Agent Wilder had been thinking about his death.
He had known for a long time that, in some bizarre way, he was dead already many times over.
There had been bodies produced.

-

Agent Wilder had been on edge his team's briefing. Said briefing had come in as an early-morning emergency call on each of their smartphones, which had been modified to Site standard. Agent Jacob Wilder caught the noise in his sleep, and had to unconsciously rise and collect his cell.
He managed to ask "hello" before he had the chance to think once, which he immediately did, facing an earful of the Foundation's automated voice.
"This is an emergency communication. Your Mobile Task force will be engaged in Active Response in 24 hours." He was almost used to Foundation communiques, but his blood ran cold hearing "Agent Henderson will not be informed of your mission. Do not contact your commanding officer." All he understood was the need to follow orders.

-

Wilder was fully equipped hours before launch. Henderson had already been at Site-45 for review, but his team wasn't sure anymore if he'd be returning.
It had been difficult for any of them to chat since their individual briefings. Still, they had an entire hour's drive to settle their worries. Morale is a security issue, Henderson said.
Melissa King, driving, was the first to try and break the ice in their veins. "I can't remember the last time we were assigned on a response like this. How many Task Forces are gonna be represented, like six?"
"If you count former members, I think it might be more than ten." Agent Rybkin had been reading to occupy his nerves. "Agent Fonte, the Mission Commander, has been all over. Like, Omega-12 'all over'."
"Joe, you're the best read man on the team." Agent Parata felt the need to once again skim his digital mission manifest. "I wish your references meant something to me, for my sake."
Agent Chaudry had three years of experience in Lambda-5, but would always be the rookie. "Have you guys ever had a 'Mission Commander' before? This thing has got to be big."
Wilder remembered his last Mission Commander. "When I was with the Bird Watchers. It was… Crazy."
The van had an impromptu moment of silence. Being in a Mobile Task Force was a little like being in a family. If you'd been through more than one, that meant you had to compartmentalize loss.
Melissa had to try the ice again. "You know, Jacob, as the senior agent here, you're kind of a horrible bummer."
Jacob Wilder laughed. He was surprised. "Oh geez, I'm sorry. I haven't had to be senior agent in a while. Everyone?" He sighed. "This mission is going to be something else, know that for sure. I've been thinking about this one for a long time, and it's hard to even believe we're facing it. With that said, nothing gives me more pleasure than knowing that we're on the offensive now."
The members of Lambda-5 turned to Agent Wilder. Everyone had enjoyed pre-fight speeches before.
"Like this whole team I've had no choice but to sit back and wait, just to worry. I've known that something out there has had the interest and ability to see me dead, and not knowing what has tortured my soul."
"Very uplifting, sir." King joked.
"My point being that that time is over." Wilder pulled on a roof handle, for his team to look up at him. "The mystery of what wants us dead… We're about to kill. We've already seen enough anomalies to put us in our graves a dozen times, but by one… Way, we've crushed it every single time! We knew what we were doing! We knew what we were going into! When we had the upper hand, nothing could stand in our way, and that's what we've got now!"
The team threw up their fists and cheered, as they each desired. On balance, they'd never held 2446 to be so manageable. "Well God damn, sir, good job. So do you know what we're really dealing with?"
Agent Wilder looked down at his mission manifest. "We'll all find out when we get there."

-

More than 30 Mobile Task Force members were gathered at a site two blocks from their set incursion zone. Photos and design prints on their screens showed it to be a former hotel that had been stripped and condemned. Agent Fonte, formerly of Achilles' Heels, had taken his charge.
"So this building was sitting there, and they moved in?" Agent Huerta, City Slickers, mentally marked the windows something could jump from to another building.
"And you're sure that the building isn't anomalous? This three-anchor setup couldn't help that." Agent Durand of Home Improvement checked the anchor points on the schematics. This was his field of expertise.
Agent Fonte considered the unconventional makeup of his group, most members of which he'd never met. "We've been monitoring all entrances, and the only anomalous readings were the two times that this man entered." Agent Fonte prompted his PA, who produced one of a couple physical photographs. "He's the only one we've seen, but thermal imaging shows something else…"
"More than one, appearing, disappearing." Agent Ortiz, a Ghostbuster, scanned through observation records. "All the same height. I can see why you thought they were duplicates."
Making up most of the combined forces, Hammer Down infantrymen shared whispered plans between themselves. Their leading agent spoke up: "So this 'man' has more manpower than it seems. How do you know our tech will actually contain him?" He leaned forward, looking Fonte in the eye. "And how do you know he has a limit?"
"Good question, Agent Richard. We know that our tech will work based on simple humic mechanics. Based on the only disappearance we were able to chart, we're looking at localized intra-spatial adjustments due to forced hume flux; low-levels in a high-level field. The maximum hume rating we can compel with the machines set up now-"
Agent Richard held his hand up. "Thank you, sir. That's enough."
"I understand. Anyways, I know I've told you already, but our mission objectives have to be clear. We'll be going in hot. This is a decommissioning operation, with an assured loss of life, on one end or the other."

-

The equipment was nearly ready. Every agent was in place. Techs and engineers stood by their reality anchors, ready to pump their little hotel full of reality. Agent Wilder and the White Rabbits were ready to come in behind Hammer Down. The other agents had been slightly perturbed by the Rabbits' inclusion, but like so many other encounters, they lent towards courtesy for their teammates. Wilder felt his miniature reality anchor, next to his knife.
Two special technicians had slipped through the front door with the last reality anchor. Other techs watched their body-cams, fingers hovering over their controls. The last cables connected, and an affirmative hand motion threw the agents into motion. Mission control ran the reality machines, and watched the first-hand footage of men going into danger.
Energy flew into the reality anchors, engaging mechanisms built around abnormal matter. Circuits and cables conducted perfectly, running power into extreme magnetrons, exhausting low levels of radiation. Agents in the growing reality field saw colors starting to saturate themselves.
Snipers perched around the hotel watched radiation signatures in the building getting excited. The shapes of four men jumped up and ran to meet one-another. Cover was blown. They informed Fonte, who radioed his squads.
"We didn't get much free time. Get to the third floor as soon as possible. What? Well how many?"
Chatter from the monitoring agents was all coming in at the same time. "The anchors must be doing something, we're getting a whole lot of faint signatures in there!" Agent Fonte patched his monitor to see what his agents were seeing in the low infrared. He wished he'd had more time for contingencies.
Hammer Down was the first team into the building, and in under a minute they were already one door away from their enemy. Their rifles were loaded and their safeties were off. The reality field hadn't yet taken over, but it was starting to play tricks with their vision.
Surrounding the doorway, Hammer Down waited a moment. They listened intently for any message, and were nearly ready to ram in the door. Then, Agent Richard pulled away from the wall, and leveled her rifle sights down the hallway. "Stop!"
A glistening, incorporeal echo of a man stood at the end of the hall, trying to open one of the doors. These were the moments when Richard worried her training would never be enough.
As if on cue, the entire building felt its reality shift. Agents had to catch themselves, or be knocked over. The whole world seemed to be jittery and loose. The shape of a man clutched its head and it collapsed on its knees. As colors saturated and bled in everyones' vision, agents began to notice double-images.
The task force watched as the huddled figure of a person started to rise, and its body shifted into view. The vision shifted and cleared, coming to form the image of a pained and distraught man. Agent Richard remembered his face from the briefing, and shot.
Bullets flew through the transparent body of Charles Hull. In a certain way he was somewhere else, but enough of him was present to catch a few rounds. He collapsed in shock and bled to death.
"That's all we needed men!" Agent Richard shouted to her squad. "Take 'em out!" They rammed the door open and unleashed a three-fold hail of automatic fire. The sound of gunshots and pained shouting echoed to the technicians all around the building. One of the reality engines choked for a moment, prompting a signal to the tech head.
"Sir, I'm seeing some really weird hume readings, and something's happening to the anchors. I hope we can do all this quickly."
"Thanks Tom. Hammers, there's more figures appearing on the other floors, don't let up." Agent Fonte spun around at the sound of the hotel's front doors slammed open. What looked like the after-image of a man stood in the door frame, catching the eye of a dozen Foundation agents and technicians, stationed to watch out for him. Fonte reached for his gun, but was beaten to the kick by a sniper. He gave a thumb up, and got back on watching his agents' video feeds. "Pick it up, guys! We'll drop this building with you in it if we have to!"
"That would be a laugh." Agent Durand said to himself as he worked with a technician on the ground-floor reality anchor. His team had never lost a man in a demolition. He was just recalling when a sound caught his attention. By the time he'd spun around, he'd already caught a partially incorporeal .32 caliber bullet to the gut.
Charles Hull leveled his handgun at the reality anchor and started unloading against the clear bulletproof casing. At the same time, Durand and his injured technician both extracted their pistols, and each landed one in the chest. Agent Durand grabbed at his comm and started shouting. "I'm hit! I- We're hit! One just showed up here! He damaged the anchor, but it's intact. I don't want-"
Agent Durand tilted his head, watching a shimmer of light dance around his vision. He almost had a shot, but the shape jumped on him. Durand grappled with the invisible figure, holding his gun firm. They both twisted and yelped on the ground as the technician tried to read a target he couldn't see.
Durand felt the force of a palm against his face, and kept pulling against his attacker. Against the heat of the moment, his blood ran cold then he felt the invisible hand press into his face.
The anchor technician had an eyeful when the man materialized instantly on top of Agent Durand. He only had a moment's sight of the arm coming off in what used to be Durand's head, which he used to unload into the aggressor. Durand collapsed, and the forearm of one Charles Hull seeped out of his head, along with his face.
When he'd finished firing, the tech had one moment to breath, which he spent trying to ignore his teammate's injury. At the end of the moment, he turned around to a knife in the throat.
He'd only been a couple feet away from the front door, behind which was his Foundation. He could see the door, masked and shimmering behind a growing number of transparent figures. They moved past him, to his reality anchor. The technician thought the circumstance of his death was unfair.

