Lethe event could only wipe out the CONCEPT of thinking, but not the PROCESS, she would keep herself from turning into a zombie, controlled merely by animals' basic desire of survival.
How many different memories were ruled out from her mind? She didn't want to know. There were methods to retrieve forgotten things: one of which was Mk. III Amnesia Resistance Targeted Mnestic Exposure Training, or ARTMET. However, it was not reliable. Phate did this several times, but she still wasn't even able to recognize "paper" stacking on her desk. In consequence, she preferred to contact electronic materials more, away from paper. Phate decided to dive into the Internet, focusing on Maxwellism - which built an immersive network called the basic layer, in deep virtuality. Good.

The veil broke, and the first change people felt was the annoying headache. "Holy crap! My head's killing me." Some people complained. However, a few unlucky ones could not even utter this whole sentence. For instance, Phate could still remember her neighbor giggling weirdly at his balcony, "Holy…holy what…my…my top…not good…HAHAHA…" Since "head" became unfathomable to him, he did not even know what he was describing. Poor him.
Compared to Mc&D products and ARTMET, what normal citizens used to fight headaches was completely useless. Aching badly? Use painkillers. Pills don't help? Shout aloud. Still doesn't help? Try opening the tap and hearing water flow. What if "water" became a forgotten concept? People may then regard water as poison. Uh-oh.
No solutions? Of course not. Maxwellism accidentally gave everyone an answer: if we delve inside the basic layer, immersing the mind into virtuality, couldn't we control the extent of painfulness by ourselves?
Hah! Good idea.
More and more people got connected.
They stood still in data flows, with their mind voyaging through different concepts. Think. Just think. Anything thinkable.
Then, a mild but exciting itch echoed inside their heads. The fierce tingle produced by ED-K Lethe events changed form. If the previous headache was like a pin thrusting into the brain through the eyes, this substituted feeling was more like a marshmallow gently rubbing the skull. Thinking of specific concepts was painless but thrilling and addictive, just like what the notorious drugs could bring about. But recalling things was unlike taking drugs, as it took effect anywhere, anytime, and free of charge. No one could reject such easy means for achieving happiness.
Consequently, people in the basic layer began to search for objects that could reactivate their forgotten memories. Once an object triggered concepts affected by ED-K Lethe events, they would save it in electronic files. They would stare at them countless times, letting the exhilarating tremor conduct through neurons. People even coined a term for this behavior, "Hah."
"How often do you 'hah,' dude?"
"Ten times a day, I suppose… I wanna 'hah' right away, so wait a second. "
"Alright. I wanna 'hah,' too. "
That was a typical conversation that happened among Maxwellists. Social activities? Recreation? Sports? Fuck off. "Hah" outweighed anything.

The wind stopped. Phate went back to the Site-133 Maxwellism research sector. She was ready to commence a new round of investigation inside the basic layer. After the Foundation-made information extraction module loaded, Phate closed her eyes. The vision turned from black to white, and colorful data flow went past. Minutes later, the derelict cipher city came into view.
Phate spawned beside a mad man, holding a light bulb. When she looked at him, he was playing with it excitedly. His eyes were half-open, and he smiled awkwardly, uttering irregular syllables. Undoubtedly, he lost the perception of the light bulb, and he "hah" -ed.
Phate walked away; soon, she saw a giant and noisy crowd gathered in front of her. She was unclear about what people were talking about, but she was sure there were hundreds of different topics. Think about it. Everyone was different from each other for their impaired cognition. If they kept talking to others, they would sooner or later find their own erased thoughts. Their partners could help record them, turning them into tools for the "hah." As Phate just came up with this idea, two devilish whispers came from behind.
"Car, cars, car… car!!!"
"Pig pig pig, pig pig pig. Ah, soooooo sweet! Small pig big pig fat pig… pig good, pig, pig pig pig…"
"CAR! Car car carrrrrrrrr! Ahahahahahahahaha…"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…wait what did you say?"
"Cars."
"Oh yes, car. WHAT IS 'CAR'? HAHAHAHAHAHA…"
Phate felt nauseous. She covered her ears and shunned to the side, shrugging off the nonsense.
She felt something was in her pocket. Curious about what it was, she took it out.
"What is this? It is…" Her mind searched for a proper word.
"Paper! That's a fuckin' piece of paper!" a vagrant pointed and laughed at her.
"P-paper? Wait, what did you say? Ah, it is… this feeling, oh gosh, it is WONDERFUL. "
She did a "hah", and a giant grin attached to her face.

The mind stimulation finally eased after minutes. Phate opened the info panel and received her mission.
Investigate the corpses on the east boundary of cipher city.
It was not unusual for people to die these days. Only the Foundation liked to search dead bodies, finding hints for retaining normalcy. Each ordinary person, on the contrary, lived in their own spiritual world. Phate asked passers-by what happened to the dead, but what she received was just, "They died. That's all." Citizens in basic layers were busy "hah" -ing with corpses' remains. For example, a man in front of her knelt before a female corpse, seeming to commemorate his wife. However, he was pressing her to the ground, grabbing her necklace and watching it with full attention. "Nice, NICE! What is this… it is… superb…SUPERB! Hah, hah, hah, … uhhhhhhh…" The man's heavy gasps were injected into the dead body.
Phate walked away.
Corpses. More corpses. All lay sprawled across nearby areas. Most of them put hands on their skull and seemed to breathe hard before death. What happened to them, honestly?
Phate extracted records of the camera head next to her. A video piece played in front of her.

