« | A Circus Milked Dry | A Circus With Paranoia »

A sudden crack broke the silence of a vast, infinite plane of the white landscape known to the Clowns of the Circus of Disquieting as the Phoneyard, a series of "hubs" for pick-ups and quick travel. Here and there, patches of various landscapes seemed to sprout from nothing out of the blank world, from dry deserts to fog-filled forests; spatial duplicates of past Circus Grounds that now served another purpose apart from performing. All sorts of giant phones laid strewn across these mini bubbles of scenery, wheel dials, cellular flip phones, and even poor quality cups-tied-to-a-string; some of these had never been Picked Up, and were now left to slowly fade and decay as the immobilized Fun-Lovers withered from Milk Deprivation. Others popped into a hub and winked out to another place within instants. The sounds of an exit were similar to a firecracker and party horn going off simultaneously.
Bang-TOOT!
Bang-TOOT!
Bang-TOOT!
Over and over.
Bang-TOOT!
Again and again.
FWOOO-OOO-OOP! ZING! DING! DING! DING!
Or perhaps more like a carnival mallet game?

In a pick-up hub resembling a deserted, dusty grassland, twelve dozen red phone booths sat alone and abandoned. They were all older models of Fun-Lover transportation. Very unreliable prototypes. Most of them were shoved away into this particular, funny graveyard; some still had the remains of an unfortunate rider inside. This particular joint wasn't even in service anymore; it was more of a dump than anything else.
But, like any old phone number, there was always that one person who dialed something wrong and called it instead.
FWOOO-OOO-OOP! ZING! DING! DING! DING!
A smoking, crackling, spinning scarlet rotary phone popped down out of thin air and landed with a resounding thud on the loose dirt.

"Eugene, you're back!"
WOWWEE! WOWWEE WOWWEE WOooowwWHEEE-ee-ee-eeeeeeeee Crackle, crackle, crackle.
"Ack, Pius, stop groping me!"
"Sorry, Eugene; you were just a ball of goop a few seconds ago!"
"Dammit, it's dark in here. I can't see squat!"
"Hold on! Let me help!"
"Argh, Pius, not the spotlight! Not the spotlight! Tone it down!"
"Sorry, Eugene! Here, I'll guide you to your seat!"
"No, Pius! You're burning my eyeballs out, for Freak's sake!"
"No, really, just let me—"
"Pius, quit it!"
"Eugene, will you—"
Shove. Splash!
…
Drip…drip…
"…Dammit, Pius, this stuff stains."

Eugene and Pius the Clowns sat facing each other in roller coaster-esque safety seats within an enormous phone receiver (also known as Mortimer the Fun-Lover) as Entry of the Gladiators played as wait music. Pius was rocking his head back and forth in mild content; Eugene was cringing as he tried to block out one of sixteen songs that had been looping continuously for the past five hours of waiting. He could tolerate "Pink Elephants on Parade" to an extent, but whenever he heard the electronic remix of "Entrance of the Gladiators" he wanted to fill his ears with Herman Fuller's Marvelous Molasses.
The solitary scene resembled something similar to the bilge of an old ship; it was dark, echoey, and partially flooded. When Mortimer had landed, it had badly cracked the inner lining, sending Clown Milk fuel into the compartment. A leak was bad news for any Clown attempting to get home. The volume of Milk lost due to a leak proved disastrous for the window of time one could expect to be picked up; all Fun-Lovers broadcasted a waiting signal to the nearest available open pick-up line, and when the Milk dried up, so would the call. So far, Eugene and Pius had been sitting for nearly seven hours, sitting in the sweet, tarry substance, cramped, hot, and generally miserable.
"This… stinks." Eugene wrinkled his nose in disgust as he continued to breathe the arid air of sour Clown Milk, a slightly sweet, but more noticeably rancid, stench of chloroform and rotten eggs. "Did Mortimer bust a pipe or something?"
"Yeah, looks like," Pius said concernedly, moving his hand over a seam running through the right side of the cabin; black ooze gurgled through the crack, making thick splish-sploosh echoes as it dripped into the pond that covered the two Clowns' shoes. "Oh, Mortimer, what did you do to yourself this time, you poor Fun-Lover?" Pius talked to the ceiling. Splish-sploosh. Splish-sploosh.
"When we get back to the Circus, I'm gonna get Mortimer Fine-tuned." Eugene groaned with exasperated malice.
"Oh, come now, Mortimer's not deserving of that." Pius said. "He's just having connection problems."
"What are you, a Fun-Lover sympathizer?" Eugene snorted. "Such a Progressive Pius."
"Hahaha. You're so funny, Eugene."
"I gotta be. It's in the job description."