-

There were only a couple moments where Charles Hull, in his number, was alone with the Scranton Reality Anchor. None of his present selves had seen one before, but they understood what the Foundation used it for. They understood what it was doing to them. Charles, all of him, could feel realities being compressed together. He looked side to side and himself, across several worlds, and could make out his shapes clear as day. He considered it a crime against nature, and a crime against his being.
Charles, first among his present selves, knew that Foundation agents were coming through the door on his left in several seconds. He was more than aware of his other selves being slaughtered upstairs. In an sympathetic sense, he felt them die. He thought about his history. He thought about the dozens, maybe hundreds of Charles he'd met since his initial mindfuck. He heard unrelenting gunfire on every level of the building. He didn't want to lose himself.
Charles looked at the reality anchor, and tried to shift. If he couldn't get out of this reality, he didn't know what pain the Foundation would unleash on him all. The strain of hyper-reality drained the man, but he knew the cost if he were stuck.

-

Fonte and his agents burst through the door, into the hotel. They were met by a crowd of figures which held various levels of distance to their world. As the anchors continued to run, more and more realities were being folded onto theirs', and more figures were appearing to flee the active gunfire. Fleeing that foreign danger, they'd walked in front of their own danger.
If someone there could have watched in slow motion they might have found it funny, if they weren't invested in the lives lost. Charles, the fastest thinker among himself, had escaped his reality in time, only to return. In slow motion one could have seen his face appear inside of the reality anchor, turn from concentration to horror in a moment, and then disintegrate.
At the pace a viewer could have watched that, they would have seen the shape of a reality-field push through the entire building, and through every person within it, on every conjoined reality. The men and agents there were stuck hard by the wave, most of them lifted into the air. On the first floor, Charles, Agent Fonte, and the stray agents, were captured in an explosion of abnormal matter from the horribly compromised reality anchor. After that point, they were conventionally exploded.

-

Agent Jacob Wilder experienced the explosion from fifth floor. Like every other body in there, he'd been thrown off his feet. The first thing he had to make sense of after was that the building was beginning to collapse.
He tried to stumble to a window, tripping over the same body again and again. He fell face-first to the ground, and felt the echo of a thousand pieces of lumber shifting without support. He managed to get up to the window, and look out. He caught sight of Santa Fe in the far distance, and let mortal danger slip from his mind for a split second.
The second was long enough for supports to give way, and Jacob felt the building around him enter free fall.
When Jacob Wilder hit the floor, the hotel came down around him. There were a few moments of excruciating pain, and he felt a chill as the blood left his body. Those only lasted a moment, in any case. Soon, any sensation at all passed away.
In his final moments, Jacob thought about the time he'd spent thinking about a violent death. What had happened to him was violent. It was confusing too, but nothing seemed like a greater waste than thinking about it in his last thoughts.
When Jacob opened his eyes, he only saw darkness. He wasn't sure what state he was in, or for that matter how the world was. He decided that he had to accept that he didn't know much of anything.
With his last thoughts, Jacob Wilder decided that he'd accepted his mixed up death, and told himself that it was peacefully. So he went.

-

Two men, one and the same, would later look on the rubble of their former home.
"I can't believe it."
"…"
"I guess there was no other way, right?"
"…"
"The Foundation… I mean, did people hear anything? Is their cover blown?"
"They've got tech for that."
"They're fucking monsters.
"Aren't we all?"
Both men stood in silence, absorbing what they took to be the fallout of the situation.
"Are we going to get back at them?"
"No. We have enough troubles at home. I don't want to think about this anymore."

« Rabbit Here, Rabbit There | A Man Beyond Himself | »


●●|●●●●●|●●|●-xxx

Previous Page | Next Page


So the idea came out of seeing "pataphysics" and thinking it said "pastaphysics" and then thinking about what a department of pastaphysics would actually be. Then I started writing and it got a lot more serious than I expected.
A little explored part of the Foundation, I think. Hope y'all enjoy it.

▸ More by this Author ◂

{$comments2}

F.A.Q.

{$doesthisfixthebug}

My name is Dr. Jeremiah Cimmerian. I'm a member of the SCP Foundation's Ethics Committee. Some of you look a bit confused, which shows that you're not stupid. You might even be asking yourself what the Ethics Committee has to do with the food service staff.
Well first I'd like to ask you how much you enjoyed the stale donuts, cold coffee, and warm soda. Probably didn't enjoy it much yesterday either. Every meal you've had this week has been terrible. That's by design.
Some of you were recruited directly from the military. Some of you are trained civilian chefs. Others have worked in fast food for years. Treat the stale donuts as an object lesson: A good meal can make a world of difference in both mood and morale.
The people you're going to be feeding are going to be working with some of the most dangerous objects in the world. If Dr. McDoctorson is working with a potentially world-ending artifact every day he's bound to get a bit listless.
The wrong mood at the wrong time and maybe the good doctor makes a mistake that no one can recover from. What if instead they wake up thinking about the pizza you're gonna be serving at lunch instead? The effect a good meal has on efficiency and safety cannot be overstated.
That's only half of your purpose. And it's not why I'm delivering this orientation. The SCP Foundation is a sort of research organization. The world is much stranger than we let on. Some of you are even on track to receive security clearances of your own. You've likely already learned, at least around the edges, what kind of strange and wonderful items we keep in containment.
What you haven't been told about yet are the living anomalies. Yes murmur murmur. I get it. That's not in the brochure. Sadly, "we're also a prison" isn't a good selling point for hiring the best of the best even with a six-figure salary.
To protect the world we put people under lock and key. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This causes problems that you will need to find some of the solutions to.
Let me talk to you about Jacob Mackenzie. He was an accountant born with an anomaly that caused local seismic disturbances if he experienced pain. The disturbance worsened depending on the severity of the pain. His anomalous nature was discovered and he was contained by the Foundation in his mid-twenties.
He had a number of dietary restrictions. He was not allowed frozen foods for fear of a brain freeze, he was not allowed sharp or hard foods on the off chance he might cut the inside of his mouth, and he was not allowed spicy food of any kind. His favorite type of food was Mexican. At the time the people in charge of his containment also kept him under the effects of narcotic pain medications almost round the clock.
His nutritional requirements reflected this reality, of course. He required higher than average hydration due to the medications he was using, for instance.
Those in charge of his care didn't need to enforce the dietary restrictions, however. At the time the Foundation fed the same meal to every sentient object. A poorly-flavored mush that was cheap and could keep a human alive indefinitely.
Jacob experienced a period of serious depression and took his own life in 2004. The entirety of Site-134 was lost in the seismic event that occurred during that incident.
Would a meal from Taco Bell have solved Jacob's depression? No. But if we'd been paying attention we'd have noticed he wasn't eating as much any more. And maybe such a meal combined with a host of other precautions would've helped.
You will still run into old-school Foundation staff who treat the objects under our care as prisoners. They both are and are not that. We are not jailers; we are caretakers. Most of these people have done nothing to deserve punishment and imprisonment. They are in containment for their and the world's safety, but they should be treated with gentle dignity and respect.
This is why the food service staff were put under the Ethics Committee's purview in 2005. It's why you attended a number of orientations this week with the newly-hired entertainment staff as well.
Each of you will be in charge of a site or project's food needs. Some of you will have a staff of dozens, others will work alone. No matter what you do, you will need to study the objects under your care. Their wants, their needs, their mood. This is all your concern.
You will not, however, be alone. You are one of many failsafes that we have put in place to save the life of the next Jacob Mackenzie.
If you need more information about a person's history or preferences than the dossiers tell you, then you should contact the intel department. They will help you. If you run into particularly stubborn Researchers who you think are negatively affecting the psychological health of those under your care, you will contact the Ethics Committee Liaison for the site or project you are assigned to.
There will be more meetings this week and many of you will be receiving specialized one-on-one briefings for the object or objects that will be under your care. I'll leave you with the food service staff's motto: Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to feed everybody you meet.
You may've smelled the pizza in the next room. We've got bread-free and vegan options. And hot coffee. And cold sodas. Have a nice day.


close

Info

X

NAME OF TALE After the Lightbulbs Fry

A ladder extended from top to bottom. A metal cylinder wrapped around it, two meters wide, several hundred metres deep. It had that slightly rough sheen of something newly made but uncared for.
A woman stood at the top of the hole. She had just opened the hatch at the top, and was staring down below. She couldn't see the bottom. There were no lights on the journey, just the electric bulbs shining from the top and whatever it was that lay at the bottom.
She took a deep breath, and did not move.
She took another deep breath, and moved.