Cropped Video Recording of Sector E03-C, Cipher City
[Start Log]
[00:00-00:30] A male around 20 years old landed on spawn area E03-C.
[00:30-02:12] The subject stood still for about 10 seconds, walked for 30 meters, and stopped in a puzzled state.
[02:12-05:30] The subject's body began to tremble and sweat in extreme fear. At the same time, he closed his eyes and began to pant heavily.
[05:30-07:03] The subject's fear disappeared, lying flat on the ground with a maniacal laugh. His muscles twitched violently.
[07:03-09:58] The subject stopped twitching muscles, with his vital signs disappeared.
[End Log]

Phate took some notes, slowly nodding her head. "A scheme of Maxwellism?" She said in a low voice.
Probably.
The presence of countless dead bodies began to discomfort her… as if they would climb up and grab her body.
She logged out.

Phate's mind started to ascend, and the vision turned pure white. However, this time seemed to be different from previous logouts. Ominous feelings were on their parties.
Black dots, tiny black dots fled from her brain as if charcoal burnt on her head. Something important was missing in her memories. But why?
"White" left her memories. The soothing background suddenly became hostile and horrible.
"Teeth" left her memories. Dozens of hard white parasites ground each other with noise.
"Hand" left her memories. The limb extended five long, thin, and twisted branches.
…
Colorful data flow went past, like river water of Lethe brushing her delicate body. After those colors faded, Phate saw herself through ugly voidness.
Her soul was climbing along the chasm between virtuality and reality.
All she thought of became forbidden now. Her mind was like an eagle in a small cage, stimulating herself each time she attempted to fetch a concept.
"Hah," this feeling was the only thing she did not forget. Good. Very good. AWESOME. Endless "hah"s overlapped at the back of her eyes, on a communal singularity. The product of "hah" turned out to be untold suffering. Phate's smile distorted, and her body inflated unnaturally. She began to shriek, obeying her intuition. But it was useless. Ache intensified.
When Phate finally went back to the real world, the critical hurt sprayed to the fourth dimension from a single point in her head. She could feel her memories flowing back gradually. Incidents happened in cipher city formed a complete picture in her mind at last. It was time to write a new report.
Tomorrow, such investigation would continue.
As long as the fucking Foundation was still kept in mind, such tantalizing but torturing investigation shall continue.


bluntfiend: so yeah.
bluntfiend: ill see you guys later, im gonna go smoke a fat one.
juliachildenthusiast: Later, Jude. Take it easy.

HOGSLICE has entered the chat.

smitheedee: my ds broke 😔😔
HOGSLICE: WHO THE FUCK EVEN CARES. GOOD RIDDANCE, I SAY. THE DS IS A PIECE OF SHIT ANYWAYS. TWO SCREENS? WHO CAN EVEN USE THAT? MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND AND PICK ONE SCREEN, YOU SHIFTY SNAKE. - HOGSLICE
bones: Be nice, HOGSLICE. There is no need for such hostility.
HOGSLICE: AS IF I WOULD LISTEN TO SOME CANDYASS CHAT OP. (I WOULDN'T.) THAT'S SOME BITCH SHIT. - HOGSLICE
lesbian_gengar: ping
bluntfiend: man im trying to roll up my kush what do you want
lesbian_gengar: hello, HOGSLICE, do you need a chat operator?
HOGSLICE: I DON'T NEED NO GODDAMN CHAT OPERATORS. WHAT I NEED IS A BEER. NO, WAIT. TWO BEERS. ONE FOR MYSELF AND THE OTHER FOR MYSELF TOO, MOTHER FUCKER. HELL YEAH! - HOGSLICE
lesbian_gengar: actually, i'l just let you handle this bones. thank you, bubula. <3
juliachildenthusiast:Wait, I just noticed every time you type your own name out, you don't ping yourself. How are you doing that?
Static_Kat_93: wowwee go ping ursefl
lavander: this guy reminds me of karkat
lavander: except
lavander: u know
lavander: less cute
HOGSLICE: BEING CUTE IS FOR BABIES AND LITTLE GIRLS, I AM THE FARTHEST FUCKING THING FROM CUTE, SISTER. - HOGSLICE
lavander: whatever u say mr man
HOGSLICE: DAMN RIGHT I'M MISTER MAN. THE MAN. - HOGSLICE
lapis: so are you gonna bna this guy or what, bones?
lapis: *ban
bones: I am waiting for him to do something more ban-worthy. Being rude isn't ban-worthy, but it is enough for a warning. So consider this your first and only warning, HOGSLICE.
HOGSLICE: NOW LISTEN HERE, BUSTER BROWN. I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT NO FRU-FRU WARNINGS OR SHIT LIKE THAT. I JUST DON'T CARE. I DON'T GIVE A SINGLE DAMN! NOT A ONE! NOW HOW ABOUT WE MAKE THIS CHATROOM A LITTLE MORE EXCITING? - HOGSLICE
HOGSLICE: WHO IN THIS CHAT WOULD WIN IN A BATTLE ROYALE? SPOILER ALERT: IT WOULD BE ME. (I'M RIPPED.) - HOGSLICE
smitheedee: You sound like the toughest guy ever. Much scary. Very frighten.
bluntfiend: uhhhh i dunno dude, bones is pretty tough.
HOGSLICE: YEAH RIGHT. THEY ARE A CHAT OPERATOR, PEOPLE LIKE THAT ARE BASICALLY BUILT OUT OF BUTTER AND SWEAT. NOT THE GOOD KIND OF SWEAT YOU GET FROM PUMPING IRON, BUT THE KIND OF SWEAT YOU GET FOR BEING OVERWEIGHT AND SITTING AT A KEYBOARD ALL DAY. - HOGSLICE
bones: I can assure you I am not made out of butter nor sweat. I am not even capable of sweat.
bluntfiend: pour one out for my homie and its anhidrosis. 😔
HOGSLICE: WHATEVER YOU ARE, YOU DON'T COMPARE TO ME, BROTHER. YOU'RE A JABRONI AT BEST AND A PAPER TIGER AT WORST. I BET I COULD KICK YOUR ASS SO HARD YOUR MAMA WOULDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU. - HOGSLICE
bones: You're welcome to try, though I doubt you would even be able to locate me.
HOGSLICE: GIVE ME TWO MINUTES, PUNK. I NEED TO FEED MY BEETLE FIRST. - HOGSLICE
bluntfiend: my money is on bones.