"What Hub did we end up in? Takin' them a bit long, don't you think?" Eugene twiddled his thumbs.
"The default line is the…Lake I believe?" Pius recalled. "But you're not getting seasick, and we're sure not bobbing, so we're probably in one of the Fields right now. I'd ask Mortimer for a ping, but he's still obviously broken, or malfunctioning, or whatever a Fun-Lover does when it has problems."
"So we just have to wait now?"
"Pretty much."
"Okey-dokey then." Eugene eased the tension in his shoulders a bit. "Wheat Fields, eh? It's sure seen it's fair share of fiascoes. I wonder how Toby's been doing lately?"
"Busy as ever, I imagine. Don't forget, he's in charge of the cornfields as well."
"Yeesh, poor guy. Getting all the weirdos out of that Twisty Maize.."
"Oh, you have no idea. Remember that time when Jesters somehow ended up in there? Kept scaring the living daylights out of everyone and anyone who popped in. Lines became unstable and we almost had a reemergence over Wiltshire."
"Little bastards would have made one hell of a crop circle when they came out." Eugene smirked, lost in thought.
"We had to go summon Samuel to weed 'em out," Pius continued. "Took a month to regrow all the Connections."
"Frickin' familial squabbles."
"Stupid Jesters and their Shufflers."
"Hahahahaha."
"Hahahahaha."
"Haha."
"Haha."
"Eh-heh…eh-heh…huhhhh….."
"Huh."
…
…
"Ugh, there's not even a window to look out of in here. The Lake actually has a nice view, and the fields don't look half-bad in the summer."
"You're not exactly traveling first-class right now, Eugene. Emergencies and such, remember?"
"Well, it could be better, but I won't complain."
"There's something new."

"What happens to Clowns when we start to decompose? Do we end up looking like whatever we were when we decided to off, or what?"
"Don't say things like that right now, Eugene, your pessimism is infectious." Pius said, looking down at his feet.
"Ah, come on, lighten up," Eugene said smartly. "Hey, Pius, quick, let's play a game. What am I?" Eugene's head split in two, each sprouting a ridiculously frilly cap n' bells that jingled furiously. The red and black hats attached seamlessly to his heads, like the crest of a rooster, and the fronds shook on their own like rattlesnake tails. Four pairs of eyes glowed iridescent blue and his voices rose as if he had just inhaled a tank of helium.
"You're a Jester, aren't you?" Pius guessed not bothering to take a look.
"Awww, man, you're no fun," Eugene squeaked irritably. His heads turned back into that of a single, now disgruntled, clown.
Pius shifted his leg in annoyance as he tried to get into a comfortable position again; it was really starting to get cramped in the cabin now.
"You've been twitching around non-stop, Pius, yeesh. What's the matter? Jitterbug worked its way inside you?"
"I don't have parasites, Eugene," Pius said irritably as he brought his left knee up. "I'm trying to—"
FPPPPPTTTT. A long, drawn-out, rather rude-sounding noise reverberated throughout the cabin.
…
…
"Jeez, Pius, hold it in, will you? It stinks bad enough already."
"That wasn't me, that was—"
GLOP.
A huge bubble of Clown Milk forced its way through the crack of the cabin and burst, showering a not-so-fresh mist of tar over Eugene and Pius. The exterior flatulent noises continued to sound.
Eugene grimaced. "Man, Mortimer, pull yourself together. We're counting on you here, buddy."
Pius gently patted the side of the cabin.