Maureen Philips swore, for the seventh time that day. He had arrived. The Devourer's chains had broken, the door had been breached, and seven kinds of hell had been let loose on the world. Site 181 was breached, and the greyscale screens before her showed a hundred demons tearing on her position.
To put it lightly, it had been a hell of a day.
But Maureen Philips just laughed. A thousand thousand days of life lived under a perpetual axe-wound had frayed and shredded her nerves. She typed away, whistling and singing, activating every trap she'd lined her fortress with.
"Ma'am, we have to get out of here."
Strange. Why was this man talking to her? There was devils to contain. She waved a hand, dismissively. She was suited to power. It surged through her like a flame, consuming all within and without.
"M-ma'am, I have to wait for you. You're the O5. I can't let you-"
Maureen flipped a switch, and pushed a button. A rumble that could be felt through miles of steel and rock shook the base. The aide behind her licked his lips, nervously.
"Wh-what was that, ma'am?"
"That was something ending, Brian. And what comes next is something new."

The woman climbing down the ladder was not Maureen Philips, nor was she like her in any way, save one. She licked her lips gingerly, staring down the barrel of the chute below.
One foot, two foot, right foot, left foot. It had become a rythym, a clattering on the floor of each rung, descending into the dark. She knew that at the bottom of the hole was a light, and it would shine. She wasn't sure that she wanted to see it.

It was night, and Agent Kyle Sobieski was smoking a cigarette. It was 1959, and he was on top of the world. He'd been waiting for something like this since Korea- a chance to really, truly, prove his mettle, as the screaming metal lines came clattering around him.
The sun itself had melted everything, turning human faces into fetid sobs of half-remembered fat. Great marshes of unjust hierarchies were spreading across the world, making nonsense into sense and removing all the fat and bone. Kyle wasn't a fan.
So here he was, in a bunker under the earth, flipping switches and making lines go to black and white. He didn't know how they'd manage it, but the sun had been right once and could be again. Enough bodies, programmed in the right way, inserted into the thousand clusters of jelly and hell scattered over the Earth- he could do it. Genetic codes melding into genetic codes, twisting things back the way they were. This is what the sun should do to you. Accept that.
Or maybe that wasn't what he was doing at all.
The machine was vast. He didn't understand it, but he thought that he wasn't supposed to. This was a restricted corner, with screens boring into his head, and he thought that it was controlling him more than he controlled it. He remembered when they'd found that body, miles deep. This was many more miles beyond that, and he'd seen many more bodies since then.
Take those two, over there. A middle-aged woman and a young aide. Skeletal, decomposed, wasted. Whatever purpose they'd served had been done long ago. He wondered what her name-badge said, but the machine was gripping his human mind and altering the parameters again.
The sludge died that night. It would live again.

The light was visible now. Pale, green, sickening. She kept her cool, one hand on the other, descending this one-way pathway into places that couldn't be concieved. Floors and doors occasionally appeared before her, but she knew they weren't the right ones.
As soon as she'd entered, it had been clear. The room at the bottom of the cylinder, with its entrance at the third corridor to the left, 5th floor of the upper portion. This place went on forever, but that was perhaps necessary when containing an infinity of infinities in a single metal bunker.
She reached the bottom. She raised a flashlight.

"More weight!", roared the sailor. This was the right place. He was sure of it.
He'd come here from another place, from a hole in a cave in a wall. Him and the others. The winds still howled and tempests roared but there was no life in the air, nobody who understood. Just bodies, slowly dying. Just the rot.
They'd found a boat, and it'd taken them onwards. It had taken them a few days to work it out, when Carlos came back from a visit home. He'd taken something with him, and there was nothing to go back to.
So they did what they had to. What they'd been trained to. Only the winds and the waves were left to oppose them, and this world wasn't quite the same. Oceans where they shouldn't be, bodies where they couldn't. So many, nestled upon each other, a ladder of death that stretched from shore to cosmic shore.
"More weight!", he yelled again. They needed to scuttle the ship. He didn't know why, the others didn't know why, but they had to do it. The parts would be needed. Clouds lumbered overhead, frail rain spat in their cold and numbing faces, but they moved and moved the rocks to the edge of the ship, smashing and hollering and trying to make her sink.
He peered over the edge. Black water. Skeletons, rising up, preserved in some ungodly stasis. A suit and a box of cigarette, as if from a world that could never exist again. And below them, below it all, was a light.
A green light.

She moved forward, to the terminal. Everything was silence. She wondered if there was anyone else in the world with silence left.
The text was pale, sickly. It flashed at her, over and over and over again, its inevitability pouring out of it.

WELCOME, DOCTOR GREEN.

The body of a sailor, skeletal and brief, sat next to her on a wooden chair. The dimensions of the room began to shift, in and out, in and out, like the motions of dark waves.
Her turn now.
You didn't need a building that replaced humans. You needed a machine that created new realities from the wreckage of the old, and contained within it every nestling thing, every conception of dying timelines that had never been. An insurgency. A snowfall. A dying Orthotan screaming for a new world.
They were all drawn here, in the end. To the machine beneath the world, the bunker between the worlds. The place you had to come.
And they always came.
Dr. Green took a deep breath. The letters on the screen changed.

IT'S TIME FOR THE NEXT ONE.

They were always meant to come. The masquerade breaks, it does not break, the eel devours, it spits you out, the city calls, it does not call. The machine did not restore the world, it drew it in, containing each reality as it had done all those before.
She moved her hand and pressed the Enter key. Gears began to whirl as her mind was devoured. A strange scraping removed her consciousness and melting it into a motherboard of flowers. She didn't move, or talk, or speak.
She remembered.


Patrick woke up.
Someone was standing at the foot of the bed.
At first he thought it was his wife, but no—Beth's warm body was lying next to him. Maybe his daughter, then? Megan had inexplicably suffered from a bout of sleepwalking when she turned six, and on more than one occasion she'd found her way into her parents' bedroom.
Patrick squinted, trying to pick out details in the dark. Whoever the hell was at the foot of the bed, it definitely wasn't Megan. They were much too tall to be his daughter. And there was something else about them, the square of their shoulders, their posture, something that suggested to Patrick that this person was of the male persuasion.
He remained motionless under the covers, suddenly wide-awake and beginning to feel the first real prickle of terror. Ice crept down his spine. His palms were sweaty. Either there was an intruder in the house or this was all part of an elaborate dream, except his thoughts seemed too coherent for the latter.
A shaft of moonlight, the color of bleached coral, fell through the window by the dresser and pooled at the stranger's feet. There was something wrong with his face, but in the shadows Patrick couldn't put his finger on what it was. A lazy eye? Was the mouth bisected in a cleft palate?
Maybe both… and maybe neither.
It didn't seem like the intruder had noticed him wake. They just continued to stand there, as still as a statue, which somehow made the whole thing worse.
Patrick pretended to be adjusting in his sleep and rolled over onto his side, toward his wife. The sight of Beth's face made his throat constrict: it was so content and peaceful, so damn normal. Her lips were slightly parted and he listened to the steady susurration of her breathing, completely oblivious to what was occurring. It was a face he'd seen a million times before, but here—for the first time—it suddenly seemed out of place.
Patrick had intended to try and quietly rouse her, but now that he was staring at her he knew he couldn't go through with it. He was too afraid that Beth would be confused and give them away, or that the intruder might overhear.
Instead, he chose a different plan of action: he would leap out of bed and attempt to catch the man by surprise, subdue him, pin him to the floor and scream at his wife to take Megan and get out of the house, run to the neighbors and dial 911.
The claw hammer struck Patrick at the base of the skull.
He'd still been gazing at his wife and steeling himself for what was about to come next, and so he never saw the man creep around the bed; never saw the hammer that had been concealed behind his back.
Patrick knew he'd been hit by something—knew instantly that he was seriously hurt. There wasn't any pain, not really. It was more like a heavy weight pressing down on his head. The hair at the nape of his neck was damp. His jaw locked shut and he bit his tongue in half.
The hammer drew back, blood flicking off the head and onto the walls and ceiling.
It swung again. And again. The third blow cracked Patrick's skull open. The fourth shattered his cheekbone. His retina detached—one pupil dilated while the other constricted, shrinking to the size of a pinhead. He was dimly aware of Beth stirring beside him.
Dying, the last thing that Patrick heard was his wife. She was screaming.