INCIDENT REPORT

On July 26th, 2012, a humanoid resembling SCP-6599-1 manifested within the vicinity of SCP-2721 at 2 PM local time. SCP-6599-1 did not appear affected by the vacuum of space and attempted to float towards SCP-2721-LORD. It punched at the metal exterior a few times before disappearing.
The reason behind the interaction between the two anomalies is unknown. The SCP-6599 research team has been advised to focus on locating any possible chatrooms or forum boards that may have been visited by both SCP-2721-LORD and SCP-6599 in the last 24 hours.

bones: What the fuck.
HOGSLICE: WHAT THE FUCK. -HOGSLICE

HOGSLICE was banned by bones.
Reason: No reason given.

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by stormbreath

crewtime 08/12/15 (Wed) 01:04:08 #83984920

I was asked to look into the disappearance of Nils Andreassen, and I found an exceptionally interesting case. I definitely have to give kudos to @pandorum for recommending it to me, as I definitely agree with his initial suspicions that there is something strange going on in the matter.
On Friday, June 21st, 1991, Andreassen was seen alive for the last time leaving a party in Oslo, Norway. He did not return home that evening. On Monday morning, his body was found on the side of the road near Jokkmokk, Sweden, the victim of a hit and run. His whereabouts between Friday evening and Monday morning are completely unknown, as well as how he made the thousand kilometer journey from Oslo to Jokkmokk.

crewtime 08/12/15 (Wed) 01:04:28 #83839190

Nils was a student at the University of Oslo, where he had just finished his second year at the school working on his bachelor's biochemistry degree. Although he was from Bergen, Norway, he had stayed in Oslo to work in the laboratory of his professor between terms. His friend Bjørn Hofgaard had to take some summer classes and the two roomed together in summer dorm housing.
June 21st is the summer solstice. In Oslo on the solstice, there is little more than a few hours of dusk around midnight, rather than true dark. As a result, Nils had made plans to make the most of the sunlight and stay out all "night" — spending the entirety of the evening hopping from bars and parties that he and Bjørn had heard would be occurring.
The following timeline is mostly composed of by the testimony of Bjørn, and confirmed by a few witnesses at each of the locations they visited. Nils and Bjørn headed out from their dorm room around eight o'clock and headed to a bar. After an hour there, they were joined by a small group of four friends. They stayed for another drink and headed out from there, taking public transportation to the first party.
They partied for about an hour, before heading off to the next bar, arriving around 11:00 PM. By this point, the sun had set, but, given the summer solstice, it would not get any later than twilight that evening. After about half an hour, Nils and two of the other friends left for another party. Bjørn and two of the friends stayed back, wanting to have a few more beers at the second bar.
Shortly after arriving at the second party, Nils told his two friends that he had run into a girl he had met at party the week before and she had invited him to another party, which he'd be going to with her. He told his friends he'd meet them at another party later in the night, one intended to be thrown around sunrise. His friends wished him luck and sent him on his way. This was just after midnight, and was the last time his friends would see him alive.
When Nils failed to arrive at the sunrise party where Bjørn and all four friends were, they did not think much of it at first. Nils was rather drunk when he left the party, and it was entirely possible he went to another party or — as his friends hoped — had gone home with the girl he had encountered at the second party and gotten lucky.
Bjørn got home after the sunrise party and walked into the dorm to find Nils missing. Exhausted, he shuffled into bed and quickly fell asleep. When he woke up at one o'clock on Saturday, he quickly realized that Nils wasn't in the room, nor was there any sign that he had been back since the pair had initially headed out on Friday afternoon. Although it was possible that Nils was simply out, he made the decision to report his roommate as missing.

crewtime 08/12/15 (Wed) 01:05:04 #64759010

The Oslo police quickly began a manhunt for Nils, although not necessarily a very panicked or urgent one. The search had mostly begun with simply calling several of the regular places and putting out the word that Nils was missing. In most circumstances, this would have been negligent behavior that ensured the death of the missing individual. But in the baffling case of Nils Andreassen, it is highly unlikely that the police could have found Nils before his death.
Nearly 1200 kilometers away from Oslo lies the small village of Jokkmokk, Sweden. Jokkmokk only has a population of just under 3,000. It sits next to Padjelanta National Park, Sweden's largest national park. Today, traveling to Jokkmokk would take a nearly fourteen hour drive. (I was unable to find good information on how long that drive would have been in '91.) As both Norway and Sweden are part of the Nordic Passport Union, no documentation was needed to cross the border.
Early Monday morning, Hilda Granholm was driving on home after a night shift through the woods just outside of Jokkmokk. She remembers there being a black car ahead of her for most of the drive, but wasn't able to give the license plate or model number with any detail. She hadn't been paying much attention to the car until it ran over somebody.
Just after sunrise, a figure stumbled onto the road in front of Hilda and the other car. The other car struck the figure and then quickly drove off. Hilda got out of her car to find the victim had been hit badly, bleeding and all. She called the police, who arrived and brought the injured party to the Jokkmokks Vårdcentral, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Searching the body, police discovered a student ID from the University of Oslo, Norway, belonging to Nils Andreassen. Calling the police in Oslo, they were able to quickly put the dead body they had together with the missing person in Oslo. Police in Oslo were skeptical at first, but faxing photographs between each other confirmed the identity. The police requested an autopsy, in order to determine any additional information that might be relevant.
The autopsy noted the following key facts:

Nils, at time of death, had a BAC of .13, indicating that he had recently been drinking.
Stomach was full, with evidence of having recently eaten a large meal of various small plates. Little was properly digested, but there were many items.
Clean-shaven at time of death, with little facial hair growth.
Death was consistent with a car-accident, with little to suggest otherwise.

crewtime 08/12/15 (Wed) 01:09:47 #10287394

So what happened to Nils, really? How did he get to Jokkmokk and more importantly, why was he there in the first place?
It seems that Nils simply … vanished from Oslo and fifty hours later reappeared in Jokkmokk. Although that leaves enough time for him to have traveled there by car, he did not have a car. While attending university, he had relied on public transportation for all his travel needs. None of his friends who did have cars could have taken him there — all were seen that weekend at various points, and were actually helping in the search for him.
Maybe somebody knows where he is? But in the twenty four years since the case, nobody has claimed to know where Nils was or what happened to him. Maybe the girl from the party he left with knows something? But his friends who were at that party didn't see her themselves. Bjørn was at the party where Nils met her, but he doesn't remember anyone Nils talked to at that party. She hasn't come forward, in any case.
Public transportation and other means give nothing. Security cameras at train stations failed to pick up Nils. He didn't get on a plane from Oslo to Sweden during that time (and if he had, he would have still needed to get from the airport to Jokkmokk). It doesn't seem like he took any of the normal ways to travel. But he had to have taken one of these methods — otherwise, how would he have gotten there in the first place?
Maybe his wallet can provide other clues? But with everything else, there's not much here. Nils was found with 458 Norwegian kroner on him — and no Swedish krona. Nobody is sure how much money he had on him when leaving his dorm Friday night, but Bjørn says it couldn't have been more than 800 kroner, as Nils never took much cash out with him out of fear of robbery. The un-accounted for 342 kroner is mostly explained by the drinks that he bought Friday night — nothing to pay for transport. His bank account was of course untouched.
So he appears to have not spent any money between Friday night and Monday morning. This calls into another matter — his beard. The autopsy noticed that it looked like he had shaven within the last few hours, with little growth. Bjørn specifically remembers that Nils had shaved right before going out Friday night — he had to wait for Nils to finish shaving before they could leave. So wherever Nils was, it was somewhere he had access to shaving supplies and the means to do so.
There's also the BAC and food that was in Nils' system when he died. It seemed like Nils had just had a large meal, coupled with plentiful drink. But he was killed in the middle of the woods, so how did he get from the feast he had been at just before getting run over to the road? There's no development for several kilometers from the location he was struck.
The cause of death is of course, the real tragedy of this case. There's no real reason to think it is connected to whatever caused the disappearance of Nils. Hilda had been driving behind the car long enough to establish it was far from Nils at first, and she even saw him alive and walking on the road before he was struck. How Nils died is not a mystery, only where. His death merely prevents us from ever learning what happened to him in the fifty hours before it.
Speaking of Hilda and her eyewitness testimony, however, there's one detail that Hilda always brings up that I found interesting. She's kept this as a part of her story since the beginning and is adamant she remembers it well. I'll let her speak for herself:

Just after I pulled over and got out of the car, I looked through the trees. I could see this fire in the distance and heard a band playing. It was far off, and I didn't really have time to look at it much — I was hurrying over to the body of that boy, trying to find if he was okay. But when I got to his side, I looked up at the fire and it was gone, the music over.
I think that is when he stopped breathing.


Canon Hub » From 120's Archives Hub / Cool War 2: Ruiz From Your Grave » A Broken Bookshelf