"…AND THAT'S WHEN I WENT IN AND TOLD THAT FREAK; FREAK— HEHEHEH — HEHEH — shit. HEheh! Heheh!!! Hurgblblblbl!!! Blrrrrrrbbb!! I'm losing it. I'm losing it. No. No, no, no, no! Pius? Pius? Pius? Pius? Pi? Apple? Cherry? Whipped cream in the face? Dammit!!! Pius!"
…
"Pius?"
Pius awoke with a start as he neared his fourth consecutive day with Eugene inside of Mortimer's receiver. Their Fun-Lover wasn't getting any better, and the two Clowns weren't getting any more sane. More leaks had sprung into the cabin, and the air was becoming more and more saturated with near-narcotic levels of Clown Milk.
"Hey, hey! Pius! Why you got that thing over your… faesh…eh?" Eugene was gesturing towards the gas mask Pius had spawned to mask his mouth and nose.
Pius groaned in weakness and exasperation. He opened his sleep-filled eyes slightly. "Get your mask on, Eugene," he mumbled.
"Heheh, you look…funny! Geheheh!" Eugene's left eye twitched and spasmed; it then swelled disproportionately to form the eye of a fly. "Bzzzzz-eheheh."
Pius sighed and promptly backhanded Eugene across the cheek. "Get your mask back on," he snarled. "You're inhaling Clown Milk vapor." Even as he said this, Eugene sucked in another mouthful of Clown Milk air particles and entered another fit of uncontrolled giggling that was quickly smothered by the mask that clasped over his nose with a honk.
"Ouch! Damn, Pius, what was that f—" Eugene cut himself short. He felt the re-attached face cover. "I went loopy again, didn't I?"
Pius merely glared a cold glare back.
"Sorry." Eugene slumped back down in his seat, taking deep breaths of semi-filtered, stale air. There was an uncomfortable three minutes of silence.
"So… Pius?" Eugene asked.
"Yes, Eugene?" Pius sighed.
…
"I'm tired."
"You and me both, Eugene. You and me both."
…
…
CREEEAAAAAAAKKKK
"OH, SHI—"
BLOOSH
RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE-Rat-rat-rat-rat-raaaaaaaaa
…
…

Sqwee, sqwee, sqwee, sqwee
Ba-chunk, ba-chunk, ba-chunk, ba-chunk
Sqwee, sqwee, sqwee, sqwee
Ba-chunk, ba-chunk, ba-chunk, ba-chunk
…
…
"BluuuhYEECK!"
Eugene pushed himself up onto all fours as he found himself soaked from head to toe in milky mud. Even as he started to stand up, the tarry, spoiled Clown Milk stuck to his hands like cement, making him stumble several steps forward before landing face first into a patch of dried-out grass. The ground was surprisingly warm.
Sqwee, sqwee, sqwee, sqwee
Ba-chunk, ba-chunk, ba-chunk, ba-chunk
A few paces away, Pius lay eagle-sprawled and winded, bewildered as he looked up to white expanse of nothingness above, while he felt the black swamp clinging to him from below. He tried to lift his head up, decided it wasn't worth the effort, and then let it roll into the sludge. After a few moments, he groaned and looked to see what was making a noise similar to a car that was bumbling across a rocky road with a bad suspension.
"What the—"
Mortimer was stumbling back and forth on what looked like two over-sized wooden mannequin legs, which was odd, considering the rest of the body was a giant, scarlet rotary phone. Clown Milk was spurting through the number holes and through the knee caps and ankles of the Fun-Lover, and it was emitting garbled, electronic babbling through the receiver. Finally, milk shot out of the seams of the phone, and Mortimer flailed wildly like a person in the electric chair before slumping on its behind with the phone crashing dial wheel first into the crusty dirt.
You— ha-a-a-a-ah-ave — ZeEeeeEro — Nine — Massage new theeeerr…aaaapeeeeeeeesss Mortimer gave one last twitch, then went limp, sparks buzzing as they shot off from the machinery. Pius gawked in horror as he watched the Fun-Lover collapse and fizzle out.
Eugene made his way back to Pius, squinting his eyes as he adjusted to the whiteness of the Hub's boundaries, grass and dirt still sticking to his lip like he was a cow grazing in a pasture.
"Where— in the Freaking name of Manny — did Mortimer—" He cut himself off as he saw the smoking wreck of a broken Fun-Lover lying in the dead, withered grass. "Oh, shit."
Shoes squelching as he walked his way over, Eugene moved to help Pius up.
"Well," Eugene grunted with effort as he yanked Pius' arm, "This is definitely not the Wheat Fields." He looked around and examined the mass of phone boots scattered around the arid landscape. "I don't even recognize this Hub. Where the heck are we?"
"Your guess is as — ow — good as mine," Pius grimaced as he was pulled free from the gloop. Now that he had a better angle, he could clearly see how badly damaged Mortimer was. "Dammit, Eugene, how could this happen? Where did Mortimer go wrong in the landing?"
"I have no clue," Eugene said, shaking his head, eyes shut tight. "Ugh, can't Morty fix himself? What happened to the fail-safes that came with him? Those things are standard issue!"
Mortimer let out a low, foghorn bellow, blowing the back hatch of the phone off to reveal the complex array of Milk sacs, tubing, and wires that made Phone calls possible. What should have been healthy, pumping lines of fuel were limp, punctured, and in some areas, completely severed.
Pius drew closer, wary that the already-battered components might burst any moment. He gingerly picked up a portion of tubing that should have led to the control board.
"It's… been clawed." Pius said in befuddlement and confusion.
"Clawed?" Eugene said incredulously. "How the freak did— Clawed?"
"And bitten, too," Pius said. "Look, those are teeth in there." He gently took his hand away; a dozen or so denticles clattered onto the ground.
"Where did those come from?" Eugene's jaw hung open.
"I'm trying to find the connecting lines, hold on." Pius brushed away a curtain of sacs in the front and worked his through the interior, feeling around as he went. His eyes extended out into stalks and followed suit. It was an incredibly bizarre picture, like a snail trying to find its way through the dark. He cringed. "This is disgusti—" He suddenly jerked and gave a shout of surprise.
"What is it?" Eugene asked startled.
"There's something fuzzy in there," Pius moaned, his hand and eyes still inside the phone system. "I can't get a grip on it."
"Fuzzy? Where is it?"
"Whatever it is, it cracked two of the Milk circuits and broke the top one clean in two. It's caught on the third."
"Are you gonna try and remove it?"
"I'll try."
Pius slowly began to jiggle his hand back and forth in an attempt to dislodge the foreign body inside Mortimer. His mouth was clenched in anticipation. Eugene surmised about how strange it was seeing his partner's eyestalks looking like eels while still attached to his head. He shivered involuntarily.
"Damn, we can be downright weird."
"Oh, yuck!"
Pius' hand exited the tangle of organic and inorganic components, clutching a black and red mass about the same size of his hand.
"You got it!" Eugene cried.
"That — was — terrible." Pius said; his hand was death-gripping the thing he had removed, despite his mind screaming at him to throw it away.
"So, what is it?" Eugene asked impatiently.
Pius shakily commanded his fingers to un-clench, and opened his hand to examine the ball of fur. Eugene's grin vanished on the spot. Pius groaned.
"So that's why he broke. He had that thing with him when he transformed."
"Freaking hell, Mortimer, I told you that that was a terrible thing to play with to pass the time."
Eugene swatted the gopher out of Pius' hand in contempt.