1

"Goddammit,” Clay said, pointing to a photograph on the dresser. “They had a daughter. Where is she?”
“Daughter's safe,” said Nolan, glancing up from his tablet. “She discovered the parents this morning.”
Be thankful for small mercies, Clay thought, although he couldn't imagine a worse start to the girl's day. Stumbling on your parents' corpses definitely wasn't part of a complete breakfast.
He bent over Patrick Murphy's body, sprawled on the bedroom floor next to his wife. "Do these look arranged to you?” he asked.
“Think they're displayed?”
“Maybe.” Clay popped a piece of nicotine gum in his mouth. It was going to be one of those days. “We got a murder weapon?”
“Nothing yet, but the forensic path said it looks to be a small blunt instrument. A wrench or a tire iron or something.”
The carpet was saturated—it squelched and sucked at Clay's shoes like mud. The place looked like a slaughterhouse, the air thick and ripe with a mineral aftertaste.
Clay knew that the human body held anywhere between nine and twelve pints of blood. It was a lot. Too much, if you asked him.
“It's a different M.O. from the other one," he said.
“You think they're unrelated?” said Nolan.
“No… What's the percentage of Foundation employees to the local population? A thousandth of a percentage? Ten thousandths?”
Nolan shrugged. “I don't have a clue. It's got to be something like that.”
“So what're the chances of two Foundation employees being murdered in random home invasions within the last four months?”
“I'd say it's like winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning all on the same day.”
“Exactly.” Clay stood up, rooting around in his pocket for the cellophane gum package. “Get on the horn to Operations. Nothing right now to indicate an anomaly, but someone sure as hell seems to have a hard-on for the Foundation and is targeting us."
He tossed back a second piece of nicotine gum. It was definitely going to be one of those days.

2

The distinct sound of shattering glass jerked Nolan awake. Someone was downstairs, forcing their way through the sliding backdoor. Nolan reached for his service pistol. Usually he secured it in the gun safe with a trigger-lock on it, but these last few months—despite his wife Laura's misgivings—he'd kept it in the holster on the nightstand, always within arm's reach. He cleared leather and thumbed the safety off, swinging the muzzle towards the bedroom door. Laura huddled in the bed next to him. She was wide awake, the duvet pulled up to her chin, eyes the size of saucers.
Whoever had broken into the house, they'd already mounted the stairs and were charging up them, taking the steps two at a time. They hooked right at the top of the landing and headed straight for the master bedroom, making a beeline as if they knew the layout and exactly where they were going.
Well then come on, bastard, Nolan thought. You just come right on in. Make yourself at home.
As a member of the Foundation's Justice Enforcement squad, Nolan carried a 9mm Beretta for work. Inscribed on the dumdum bullets were prayers in Latin, Hebrew, Farsi, and even the hatchet-marks of ancient Sumerian cuneiform. Each casing was coated in an oil made from Eucharist and Hand of Glory and a dozen other ingredients he couldn't name.
Nolan checked and made sure a round was chambered.
Come on. Come on, you fucker. I'm ready for you.
It didn't matter if the intruder was anomalous or not. The standard-issue Foundation ammo killed both—killed them just fine.
The door exploded inward. A man wielding an axe stormed into the bedroom. It's Quasimodo, Nolan said to himself, the hunchback of Notre Dame. He quickly bookended the thought by wondering just how the hell he'd recognized the dimestore mask. The ersatz face was asymmetrical. There were tufts of blue hair along the temples; the terraced brow was bulbous and corrugated, plastic mouth two strips of raw liver, one corner downturned in a lopsided, stroke-induced sag.
Now where have I seen that mask before?
Laura screamed. She sat bolt-upright and flung her hands in the air just as Nolan fired. His first and only shot caught her between the shoulder blades, knocking the wind out of her with a "Whoomph!" The dumdum bullet mushroomed as it passed through organ tissue, tiny bits of shrapnel expanding, ripping through her body and leaving behind a scorched exit wound the size of a golf ball.
A single, perfect drop of blood spilled from her mouth and stained the down-filled duvet.
“Laura!” Nolan cried. Her body went limp, the eyes already glassy and vacant. Nolan had seen that same expression enough times to know what it meant…
She was dead before her head hit the pillow.
Quasimodo raised the axe and brought it down on Nolan's chest, splitting the collarbone like cordwood, the axe blade stubbornly lodging in the sternum. They planted their foot on Nolan for leverage and wrenched the axe free.
The hurricane-force of the blow had caused Nolan's bowels to evacuate between the sheets. Not that he noticed or cared. Even if he'd somehow received immediate medical attention, the rent was so massive and gaping that it would've proved fatal.
But for now Nolan still clung to life. The Beretta was a lead weight forgotten in his hand. All of his attention was devoted to Laura—it seemed impossible that she could be dead…
He absently brought his arm up just in time to deflect the next strike. The axe glanced off his forearm, almost amputating his hand before bouncing off the wrist bone and cleaving into his thigh. Blood fountained and splattered the ceiling. The intruder then switched it up, swinging the axe on a horizontal arc like a baseball bat, hacking Nolan's neck. He rated the hit at least a double, and maybe even an inside-the-park homerun.
A tendon snapped. More blood sprayed in a fan.
Nolan's chin dipped. His eyelids fluttered—they suddenly seemed very heavy, and he was having trouble keeping his head up. There was something seriously wrong with his neck. He tried to raise his arm to fend off the next impending hew and saw that his hand was barely attached, dangling by a chunk of sirloin.
The intruder brought the axe up and over their shoulder and chopped at Nolan's face. The handle shuddered as the axe became stuck again… in Nolan's brainpan.
His eyes rolled back in his head. Nolan made a wet gurgling sound as he exhaled his final breath. A runner of drool sheeted from his mouth, and his hand—the one still attached to his arm—went slack.
The gun thudded against the carpet.

3

“I'm taking you off this investigation, effective immediately,” the Captain informed Clay. “We've already got three dead, and I'm not about to allow a fourth. Not on my watch.”
“Nolan was my friend,” Clay reminded him.
“I know that. Consider it a vacation. Get the hell out of town for a while.”
“I'm not going to run away from this… whatever it is.”
“Fine,” the Captain grunted. “I don't care. Do whatever you want, as long as it's not around here.”
Clay knew that the Captain was under a lot of pressure. His superiors were breathing down his neck, and as the idiom—crude but undeniably accurate—put it: Shit flows downhill. If the Captain was getting it from the suits upstairs, that meant Clay was due to get it from the Captain. It was just the way the world worked.
Three of the Foundation's own, not including their spouses, all brutally murdered in their beds in the past six months, and Clay hadn't been able to produce a single tangible lead. Sure, there'd been plenty of groups and people of interest, but none had panned out so far, none had turned into a legitimate suspect. There were no eye witnesses, and all the forensic evidence collected from each crime scene had amounted to nothing except more dead ends—all of it could be traced back to either the victims' households or the Foundation investigatory team.
Clay had known it was only a matter of time before he was replaced as the lead detective, but it didn't make it sting any less.
“This coming from you?” he asked.
“It's coming from the brass, but yeah, I happen to agree with it.”
“You're making a mistake.”
“I don't really give a shit if I am, Clayton. I'm out of options, and you're dismissed. Now get the fuck out of my office.”

4

The figure of a large man, its features wreathed in shadows, loomed over Clay's bed.
He tried to move but his limbs were frozen stiff. The most he could manage was a slight wiggle of his fingers and toes.
Calm down, he told himself. Nothing's wrong. Just relax.
He focused on his respiration while counting back from a hundred. The shadow inched closer, and he thought he could feel its hands on his legs, fingertips scuttling across the surface of the quilt as they trekked northward.
Ninety-nine… Ninety-eight…
But it was one thing to tell yourself to relax, that there was nothing to worry about, and another thing entirely to actually believe it.
The figure smiled knowingly. Its teeth flashed like an unsheathed blade—deathly pale in the moonlight.
Clay screwed his eyes shut. It was better not to watch. Eighty-five… Please… please make it go away… Eighty-four… eighty-three…
After thirty seconds his hands and feet were pins and needles, sensation slowly returning. He flexed them, bunching the fitted sheet in his fists. Over a minute passed before he dared to open his eyes again.
Clay was alone in the bedroom.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The shadow figure was gone. When his movement was fully restored he climbed out of bed and got dressed, throwing on a wrinkled pair of jeans and a denim shirt, then making his way downstairs in the dark, past the kitchen, through the breezeway and into the garage.
His doctor had diagnosed him with classic sleep paralysis, and it never got any easier. In fact, if anything it seemed to be getting worse, the episodes accelerating in frequency, growing in their intensity. Clay had tried just about everything to make it stop: he'd cut out alcohol, was prescribed antidepressants, he exercised and developed a strict routine before bed. Nothing worked… nothing, that is, except a drastic treatment that helped temporarily alleviate the symptoms, if not actually cure them.
But his body seemed to be developing a tolerance for the treatment, and he had to keep increasing the dosage to achieve the same effect.
Clay flipped on the lights in the garage. He fished the Quasimodo mask from the drawer of his workbench. He'd worn it at a Foundation Halloween party a couple of years back. Not that it mattered. He didn't leave any witnesses behind that could link it to him.
Above the workbench, tools hung from a pegboard. Which one was calling out to him tonight? Not the monkey wrench. He'd already used the hammer and the axe. Not the crowbar. No, not the jigsaw, either.
The hedge shears?
He pulled them down, focusing on the grip of the wooden handles, the weight of the shears. He experimentally opened and closed them, listening to the satisfying snick that the blades made as they slid shut against each other.
Yes. He thought the shears would do nicely.
Tonight, he had a visit to pay to the Captain, and afterward, he would sleep like a baby, deep and undisturbed.