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"This is fucking stupid."
"Of course it is, it's, hik, art. It's moronic by nature"
"No, no no, I mean like. This exact thing is fucking stupid. We are vandalizing the library of fucking Babel or some other Bible magical idiocy, you realize? I know I don't exactly have a history of doing smart things, but after this, I swear to god, if Jesus Christ himself comes to my house at night to murder me—"
"First of all — yes, I know where we are." Trying to center the stream more at the bookshelf itself rather than just the books present within it, he continued. "Second of all, when did you get so philosophical? You're like uh what, fucking fourteen? You're not supposed to be that way until you turn sixteen and discover communism exists. Also, LIKE I SAID FOUR TIMES ALREADY, can you focus on the bookshelf itself for god's sake???"
"I'm literally older than you."
Continuing to angrily shower the bookshelves with his very own piss, Lloyd Willis realized he is most likely done (even if the final droplets were still dripping onto the floor [the entire piss-dripping thing was a really annoying mechanism that literally always ruined the final acts of his performances {don't ask}]). Taking a deep breath and stepping back, he looked at his brother and then the art piece.
It was perfect.
"Just look at it, it's MAGNIFICENT."
"It isn't. It's literally just piss on some magical bookshelf."
"Picture this — the lights go out, and I come in. But I gotta, uh, gotta give it a tittle, uhh, something Bibli— A Broken Booksh— no no, the uh, THE FLOOD! 'The Flood — a true expression of one's frustration with, umm…"
"Intelligence?" his older brother snarkily replied.
"Oh shut up. With uh, uh, the authority of knowledge, yes. With how knowledge is only kept for the most wealthy, and uh…"
"That's some gay communist shit."
"No it isn't."
"That's literally what communism is about you cretin."
Lloyd paused for a second, trying to give it a thought as he zipped his pants up, trying his best not to cut himself where-one-shouldn't-cut-oneself. He realized the other man was probably right, but after recognizing he is too drunk to truly confront the other intellectually, he just wiped his hands into his pants and put them in a pyramid-like shape near his chin.
"So what the hell do we do now," the other asked.
"I, uh, dhon't fuhkin—"
"THERE THEY ARE!"
As the sound of ten heavy-armed men running the two anartists filled his ears, the older Willis suddenly regained his senses, realizing they've been talking juuuust a little too loudly for the past couple of minutes.
"oh fuck"
"WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO"
"Run Phillip, rHUN; don't ever let them take you ahlIVEE," Lloyd tried to finish, tripping over one of the books that were for-some-fucking-reason located on the floor of a library.
And as the floor as hard as whatever he took that morning met his face, for the second time this day (though the first time not intentionally), Lloyd Willis lost his consciousness.

"State your name and the group you serve for the record, please."
As the blinding light (which perfectly contrasted with the absolute dark around it, which he for some reason immediately noticed) of the interrogation lamp blasted Lloyd's definitely-not-rested eyes, he noticed the monotonous voice actually had a face — but a rough and mostly uninteresting one. The same hay-like short blond hair and blue eyes with a rough chin Lloyd had seen a million times.
"Look, I'm, hik, not here for— oh that's a cool pen," Willis said, noticing a dinosaur-shaped pen located within the pen container on the other man's desk. "Can I, Can I uhh Can I take it? I swear I'd—"
"State your name and the group you serve for the record, please," the guard repeated, this time with a sigh and rub on his visibly tired eyes halfway through the sentence.
"Look Jheremy — can I HIK call you Jeremy?" the anartist said, getting his face closer to the other man's. "And dhon't ask where I know your name, you literally have a card with your name on it." He did, actually — if one were to trust that placard, it said Lloyd's interrogator had the wonderful name and title of "Cptn. Jeremy Cornwell, Site-120's Defence Leader." "I think I can — I really need that pen. Like HIK all you fuhckers have around these parts are like, the uhh. the pens with Jesus Christ and Marie the Virgin or some shit like tHAT. Like I get you're mainly a religion-oriented city with that big-ass church you've got there but fuckin. I just want a normal cool pen for fuck's—" he tried to finish, only for an unbearable pain to meet his forehead — he really shouldn't have drank as much as he did before they came there.
"State your name and the group you serve for the record, please."
"Lhoook, my nhame's Lloyd motherfuckin' Willis and I don't answer to no nobhody, mister Jeremy 'I won't give you my pen' Cornwell," he said, nearly vomiting half-sentence. "Like look, I ghet it's a cool pen but you could really help a friend out here."
Pressing his pen slightly harder against the paper of his document, the interviewee marked "Lloyd Willis" as a member of AWCY?.
"What was your mission in here?"
Practically laying on the desk, the anarist reached for the dino pen. Starting to play with its T-rex head like a kindergartener, he half-coughed and half-burped, and continued. "The uh, the fuckin, the fuckin' Critic wants to see who's good, yeah? So I…" he bent over to the other side of his chair, looking at the door that lead to the room, noticing the flowery patterns decorating it. Immediately getting angry at whoever-the-fuck decorated the room, he continued, gesticulating heavily. "So I put on my best pHErformence, right? And, fuckin' voilà, here's mine." He smiled at the pen again, putting his finger in-between its small teeth. "WhAT d'you even need that info for, mister serIOHU—"
"Any connections towards Esterberg?"
"Wha…?"
"Any. Connections. Towards. Esterberg?" Cornwell repeated, this time visibly more frustrated.
"wHAt the fuck's an Easterberg? Does the goddamned, uh fuckin, Easter Bunny — Bunny? — live there or some shit?"
Punching his desk, Jeremy Cornwell stood up, with boiling rage visiting his face. He took the pen out of Lloyd's hands, snapping it in half.
"Look — this is the seventh goddamned time I am having this exact conversation this month. Can. You. Please. Answer. Me. Normally?" he shouted, putting the remnants of the tool within the container consisting of other pens. "I swear I'm about to break something again."
"Seventh? What are you, a fuckin', fuchkin child of that red asshole or some shit to care about seven?"
"Every single goddamned time we amnesticize the both of you assholes, you somehow make it back here WITH THE EXACT FUCKING PLAN," he really was about to break something again. "Just please leave me alone."
"Look — I've no clue what're talkin' bout, Cap. I'm here for the first and last time. Like why would I evher want to re-do my, uh, — what did i even call it — my Flood, why would I do that, huh?"
The captain looked at his microphone, sighing angrily, putting the voice on. "I'm not getting anything out of him. Just give me the next one. That one's always cooperative."
As a second guard entered the room, Lloyd felt the familiar feeling of being dragged. He was about to fall asleep again, but the moment before it happened, he made sure to ask the only thing that truly mattered now before he could forget it.
"Okay but can I at least get that pen"