« | A Circus Milked Dry | A Circus With Paranoia »


In the days when the Flood receded, and magic once again flourished in the world, it came to be that man discovered the Chronicle of the Daevas, that ancient compact. Hands misled by doubts and dark whispers took it from its dusty tomb, and cast it into the sea.

In a forest, there was a small lake of cool, clear water. In the center of the lake was a small, rocky island, upon which was built an ancient stone watchtower. The trees of the forest were old and strong, their heavy roots buried deep, and their broad branches seemed to hold up the sky itself. The dappled sunlight shifted as the breeze moved through the leaves high above. Great boulders, draped in moss, sat amongst the roots and trunks of the trees. The air was both cool and warm, and the world was quiet, save the shifting of leaves.
There was a scraping sound, the sound of metal upon metal. Then came the rustle of underbrush being pushed away, and the sound of something being dragged through the dirt.

Pages scattered upon the water, and like a mighty wave the Daevites clawed out of the black leaves of history, with their armies and their cities and all their empire. The Flesh too, emerged, crawling from its ark deep beneath the frozen earth. Together they made great sacrifice and horror. They called out to their master, and their master answered them.
The Scarlet King rose up from the Pit of Megiddo, with all his Leviathans and demon lords. Creation trembled, for its extinction was at hand.

A soldier walked out of the forest, onto the bank of the pool. Its armor, dent and torn and punctured, was caked and crusted with brown and red and burnt with black. The soldier's skin was burned and dirty. An eye socket, and the temple above it, had collapsed under a blow. The scalp had been torn away, the hair had burned to ash. Flaps of skin exposed a jaw of cracked teeth. An arm flopped limply, its bones broken. The soldier looked as if a corpse, rather than a human, and the heavy stench of hell was upon it. The soldier dragged a pitted, nicked broadsword behind it, carving a little trench in the loam.
The soldier walked along the bank until it came to one of the great boulders draped in moss. Here, the soldier lifted the sword high, and then drove it deep into the ground. There was no need for the sword anymore. A long and winding journey had ended.