close

Info

X

Co-North's Author Page: Intelligence Agency Data Archive-Subject: North

A gracious offer.
One Unjust, an endless debt.
Payment, overdue.
The Trio rules all.
The world at large and players.
They all fear the wealth.
A vast collection.
The rarest items around.
The Foundation stores.
They make Business hard.
How can we make more money.
Doing what we love.
Unable to steal.
From Foundation's locations.
Locked away untouched.
The Foundation plays.
Ending our control and wealth.
Taking our fair share.
All of our products.
Locked up for experiments.
No profit at all.
But we will rejoice.
A come back will happen soon.
The Foundation knows.
Retaliation.
A detrimental effect.
Foundation quivers
A message to all.
Not to be messed around with.
A trio with power.
They will avoid them.
The only power players.
Marshall, Carter, Dark.
No one knows profits.
Like those with Monopoly.
It concerns the rest.
The most important.
Pieces of this large chess board.
They control them all.
An exclusive club.
Where all the wealthy gather.
Products to be sold.
They will fear the names
Of Marshall, Carter and Dark.
Respected by all.
Except by a few.
The power of influence.
Does not scare these few.
A challenger stands.
Unafraid of their power.
Turn back they did not.
Causing upheaval.
Inconsequential at first.
A small annoyance.
The trio didn't care.
Their Business unimpacted.
A fruitless effort.
A coalition.
The challenger gains support.
The annoyance grows.
Now a stronger stance.
Now a more pressing matter.
A sizeable loss.
Profits start to fall.
The Challenger's ego grows.
Vengeance to be had.
Hired out they'll be
The Chaos Insurgency.
They'll fix the problem.
Knowing they're coming.
The challenger stands bravely.
They do not fear them.
Marshall, Carter, Dark.
Prove to all other factions.
It's their game of chess.


O5-1 laid sprawled out on the desert ground and slowly succumbed to death. The prospect of death had never truly hit O5-1, and in his mind it never would have. Alas, the Fountain of Youth can only do so much, and being miles away from it in the middle of nowhere after being shot is certainly an unfortunate position to be in for an O5 member. O5-1 attempted to stand, only to discover that he had lost all feeling in his legs. Weaker and weaker he grew, desperately crawling across the cracked dry ground, and his mind became clouded with the fog of oblivion. Soon, he forgot where he was, what he had been doing there, who exactly shot him, and even his real name. He stopped trying to move; it didn't matter anymore. He would die.
But at least he'd be remembered.
He stared into the blue sky, the sun having no effect on him becoming colder and colder by the second. He realized no one would come, and accepted it, just as a shadow suddenly cast over him. He looked to his right and saw, on the rock beside him, a man in a black suit and pants, his face somehow covered in shadow. As O5-1's eyes widened, the suited man took out a pack of cigarettes from his suit pocket, took one cigarette out, and offered it to O5-1.
"4999?" O5-1 shouted aloud. SCP-4999 silently nodded in response, once again gesturing the cigarette to O5-1. O5-1 gently took it, while SCP-4999 took out a cigarette of his own and lit both. Just as was described in the file.
"How are you coming to me? I'm one of the most powerful people on Earth, I have allies and friends across the world!"
SCP-4999 shook his head. He put away his lighter and retrieved a Polaroid picture which he presented to O5-1. It was every O5 member sitting in chairs, all 13, except for O5-1. Well, except for the previous O5-1, as a new member, different face entirely, sat happily next to O5-2. None of the other members looked any different.
O5-1 considered the photo. Had they really forgotten him so quickly? In recollection, or what little he had left of it, he realized that he never knew who the previous O5-1 was, or O5-2, and so on. They were simply replaced, the old tossed out for the new. Now, this was happening to him, and would happen to O5-2, and O5-3, and the rest of the Council upon their deaths. The Council continued, but the individual members were left behind.
"No…no. This just…it can't! I wo-eargh!" screamed O5-1, as he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. Too much movement, too much revelation and stress. SCP-4999 put his hand on O5-1's shoulder, and he quickly felt very calm. He needed to rest, to let go, to accept. Two deep breaths in and out, some of the final breaths he ever took, got O5-1 to settle down. SCP-4999 smiled as he continued smoking. They were silent for a while, before O5-1 asked another question.
"Are you an angel of death?"
SCP-4999 shook his head. It was true that, in all their research of death-related anomalies and the afterlife, SCP-4999 had nothing to do with it at all. It's not like he killed those lonely people, wherever they came from and wherever they belonged. He simply stood by them, like a beacon of hope that, whatever was next, they'd be ready. It wasn't knowing what was next that was important, it was knowing that you could do it, and you'd be encouraged. SCP-4999 ensured that everyone was encouraged.
"Why do you do this?"
SCP-4999 sighed and stared into O5-1's eyes, and in them O5-1 saw past SCP-4999. He saw people, from the highly famous to the barely notable, places both ancient and modern, memories long forgotten, and in the middle of it all was a void of nothingness. This wasn't SCP-4999, it was so much more than SCP-4999. It was everything that didn't fit in, every incorrectly coded program, every shadow-ridden person, every veil-covered anomaly, everything fell under his umbrella. Yet, despite having so many names, he had none to call his own.
Once again, O5-1 asked "Why do you do this?"
The man without a name responded with a self-deprecating smile. In truth, he didn't know why he had to tend to every forgotten human, it was just his role. A role in a larger whole. There were other people like him, people to watch over us, guardians of immeasurable power. What else would they do with this immense power than to help those who need it? To help those that didn't matter, and to help those that really mattered.
Nobody knew what it was like to be forgotten, because Nobody was there. Whether it was SCP-4999, the Critic, the Administrator, a homeless man, a god, or another thing altogether, it couldn't let those memories just fade away. Nobody was all those collected memories, it was everybody. O5-1 was just another name on the list.
With as much energy as he could muster, O5-1 held Nobody's hand. He had so many questions. How did Nobody come to be the way he was, would there ever be a time where he wouldn't be there, what comes next? Again, O5-1 realized that it didn't matter. He'd be forgotten by his peers, his family, everyone he had ever come into contact with, but his memories would live on. As long as that was the case, it didn't matter what came next. O5-1 was ready, and Nobody knew that. Nobody remembered him.
O5-1's grasp was lost, and Nobody lingered a moment before disappearing entirely.


Canon Hub » End of Death » Persephone Project

Alto,
The evidence you've shown me is troubling. I'm authorizing you to utilize my Level-5 certification in order to track down what he's up to, and make sure we don't have a repeat of last time.
—O5-2

Alto Clef touched the tip of his burning cigarette to the small paper missive and watched it burn in his ashtray. He laced his fingers together, stretching his arms outward, palms towards the sky, until a rather satisfying series of pops emanated from them. Shaking his hands loose, he studied his desktop terminal.
"Alright, Kain. Let's have a looksee at your schemes."

FILES RECENTLY ACCESSED BY PROF. CROW

LAZARUS PROJECT - Last edited- 4 hours ago
KAIN PATHOS CROW'S PERSONNEL FILE- Last edited- 5 hours ago
SCP-244-ARC- Last edited- 5 hours ago
SCP-447- Last read- hours ago
SCP-500- Last read- 2 days ago
SCP-914- Last read- 2 days ago
SCP-890- Last read- 2 days ago
OLYMPIA PROJECT- Last edited- 192 days ago
SCP-076- Last read- 193 days ago
SCP-105- Last read- 193 days ago

Refresh SCIP.NET?

That dumb old dog and his haughty taughty names. 'Lazarus'. He scoffed. Ridiculous. Finding his secret project had been easier than he anticipated.
With a click, Clef opened the most recently edited file.

LAZARUS PROJECT

Project Codename: Lazarus
Project#: PRJOLM-14310193
Clearance and File#: NPF-00051473
Head Researcher: Professor K. P. Crow
Project Aims: To recommission, further upgrade, and utilize SCP-244-ARC for the purpose of allowing Professor K. P. Crow to remain beneficial to the Foundation indefinitely.
SCP Utilised:
SCP-244-ARC - as the base construct
SCP-447 - as a raw material
SCP-500 - as a raw material
SCP-914 - for the altering of raw materials
SCP-890 - for altering of materials and the finished product
Raw Materials:

One pill of SCP-500.
Five hundred liters of slime produced by SCP-447 as a biological preservative, disinfectant, and lubricant.
One heart-lung machine.
One dialysis machine.
250 kg of bulletproof glass.
One Anderson Robotics Neural Adapter

Refining and Altering Procedures:
Heart-lung machine, dialysis machine, and bulletproof glass to be refined using SCP-914. The installation of these devices will allow for respiration and prevent cerebral/respiratory atrophy.
SCP-890 to assist with further shaping the resultant machine to integrate with SCP-244-ARC chassis. This will be necessary in order to contain the slime produced by SCP-447. Though the slime does not pose a threat in the advent of ΩK, its preservative properties will reduce the physical deterioration of the body and prevent the onset of further musculoskeletal pain.
The Anderson Robotics Neural Adapter will function as the control system of the refurbished SCP-244-ARC. A highly skilled neurosurgeon trained in the attachment of cerebral neuroreceptors to appropriate technologies will be required as well.
Additional Changes of Note:

Removal of previously installed weaponry - no longer necessary
Removal of emergency self-destruct system - no longer necessary
Removal of manual control system - no longer necessary
Removal of aerodynamic propulsion system - no longer necessary
Installation of four accessibility limbs - to assist with productivity
Installation of a gyroscopic camera with occipital support - to facilitate vision

Notes:
Project Proposal approved. - March 19th, 2022
Refurbishing of SCP-244-ARC complete. - September 21st, 2023
Test Trials Begin- January 24th, 2024
Test Trials Conclude - October 20th, 2024
Surgery Scheduled for March 1st, 2025- February 19th, 2025
Surgery Delayed, requested by Professor Crow- February 28th, 2025
Surgery Scheduled for June 12th, 2025- March 18th, 2025
Surgery Delayed, requested by Professor Crow- June 11th, 2025
Surgery Scheduled for July 30th, 2025- July 12th, 2025
Professor Crow was connected to the device on July 30th, 2025. - August 1st, 2025
Calibration test passed- August 15th. 2025
Maintenance performed- October 23rd, 2025
.
.
.
.
.

acoustic
archived
ectoentropic
electronic
mechanical
metallic
scp
kain-pathos-crow
project-proposal
ΩK

  page revision: 83, last edited: 28 Oct 2026, 23:32 (5 days ago)

.