"Okay so there're gonna ask you things, right?" Lloyd said as the woman threw him out into the waiting room with his brother in it. "But like, you cannot," he burped, grabbing his brother by his shoulders. "You khannot give in, right—"
"Yeah yeah. Just… can you not," he said, throwing the hands off his shoulders, looking at them angrily. "Look. You're drunk beyond belie—"
"I'm not. Fuckin. DruHIK—"
"Yes, yes you are," Phillip said, trying to get the spit from his brother's burp out of his face. "Just. Let's get this over, yeah? Caroline's waiting for me, and I've already done too mu—"
"Mr. Phillip Willis, please come in." A frustrated male voice came from within the investigation room, with a mood showing he would very much like to finish this quickly too. "Alone."
"We'll talk once I'm done."
"Don't tHELL them shit Phillip!" Lloyd said, throwing his fist in the air. "They will never get us!!"
Trying to sit on the plastic chair filled with early 2010's newspapers, Lloyd nearly tripped as he felt a weird itch within his neck. Immediately recognizing the feeling as amnetics being applied, he vomitted — this time for good — staining the entire floor below him in whatever he ate that day. He naturally didn't remember. Nearly again tripping on the paste on the floor, he realized he can't fight against the thing within his blood any longer, and tried getting his final word out as Morpheus' grasp closed on him.
"Fuck"

"Oh, what the fuck was that, and I mean WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT." Phillip Willis audibly exclaimed, scratching his hurting head as he stood up from a pile of bottles previously filled with unidentified liquids. "I am never letting you buy me things, you fuckhead!"
Cleaning what looked like a weird mixture of vodka and beer from his apron, Lloyd joined his brother in the standing as he gently massaged his eyes with his fingers. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah I might want to not do that for a while."
They looked around themselves, realizing they've — again — woken up in a dirty alleyway. A dirty alleyway filled with trash, throwaway boxes, and homeless people. Immediately checking his phone, Phillip sighed with a feeling of immense relief.
"Thank god Caroline didn't call. I would've never explained myself."
As numerous honks coming from within the end of the alleyway filled their finally-awake ears, the duo started walking towards the opening. Lloyd tried looking for his phone, only to realize he had lost it. Again.
"Okay, so, we get home, and then what? I'm not gonna tell him we got drunk AGAIN."
"You can just. Tell him you were on an art festivity or some shit," his older brother said, typing something quickly into his Nokia. "Works all the time."
"Hmm…" the younger gave it a thought. "Yeah that works."
"So, what the hell are we doing now, eh? The Critic's searching for the best, and I've no clue what to do for it. After my last exposition failed, I've no clue what to do anymore."
"I'm like," he said, catching his breath. "I'm like almost done too ACTUALLY WAIT A MINUTE." Lloyd said, kicking a stone into the opening filled with light they entered into. "Okay, so, hear me out — there's this giant-ass library run by the literal fuckin' brother of Noah down here I've heard, and…"