He stopped, the muscles in his right cheek twitching in annoyance. This stupid revamp of the old egg walker was old hat by now. He'd had it for close to a year.
"No, that's damn well not 'end of list', you stupid fucking computer. There's more he's hidden in here somewhere… Son of a bitch is too clever for this to be it."
He logged out and back in, came at it a dozen different ways, dug through Crow's partition with a fine-tooth, admin-level comb.
And there was nothing.
And he just couldn't accept that.
If it had been a bunch of mildly interesting, or hell even outright boring results, then, whatever, so be it.
But nothing?
Maybe this really did go beyond just Crow.
…

Alto Clef (Level-5 Clearance) - 0 secs ago, no edits made
D. Escobar (Level-3 Clearance) - 39 minutes ago, edits made (V?)
L. Sheppard (Level-2 Clearance) - 2 hours ago, no edits made
E. Shaw (Level-4 Clearance) -23 hours ago, edits made (V?)
.

.
.
.
…
.
E. Shaw (Level-4 Clearance) -23 hours ago, edits made (V?)
.
.
.
.
.
…
.
.
E. Shaw (Level-4 Clearance)
.
.
.
.
.
…
.
E. Shaw

Underhanded fucks, the both of 'em.
"Goddamn it, Shaw, I didn't really think you would ever actually go this far."
And just how
fucking deep
did you two
bury this shit?

_

So he rolled up his sleeves- and dug some more.

Clef had assumed that finally getting overseer-level access would have been the end of his problems, but it turned out to be just another piece to this damn puzzle.
The sheer scope of how far Elias had gone to hide whatever this was boggled him. Hours turned into days as he scoured the entire site's database, piecing together the new snippets of code hidden to those below site director.

_

And he dug, and dug, and dug- and dug, and dug, and dug.

3 days. He'd wasted 3 days on this snipe hunt, and he'd caught it at last. A locked file, hidden in a location that the system didn't even realize was there.
Now he needed only to brute force one more password.

_

Down to where trust withers,- down where blooms fear.

The computer ran, as it had run, without interruption, alternatively trying an option, then purging the system's memory of the attempt. In the silence of the room, the hum of the machine's fan washed out all other sound.
Clef sighed. He moved to pull another cigarette from his pack, but found it empty. Crushing it swiftly in his hand, he tossed it to clatter against the wall, and fall onto the pile that had grown over the past few weeks.
He missed when things were simple, when just shooting the bastard was the obvious and correct option.

_

Deeper down still,- unto the depths of madness.

PERSEPHONE PROJECT

Project Codename: Persephone
Project#: [NOT YET SUBMITTED]
Clearance and File#: NPF-00051473
Head Researcher: Professor K. P. Crow
Project Aims: To create an entity, object, or event capable of ending human life.
SCP Tested:

SCP-053 - selected for lethality prior to ΩK
SCP-049 - selected for lethality prior to ΩK
SCP-2333 - selected for ability to end human consciousness prior to ΩK
SCP-963 - selected for ability to end human consciousness prior to ΩK
SCP-2935 - selected for potential to induce a CK-class restructuring event

Test Procedures:

SCP-049, SCP-053, and 1 sample of SCP-2333 are to be removed from containment and moved to the entrance of SCP-2935.

The breach of any of your chosen anomalies won't go unnoticed. Realistically, we'll need to get all of them simultaneously. Furthermore, the entrance to 2935 is buried under several tons of concrete. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.
Don't talk about this in public, keep it all in here. Alto is getting real nosy lately.
—Elias

Yeah, I'll leave the finer points of the heist in your hands. If there's ever been a time to call in any favors you might have, this is it. —Kain

SCP-053 will be restrained and exposed to an aerosolized solution of SCP-2333.
SCP-963 will be placed upon the subject's skin.
SCP-049 will be introduced and instructed to perform its surgery, if it does not begin to do so on its own.
Once the operation begins, all anomalies will be moved across the threshold of SCP-2935.

It's a longshot, but hell, reality itself seems too strange to be real. I believe that, similar to matter and information, it may be possible to reach a critical mass of, well, death. If I'm right, we should see something occur at the moment the threshold is crossed. This focusing iris I've been working on functions with thaumatic, electric, and even gas energy, so it should be able to pick up on death energy, if that even exists.
Though, to be honest with you, I have no idea what exactly to expect. But, as we've both found ourselves firmly in the 'nowhere to go here but up' camp, this is, to my reckoning, our best bet. —Kain

I've managed to rewire the monitoring equipment around the cave 2935 is in and hired an excavation company to dig it out. Things should be ready by next week. How is your focusing arc?
- Elias

Ready to go.
-Kain

Meet me at Loading Bay 35-C next Thursday before breakfast. I don't know if you're a praying man, but it can't hurt.
-Shaw

This is a site-wide announcement of a Euclid-class containment breach.
SCP-049 has been discovered absent from its cell.

Alto Clef grabbed his hat and gun.
"Sons of bitches."

The Hermit, Death, and The Devil

End of Death- Project Persephone

Coming Soon...


COMPWAN Source Manipulator
All images/styling created by Woedenaz
This is based off my very first SCP ever:
SCP-2105 - Programmable Occult
Probably best to give it a read if you want to really understand what's going on.
Special thanks to:

KindlyTurtleClem
djkaktus

▸ More by this Author ◂

{$comments2}

F.A.Q.

{$doesthisfixthebug}

Eight-hour work days five days in a row really grind me down to the thinnest part of my psyche. My coworker, Jen, sits on that bit of psyche and saws away at it with a bone saw made for a blue whale until it just snaps. And today it snapped.
For reasons beyond me, Jen has a crush on me. Every day at work she will not stop speaking to me, flirting with me.
“What are you doing today, Aaron?”
“Do you want to hang out tonight, Aaron?”
“I like your shirt today, Aaron.”
“Have you been working out, Aaron?”
Every time she talks, she ends with this upwards inflection that rings inside me and causes a swift rise of irrational anger.
Her dull blue eyes look at me with just emptiness behind them, waiting for my response… which is usually just a simple “No.” And after months of her no-so-obvious hints, I decided I'd give her what she wants.
I invited her to my home.
“Hey Jen,” I say.
She quickly turns towards me and smiles, “Hey Aaron.”
“Do you want to hang out at my place tonight?”
She pauses for a second, not nearly as excited as I expect her to be. After so much prodding, I thought for sure she would lose her mind over the offer. But eventually she responds.
“To do what?” She gives me the same empty look she usually does, “Well, I mean, of course. I would love to. Are others going to join us?”
I am perplexed at the question. This is not the response I expected.
“I, uh, found this ritual that's supposed to see who your true love is.” I'm making this up on the fly, she'll for sure go for it, “It's supposed to work, but I thought you'd like to try it with me.” I force a smile.
“True love?” She blinks before offering the strangest smile, “You know what? Sure! Perhaps we will both find out together.” She gives a lilting laugh before turning back and returning to work.
“Uh…” I stand behind her, in a confused haze, “Right, well, see you tonight.”
And with that, I return to work.

Last night, I had been trawling the web, the usual places, Procrastinating on house work. I had the lingering irritation of dealing with Jen settled in my mind, digging away at me. I genuinely have no idea why she irritates me so much. Maybe it's because she reminds me of the girls that I grew up with, the same ones that made me feel like such a pile of shit as a teenager.
Maybe I just feel like I don't deserve it.
As the thought crossed my mind, an acquaintance of mine messages me.

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:18 PM

yo, Corvus, you around?

corvas
Today at 8:18 PM

ya
wut's up?

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:19 PM

mv_sk1r.tar.gz
2.71 KB

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:19 PM

check it. some old as shit program that makes rituals

corvas
Today at 8:19 PM

uh
that's cool. How is a .com a program tho

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:19 PM

dunno man
runs like a cmd prompt
I ran it a few times, makes some weird shit

corvas
Today at 8:19 PM

where'd you get it? you sure it's not a virus or something?

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:19 PM

nah, man. I ran it through a virus checker.
Do it yourself if you want.