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I climbed a hill, the breeze pushing low grasses against my heels, the sun merely a brighter spot in the blanketed gray sky. I pulled my coat closer to my body with my right hand. My left fiddled with a tascam recorder in my pocket, and over my shoulders I carried a backpack full of all the other wires, cables and plugs I required to hook this device into that and the other one once I reached the top. That, and a notebook.
A final footstep took me to the crest of the hill, from which I overlooked the area of effect — the land claimed by the tower. It was a valley, flatter than any natural landscape could ever hope to be, that stretched to the horizon. Covered in the light blue that distance paints objects with, a single black tower stood in the middle of this expanse of flat nothing.
I took out my binoculars. It wasn't necessary, but I wanted to look at it.
Through them I saw its girders, its stalagmite shape, the only thing giving this plane depth. Some red lights blinked at its top, and the wind that so whipped around my cold fingers seemed not to touch it at all. Stationary. Static, even. Not merely immobile, but immovable.
I lowered my binoculars and pocketed them. Once more, it was only a short black line with a blink of red on top. A safe distance away. I was safe here. So I had been told, in any case.
I was new to this project. SCP-084, that is. The tower. The Foundation had been recording its broadcasts for some years, but so far it had all been gibberish and static. We knew it seemed to be more active when human ears were listening in, so it wasn't in their best interest to set up something that simply recorded its output. Every week, someone was sent up to the top of one of its bordering hills, and told to get out a radio and a notebook and record. This week, that was me.
I took out my equipment, set up the radio, and put my recorder in front of it. I found a nice rock to lean against, and then placed my notebook on my lap. In position, there was nothing left to do but turn it on.
Click.
It was what I had expected. Purely static, white noise that melted into the wind almost instantly. Like most that had come before me, I wrote my first note: Nothing new. In the world of the Foundation, most of the research was not innovation but instead routine. There were things that had to be monitored, there were things that had to be looked at, there were measurements that had to be taken, and the majority of the time they meant nothing to no one. But they had to be done, because eventually, they might mean something to someone. Which was why I had eight hours ahead of me that consisted mostly of sitting against this rock, listening to the wind, and holding my coat close to my chest to stay warm.
I closed my eyes and attuned my ears to the static and the air, content to perform my own kind of meditation under the circumstances. I worked long nights, and rest was more than appreciated.
Then something squirmed onto the airwaves.
My ears perked up. It wasn't always that SCP-084 was reactive, and this time it was reacting fast. I sighed. No such rest for me. I grabbed my notebook, opened it, placed a paperweight from my pocket on a corner so the wind wouldn't be so bothersome, and wrote at the top:
SCP-084 Audio Notes
Sometimes, what human ears heard and what was picked up by the recorders was different, so I was supposed to write summaries on everything I heard. With pen in hand, I waited for the distorted noise to resolve itself into something comprehensible. It didn't take too long.
“— what you can expect down at the Clackamas Car Convention. Personally, I'm most looking forward to the rat rods, I love those beat-up things.”
“Well thank you, Ed. I'm sure plenty of vintage automobile enthusiasts will be all over it. Speaking of cars but in darker, more local news, we report on the car crash of two unidentified individuals in Klamath Falls. CCTV footage showed the car crashing into a seven-eleven on the outskirts of town. The driver quickly removed themselves from the vehicle, went to the passenger side, and hauled what looked like a limp child out of the car. Clearly alien to the area, the father was lost and afraid, not to mention the visible wound on their thigh. With potentially little time to spare, the father began to —”
The sounds melted into static again. I wrote my final bullet point on the locations described, and set my pen on its side once more. Interesting, I thought. The transmission had been more continuous than in the past. Usually, it was mostly garble, or at most several sentences. That didn't necessarily mean that this meant anything, but it was interesting to note. I picked my pen back up and wrote that in as an afterthought.
It came back with a usual pattern, of mostly incomprehensible static with voice tones or hints of music, with a word or phrase here or there. I penned in ones I feel I caught, such as “sail,” “home,” “couple of,” and a brief weather broadcast that said something like “it's going to be cold” before cutting off.
I wasn't one of the people that was supposed to put all of this together. I was just the guy they sent to record it. Still, there was plenty of time to think when the broadcasts stopped short and went to static, and it was something to fill my time. To come up with theories, I mean. There were some themes that you caught onto over and over again if you listened to the static long enough. Stuff like houses and families and death and journeys.
I flipped to a page near the back, and kept up a series of tallies I was making. That marked the hundred-and-sixty-eighth time the word “home” had cropped up, and the eighty-second time “cold” had. “Sail” was sitting at a modest five mentions, and “couple of,” as a phrase in isolation, was a new one.
I flipped to the next page, and wrote some. I noted that the concepts of journeying and home were strange in connection to the anomaly in general. It was common knowledge that the people inside were trapped there. There were no journeys because no one could leave. It was what made me unsure that “home,” however much it popped up, was referring to the area of effect. I had toyed, at a time, with the idea that whatever lies at the center of SCP-084 was trapped with the rest of it, but I simply had doubts that the tower itself wasn't the source of the anomalies. I felt like if it wanted to leave, it could leave.
I let out a puff of air. On the other hand, it was a tower. Maybe that was a rather stupid idea.
The static started to warble, and I immediately flipped to my frontmost page, ready to take more notes. It started up:
“For a sobering departure from our broadcast today, we'd like to give respect to the people who lost their lives in the Camp Fire of 2018. Today marks the anniversary of the beginning of that terrible event. Many lives were cut short, including those of the brave men and women who tried to save as many as possible. A moment of silence for the uncounted deaths of those who could not be saved, may their souls be at peace.”
The broadcast went silent, but without any static. I cocked an eyebrow. Would there be a continuation? I jotted down some bullet points.
Noise did start up again, but not one I expected. There was a loud burst of static that was gone as soon as it had come, and then a steady beep. I felt like I recognized it, but it was mostly notable for being the first pure… sound I had heard SCP-084 make. It wasn't speech, it wasn't music. Just a beeping.
The skip was acting up today, wasn't it? I said as much in a note. Strange behavior, I wrote, simply and plainly.
Once I was comfortable with the reliability of the beeping, I flipped to the back pages of my book once more, and clicked the pen until I could think of something to write.
Home, journeys, death, families. I took a deep breath, which blended into the wind. I didn't have much new information, so I decided to wildly guess at something just based on what I'd heard today. It was an exercise. Figure out what sounded like a likely option if I had heard the day's broadcasts in isolation, and then compare those possibilities to the others I had written, find common threads.
I clicked the pen one final time, and leaned over my notebook to write.
Today's themes so far. Crashes, disasters, saving. Failure to save? It seemed likely. Man takes child out of crashed car. Firefighters mourn the loss of those they couldn't take with them. Home, journeys, family, death. Journeying family, I write, and then pause.
Journeying family crosses cold expanse, crashes, child dies.
Alright, I thought. Let's take that as fact. Then what is all of this?
I looked out towards the tower again. The blinking red light, in time with the beeping of the radio, out in the center of the flat, like a leech latched onto the earth. The stasis of the place. The people that couldn't leave. I clicked my pen absentmindedly.
Maybe the child hadn't died, but was dying. The anomaly keeps people from dying.
I put my pen to paper. I cross out dies, and I write, dying. Anomaly equals preservation.
The beeping stopped, but the static didn't return. I instinctively flipped to the front of my book, and waited for some new sign.
It came soon enough.
Clapping. It sounded like it was a radio show in front of an audience. Then, a zealous announcer:
“That's right, the thousand dollar prize is yours! Congratulations on your winnings, Austin.”
“Hey,” a second voice cut in, “I'm just excited to make a quick buck.”
Then the static returned. I was struck silent and still. Shaking myself out of that state, I quickly wrote: Very very strange behavior, fearing safety, turning off. In haste, I made a single bullet point, game show win, and then closed the notebook.
That was too much behavior outside of SCP-084's norm, and I wasn't too sure about the consequences of continuing to listen. We knew that the broadcasts responded to the presence of listeners, but this felt too directed. It felt like it had noticed not just a human element, but me. Like it was looking over my shoulder at my notes and nodding.
I wasn't having any of it.
I reached over to the radio, and turned it off.
I reached over to the radio, and turned it off.
I… reached over to the radio, and turned it off.
It was beeping at me. That same beep as before, that consistent beep, beep, beep, but all I had to do was turn it off. So I reached over to the radio, and turned it off.
I stood up.
I hadn't turned it off. It was still beeping, there was still that soft, fuzzy background noise to it, like fur rubbed against a microphone. I was looping. Every time I tried to push the button, I hadn't pushed it.
Only one thing mattered.
I grabbed the tascam and my notebook, stuffed them in my backpack, and left the rest of it there. This was supposed to be outside SCP-084's area of effect, but something had changed, and I needed to leave before the journey was impossible. Before here became home.
I started walking down the hill. The wind felt incredibly strong, like it was ready to pull me off of my feet at any moment. Once I was making good headway back towards my car, I decided it was a good time to pull out my phone. I dialed, and put it up to my ear. It gave me a message that the number didn't exist, but I spoke anyways.
“O'Roark, encountered undocumented behavior, potentially in danger, site-bound early, requesting screening upon arrival..”
Finally, the dial tone yielded to another human voice. “10-4. You have reached a secure line: anything to report?”
“Yes,” I replied, holding my coat as tightly to my body as I could and nearly yelling over the wind. “I believe SCP-084 responded to me. Specifically me. It seemed aware of my presence.”
“Did it show you something?” The
“What?” I was taken offguard. “To whom am I speaking?”
“O'Roark, we need you to stay put and record as much of SCP-084's message as possible.”
“Sorry sir,” I responded, “I can't do that.”
“O'Roark, we need you to stay put and record as much of SCP-084's message as possible.”
“Sorry sir,” I responded, “I can't do that.”
“O'Roark, we need you to stay put and record as much of SCP-084's message as possible.”
“Sorry —” I stopped myself in the middle of the statement, and threw the phone on the ground. Another loop.
And that beeping wasn't getting any quieter. That soft static was building, even though I was getting further away. It felt like my thoughts were being drowned out by that fuzz and auditory snow, like laying a weighty blanket over my struggling conscience.
I just kept moving down the hill, sometimes stumbling in my rush. It wasn't a long hike back to the car. I just had to get there. I just had to get there. I careened down the hill, in that state of nearly-falling while my body above my waist bent over and in front of my legs, so that by the time I was at the bottom, I nearly plastered myself onto my car. I fumbled the keys out of my pocket, opened the door, got inside, and turned it on, and turned it on, and turned it on —
“Shit!” I yelled out loud to myself, and that seemed to break the pattern, because I turned it on and it stayed on this time. I pulled out of the spot, and got onto the road. A low hum of adrenaline was running through my body, but I was mostly keeping it together. On a road this straight and flat, it was easy to climb in speed, and I wasn't yet fighting the urge to get away as quickly as possible, so I went from 30 to 50 to 80 in short order. In some miles, I would reach the gate that kept the general populous out and the Foundation in. I breathed. I waved my right hand erratically, testing the looping effect that I had experienced, and finding myself able to move fluidly and purposefully.
My breathing slowed. Not to normal, but to a more reasonable pace. I had escaped. I was going home.
Home, journey, disaster.
The car radio startled me by turning itself on. “The world watches the sky tonight,” is all I heard before my attention was pulled to the figure in my passenger seat.
I lost my focus.
I veered off the road, and I crashed into a ditch.