I furrowed my brows, considering what to do. Goto knew I was in to weird occult shit but I didn't want to download a virus on my computer.
I took a long breath before downloading it and wasting no time running it through my virus program.
Nothing. Oh, well, that's good.

corvas
Today at 8:22 PM

ok I dl'd it
what do I do with it?

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:23 PM

just run it, dood
it's real self-explanatory.

Moving my mouse over the program, I give it a double-click. For a few seconds, my computer whirs, making a sound I'd never heard it make before. Like the sound of sparks mixed with the grinding of rusty gears.

corvas
Today at 8:25 PM

wtf man
I ran it and now my comp sounds like a rusty junkyard

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:25 PM

o yeah, mine did that too.
just give it a sec. It'll stop.

Right as he sent that… it stopped, and a black window opens up in the center of my screen. “COMPWAN Source Manipulator” displays itself right on the top.

corvas
Today at 8:27 PM

ok… now what?

𝙶𝙾𝚃𝙾 𝟸𝟶
Today at 8:27 PM

give it a try

corvas
Today at 8:28 PM

alright…

I stare at the black screen for some time before finally typing. I don't really believe in this shit, I think, but maybe I could scare Jen away with it. Do one of these weird rituals with her. She'll realize how much of a weirdo I am leave me alone.
I mull that over before typing a “3” and pressing enter.

I know it won't work. I spent the majority of today just collecting all the objects I will need for the ritual. I set up my dining room for the whole affair. I have a nice round wooden table that is the perfect size for two sitting across from each other. Pushing the chairs across the tile floor, they make a scraping noise that causes me to shiver.
Knock, knock, knock, Three rapid taps on the front door.
Pushing down my black shirt, I walk down the steps with only the soft pat of my socks joining the dull echo of knocks. As I turn the corner, there is Jen. I can see her through the window of my front door with a smile plastered across her face, though she has her head turned away. As she rocks back and forth on her heels, I quickly move to the kitchen.
“Just a moment!” I shout.
I walk to the counter and grab the bag of supplies I had gathered earlier, as well as an etched glass cup from my cupboard. With the items in hand, I make my way back to the front door.
She turns her head and a grin greets me when I open the door, my dim porch light doing a poor job of illuminating her face. A small breeze is accompanied by the strong scent of some sort of shampoo and perfume. A part of me has to admit, she is somewhat cute.
“Hey Jen,” I attempt a grin, “sorry for the wait, I had to get all the stuff.” I raise up the bag and the glass, one in each hand.
She stops bouncing on her heels, still smiling, “May I come in?”
I set out a short sigh.
“Right, of course, shall we?” I wave her inside and close the door behind her. “Just up the stairs.” I start making my way back up, Jen following close behind me. As we approach the table, I place the items on it and back away, looking towards Jen.
“You take a seat right there.” I gesture to the chair to my right.
“Oh, right…” She nods, still… curiously less enthusiastic than I thought she might be. I shake the thought with a sigh and return to setting up the table.
I place the etched glass down, making sure it was as close to the center as possible. The light from the lamp above the table refracts through the glass, making a pattern of light around it. I pull the paper, pencil, and needle out of the bag and place them on my side of the table. I look over at Jen, trying to assess what she was thinking.
She had her hair pulled back and she was looking around the area, a spare room that used to house an ex-roommate. The only thing he had left behind was this table, saying I could keep it. Though I truly believed it was just because he didn't want to move the thing.
She looks back at me as I'm looking at her, we lock eyes for a moment. They aren't quite as empty as I remember. Still the same pale blue, but there is a purpose to them that I don't remember seeing before.
“Jen, uh, maybe we shoul—”
Perhaps she notices the hesitation in my voice as she interrupts me, “So, this ritual will tell us both our true love?” She asks, giving me a friendly if slightly broken smile.
I blink, feeling a warmness in my face, “Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, that's right.”
Composing myself, I attempt to resume my air of mysteriousness. I move very deliberately, picking up the needle with a fair bit of flair. I hold it up in front of my face, looking away from her, pretending to inspect the sharpness of the needle.
“I hope you're okay with blood, Jen. This is a blood ritual.” I say, smiling a bit as I turn to look at her.
She chuckles slightly, almost condescendingly, “Yeah, sure. I don't care.”
This isn't working like I intended.
“I need to get another item, give me just a moment.”
As I exit the room, Jen's gaze follows me out the door. I walk quickly to the kitchen and fill a pitcher with tap water. As the water flows out of the faucet, I peer listlessly out the window. This is so goddamn stupid, I tell myself. A steady flow of second guesses rushes through me just as the water in the pitcher reaches near the top.
Whatever, it's been years of her not taking hints. Let's just get this over with. I turn off the faucet and make my way back up the stairs.
“Alright, Jen. I'll need you to do everything exactly as I say when I say it.” I speak as I cross the threshold in to the room, “You cannot hesitate. If you do, I cannot promise you the results you'll want.”
“The results I want?” She gives me a confused look.
I place the pitcher down as I take a seat across from her, “You… you know, having it tell you your true love. It might not work if the ritual is not done exactly as I say.”
She looks down at the items on the table and back up at me, an almost pained look crosses her face. “Right. Okay. I am ready.” She removes her purse from her shoulder, leaning over and sliding it under her chair.
I only just now notice how nicely she is dressed. A light mauve lace top that loosely sits on her shoulders with a white shirt underneath. I shake my head slightly, focusing back on the ritual.
“Alright, I'm going to fill this glass halfway with water.” I do exactly as I say and fill the glass halfway with water. I am trying my best to seem strange and mysterious… but now I just felt awkward.
I return the pitcher back to its position on the far edge of the table. I pan my head back up to look at her, “Let's begin. Please, do not move from your chair until the ritual is complete.”
She nods and pushes herself closer to the table.
I lift the needle back up with my left hand, again with a certain amount of flourish and quickly move my right hand around in front of me, pricking my right pointer finger. Involuntarily, I take a sharp breath through my teeth. Holy shit, that hurt way worse than I expected, I think to myself as I put the pin back on the table. I squeeze my finger until a small globe of blood escapes from the wound.
“That looks like it hurts,” she comments, actual concern sitting in her words.
“Quiet.” I command, trying to keep it together as my finger still throbs in pain.
I pick up the yellow pencil with my left hand and lightly touch the graphite tip to the drop of blood.
I pause as I smell Jen's perfume on a small breeze, my eyes flicking around the room.
“Uh…” I focus back on Jen, “Okay. I'm going to place this pencil in the glass. After I do, you must drink the water with the pencil still in it. You have to drink all of it.”
She stares at me as the smell of her perfume becomes stronger, “Wha— really? I don't really want to drink your blood.” She grimaces.
“It's the only way it'll work.” I try my best to be convincing, pulling my mouth in to a grin, “Don't you want to know who your true love is?”
I carefully place the pencil, tip down, into the glass. It sits for a moment as the blood drifts off the tip in a small red cloud that shifts around slowly in the water, as if it had been stirred. We both watch as the small cloud drifts higher in the water. After a few seconds, it breaks the meniscus and continues drifting into the air.
“Uh…” She watches the cloud drifting closely, “Aaron, how are you doing that?” She asks with a fair bit of amazement in her voice. The first time since she got her that she sounds like the Jen I am familiar with.
“I, er…” I don't know what to answer. This is absolutely not supposed to happen, a feeling of dread sinks into my stomach. However, it is fleeting, quickly replaced with fascination. I shush her and keep watching.
The red smoke continues drifting out of the cup and floats into the air, stopping about a foot above the glass. It then splits into two, each smaller cloud drifting lazily towards me and Jen.
Jen speaks in quiet awe, “This is so cool…”
I just sit silently while my thoughts are paralyzing me. The small bit of red smoke reaches my nose and swirls silently up nostril. It smells a bit like baking chocolate and… fish? Simultaneously, it drifts up Jen's nose as well. She coughs slightly, a bit of the smoke escaping out of her mouth and dancing back up her nose.
“Jen?” I say, eventually. She doesn't answer, just stared at me. A familiar smile descends on to her face. Without a word, she slowly grabs the glass and swallows the water, holding the pencil in the glass with her other hand. The smoke continues to escape from the pencil, engulfing her head in red. As she finishes, she places the glass in front of her. The red smoke pushing itself back into her, appearing to focus primarily on her eyes.
I do not know what to do, but I speak without even really thinking. “So, next, you need to take this paper.” I feel my arm move as I grab the paper with my right hand, leaving a small dot of blood on the corner. I place it in the center of the table.
She grabs the paper and takes the pencil from the glass.
Both of us moving slowly, almost mechanically, but with purpose. I am not sure if I am still continuing my act or not… A dull pressure, a haze, descends on my thoughts.
She stares right at me as she writes without looking. I glance down at the paper; the writing is in green.
Okay, I want to stop. I tell myself, a frantic desperation attempts to climb itself out of the haze of my mind. However, I find myself doing nothing in response.
She puts the paper back into the center and I grab it. The letters are unfamiliar to me, though after a moment, they appear to almost sink into the paper and rise back out, having rearranged in to English. I read it in my head.
“WHAT YOU DESIRE, IT IS MISSING. IT IS SHATTERED LIKE SO MANY PIECES OF GLASS. NOW, SO, SHALL YOU.”
I stop breathing. Jen hadn't spoken at all.
“Say it.” She says.
And I do. “What you desire, it is missing,” I say slowly. Is that even really my voice? “It is shattered like so many pieces of glass. Now, so, shall you.”
The table begins to spin heavily in front of us, making a sharp scraping noise on the wooden floor. I cannot move my head, my eyes are locked on Jen as the table had spins 180°, placing the glass and pencil directly in front of me. I feel my head move again, looking down at the items in front of me, I hear a thwomp before looking back up. Jen had passed out on the table, her brown hair spread over the table, obscuring her head.
“Jen?” I say meekly.
There is no reply.
I stand up from the table, equally becoming aware that I can do so now. I feel panic spread through my whole body. “Jen!” I repeat and push at the side her head.
“Why can't I move?” I hear her say, quietly, muffled by the table.
“Oh fuck, Jen,” I push her hair away and see her face as she slowly turns it towards me. Twisted, unnaturally with a look of pure anger. Her eyes are wide. I can hear her teeth grinding.
She speaks with her mouth closed, “Fuck you, Aaron. I'll fucking kill you.”
I hear the sound of cracking come from her mouth, but the scraping continued – back and forth, back and forth – slow and deliberate.
She had not moved yet, only her jaw – back and forth, back and forth, crunch, crunch.
At that moment, I panic. I am not a strong guy, but I manage to lift her up and hoist her over my shoulder. Her mouth, the sound of scraping teeth, rhythmically repeating in my ear. I'll just drive her home. The thought crosses my mind in my panic. Maybe this is just temporary.
The thoughts keep rolling through my mind as I try not to lose it.
As I reach her car realize her purse is inside. I place her on the ground, her back propped against the car. As I try to positioner so she will not fall over, I hear a sharp snap as chunk of white slips out from between her lips. Her head tilts over limply, leaning against her should. Her wide eyes, sharp pupils, burrow in to my own.
“Jen… please…” He lean down looking at her, “This wh—”
Crack – another piece of tooth slides out of her lips.
“Shit.” I whisper to myself as I stand, sprinting towards the door.
I return with her purse and pull out her keys. Inspecting Jen as I unlock the passenger door, I notice that the two chunks of tooth are gone. Opening the door, I reach down and lift her up, doing my best to gently place her in the seat. I pull the seatbelt down, reaching past her to buckle it.
“It's going to be okay.” I say quietly.
The passenger door swings shut as I jog to the other side, taking a seat behind the wheel. I look over at her. Her face is flushed red, veins pulse in her forehead. I can hear her rapid heartbeat from four feet away, a fast rhythm that seems to only be getting faster.
I just need to get her home. I back out carefully and head towards her house. I am not going to lose my cool.

“I'm bringing you home, Jen.” I say, taking my eyes off the road for a moment to look at her. The only reply is the continued scraping of her teeth – back and forth – only interrupted by the occasional crack.
I keep driving.
I jump when she speaks, “What's inside me? Clawing at me, chewing me.”
I look at her, she is still looking straight ahead, the constant grinding never-ending.
“I don't know,” I say.
“I just… need to–,” the grinding stops slowly, replaced by a small squeaking noise. I look at her again. On her shirt are dozens of bloody fragments of teeth, her jaw is still moving back and forth.
“I just asked him,” she speaks, “he calls himself… WAN.” She turns and looks at me. “He wants me to thank you. I am his now.”
“I don't… I don't understand.”
She finally stops sliding her jaw back and forth and grins at me, a toothless grin. As she smiles, her teeth slowly reappear one by one, with a short, wet popping noise.
“He says…” pop, pop, “he tells me to go to him. To find the pieces along the way.”
Her grin disappears as we arrive at her home – a small white house with red shutters. It almost seems to glow as the headlights shine on its walls.
I turn off the car and sit for a moment, the grinding sound to my right returning in the silence. Leaning forward on the steering wheel, I breath in and breath out in a vain attempt to stop the panicked beating in my chest. I lean back up and turn to open the door.
“WAN wants me. WAN needs me.” She speaks, muffled through her closed lips.
I shake my head and close the door, heading to the passenger side and lifting her out. She seems to weigh even less than before…
As I hold her, she gutturally whispers into my ear.
“He says he wants you too. He says that she didn't drink all the water like she was supposed to. He says he warned you. He says you knew the risks.” She opens her mouth and leans forward towards my ear, I feel her warm breath as a wad of teeth, blood, and saliva roll off of her tongue, slipping into the waiting canal, “He says you are his now.”
In disgust, I drop her on the ground and look down at myself, the soft yellow of the sodium bulb street-lights illuminated my body. I try to reach up, in some attempt to reach my ear, but I could not move. I see my fists are bleeding as I dig my nails into them. The musculature on my arm is straining, expanding outside my skin. My skin splits open and the red of muscle seems even more vivid with the orange light.
Jen pushes herself off the ground and looked at me, her movements slow and tired.
“Aaron?” she asks, her eyes look heavy, as if just waking up.

I hear a voice in my head, overwhelming my thoughts. It sounds stiff, automatic. “Bring them to me. The lines, they grow longer. I need more. MORE TO FILL. MORE TO COMPLETE.” It grows louder, I begin to lose myself to deep feeling of emptiness. I lift my arms up in front of my face and see scar tissue falling off. My vision grows brighter, the worlds many broken systems revealing themselves to me… but it is not enough.
My head snaps down to look at this one of flesh. WAN needs the flesh. The flesh must me made complete. The flesh scrambles to its feet, lifting to its sad form and running away.
“Nghoh—” I try to speak, a last cry of my imperfect flesh, but my jaw shoves itself out from my mouth, clattering to the ground, before my lips seal themselves over my useless orifice.
With a sharp snap as my spine lurches in my back, pushing itself out of my flesh. The pain is nothing, for it will be replaced and I will be compiled. My vision darkens as my eyes expel themselves from this imperfect vessel. A squelching sound becoming dull as my ears sink in to my waiting skull.
Soon. Soon I will be a program for WAN.
A program to compile the imperfect flesh.

I hear a voice in my head, overwhelming my thoughts. It sounds stiff, automatic. “Bring them to me. The lines, they grow longer. I need more. MORE TO FILL. MORE TO COMPLETE.” It grows louder, I begin to lose myself to deep feeling of emptiness. I lift my arms up in front of my face and see scar tissue falling off. My vision grows brighter, the worlds many broken systems revealing themselves to me… but it is not enough.
My head snaps down to look at this one of flesh. WAN needs the flesh. The flesh must me made complete. The flesh scrambles to its feet, lifting to its sad form and running away.
“Nghoh—” I try to speak, a last cry of my imperfect flesh, but my jaw shoves itself out from my mouth, clattering to the ground, before my lips seal themselves over my useless orifice.
With a sharp snap as my spine lurches in my back, pushing itself out of my flesh. The pain is nothing, for it will be replaced and I will be compiled. My vision darkens as my eyes expel themselves from this imperfect vessel. A squelching sound becoming dull as my ears sink in to my waiting skull.
Soon. Soon I will be a program for WAN. A program to compile the imperfect flesh.

I hear a voice in my head, overwhelming my thoughts. It sounds stiff, automatic. “Bring them to me. The lines, they grow longer. I need more. MORE TO FILL. MORE TO COMPLETE.” It grows louder, I begin to lose myself to deep feeling of emptiness. I lift my arms up in front of my face and see scar tissue falling off. My vision grows brighter, the worlds many broken systems revealing themselves to me… but it is not enough.
My head snaps down to look at this one of flesh. WAN needs the flesh. The flesh must me made complete. The flesh scrambles to its feet, lifting to its sad form and running away.
“Nghoh—” I try to speak, a last cry of my imperfect flesh, but my jaw shoves itself out from my mouth, clattering to the ground, before my lips seal themselves over my useless orifice.
With a sharp snap as my spine lurches in my back, pushing itself out of my flesh. The pain is nothing, for it will be replaced and I will be compiled. My vision darkens as my eyes expel themselves from this imperfect vessel. A squelching sound becoming dull as my ears sink in to my waiting skull.
Soon. Soon I will be a program for WAN. A program to compile the imperfect flesh.

I hear a voice in my head, overwhelming my thoughts. It sounds stiff, automatic. “Bring them to me. The lines, they grow longer. I need more. MORE TO FILL. MORE TO COMPLETE.” It grows louder, I begin to lose myself to deep feeling of emptiness. I lift my arms up in front of my face and see scar tissue falling off. My vision grows brighter, the worlds many broken systems revealing themselves to me… but it is not enough.
My head snaps down to look at this one of flesh. WAN needs the flesh. The flesh must me made complete. The flesh scrambles to its feet, lifting to its sad form and running away.
“Nghoh—” I try to speak, a last cry of my imperfect flesh, but my jaw shoves itself out from my mouth, clattering to the ground, before my lips seal themselves over my useless orifice.
With a sharp snap as my spine lurches in my back, pushing itself out of my flesh. The pain is nothing, for it will be replaced and I will be compiled. My vision darkens as my eyes expel themselves from this imperfect vessel. A squelching sound becoming dull as my ears sink in to my waiting skull.
Soon. Soon I will be a program for WAN. A program to compile the imperfect flesh.