There was an object. Piercing through space. Like a spear sailing across the heavens. And it had a moon. Orbiting it. It was so beautiful. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
And it ended so, so fast.

“Right eye looks good,” the doctor said. “Left eye too.”
He took the flashlight away from my face, and I could see again. “What can I say, you look normal,” he said. “You took a bit of a tumble but you didn't even suffer a concussion. You'll be sore for weeks, and I recommend you try to take walks so that your legs don't get worse.”
“Thanks. I'll do that. And my meme screens?” I asked.
“Came back clean,” he smiled. “You're fine. I'm sure the cause of all this will be investigated shortly. For now, I think you should just go home and get some rest.”
Home, family, disaster, journey.
“Of course. Be seeing you, Dr. Hornswallow.”
“You as well, O'Roark.”
I shook my head violently all of a sudden, and put a hand over my head. “Are you okay?” asked Hornswallow.
I looked up to him, and chuckled. “Sorry. That's probably going to happen for a few days. I'm still running on fumes and the adrenaline of the whole ordeal hasn't really gone away.”
Hornswallow smiled. “Fair play. Well, why don't you take the bus home? I don't think you're fit to drive.”
We both shared a professional laugh.
“Thanks. Goodbye for real this time,” I said.
He curtly waved as I exited his office, and made my way down the hall. As soon as I was sure he was out of sight, I smacked the open palm of my right hand against my head several times, like I was trying to get water out of my ears.
Except it wasn't water. It was that damn static. That fuzz.
It hadn't let up. It was still there, in the back of my head, that blanket holding down my thoughts.
But I hadn't told anyone.
I couldn't tell anyone.
Once I had made it to the bus, I sat in the back corner, and pulled out my notebook. The vehicle started up, and the rest of the passengers were too in their own worlds to pay me any attention. Perfect, I thought.
I flipped to the last pages, and readied my pen.
For now, all I could think to do was listen.
Preserve, preserve, preserve, preserve.