But mankind, in this late hour, did not go quietly into the dark night. No, it was as if a great final flame burned brightly. With mankind stood the ancient guardians: Hakhama, broken no longer, with her fleets of dreadnaught-angels vast enough to blot out the sky. Nahash, returned from his exile at last, his plumage bright and fire upon his mouth.
For the briefest of moments, brother and sister were united, and with them mankind fought and died against the King and his servants.

The hand that once held the sword began to unfasten the armor's buckles and belts. Each piece fell to the mud and was still. There was no need for the armor anymore. The soldier began with the armor on the arms, and then the armor of the legs, and then unfastened the cuirass it wore. After this, it removed the mail shirt, and then the ruined vest and breeches. When all of this was done, the soldier arranged the armor in the shape of a human next to where the sword had been driven into the mud. There would be no burial, for the grave would not be disturbed. There was no need for swords or armor anymore. It would rest on the bank, by the great boulder draped in moss, and be still.

The Brothers Three, marking that the time was at hand, gave the command for the doors of the Silent Halls to be opened. The dead streamed out, an army uncountable. They stormed the King's Court and freed the six Brides who remained and all the countless souls imprisoned in torment there.

The soldier, now wearing nothing but blood and dirt and grime and ash and salt and scars, knelt by the stream and reached a hand into the water. The current washed away the filth on the hand, and underneath the coating of grime there was clean skin, smooth and pink and healthy. The soldier cupped water in its clean hand and drank. Rivulets ran down its chin, staining it with mud.

Three brothers in black rode upon three white horses. Behind them marched every being who has ever died, from every world, from every facet, from every sphere, each mortal and god and stray soul. The sum of all the dead in exodus. A song rose as the column passed through the shattered obsidian gates of hell. A song of joy. The dead marched, to strike down the King.

With the clean hand, the soldier reached over to the shattered arm. With yanks and tugs, it shifted the bones back into place. Mangled fingers twitched, and then bent, and then the arm moved. The soldier flexed its once-broken arm, saw that it moved as it should, and was satisfied.

Thus the final battle was met. The gods and all their hosts descended from the heavens and rose from the abyss, to make war with each other. The Stars burned with hate. Creation crumbled under the terrible strain. No world was spared, no sphere passed over. The Ways were torn up. The Library burned. Gods were cast down from their thrones, and the earth was laid to ruin. A million, million warfronts poured torrents of blood down the branches of Creation. The King made Yesod his throne, and all things were reduced to ash.

The soldier stood up, and waded into the pond. When it reached a point where the water was up to its waist, the soldier began to bathe. Layers of burnt flesh and dried blood peeled away, revealing healthy skin beneath.

Far below that vast and terrible mountain, two sons of Adam met for the last time, and died at each other's hands. Nahash was torn in two, and Hakhama shattered a second time. The flame of mankind, of all thinking beings, dimmed, sputtered, and went out. Stars were eaten alive. The dead were reduced to dust. The heavens went dark, choked with smoke and ash. The abyss was fattened with blood. All lights had been extinguished, across a billion, billion worlds.

The falling clods of filth formed a cloud of pollution around the soldier, but this cloud quickly settled at the bottom of the pool. As the soldier washed, it grew less like a corpse. Hollow flesh became full. Life returned. Muscle stitched back together. Skin mended. Hair regrew. Bones rejoined. Gone was the dried sludge of blood and dirt and shit. Gone was the grime of salt and smoke. Gone was the cold, gone was the stench. The evil time and the evil place passed away.

One light remained. Thirty-six saints gathered on the mountain slope, and together fulfilled their ancient destiny. The passing of the world in this cruel and horrible fashion could not be helped - they had been waylaid by the forces of the world too long to prevent the horrors of the King, but they were not without power.
Creation could not be healed, but the King might be made vulnerable. The seals he had placed upon himself, all those ancient defenses, were dissolved.

The soldier dove beneath the surface of the water, and upon rising up was no longer a corpse, but a human. A woman, who was solid-built and strong, with wet hair the color of straw. She brushed a strand hair out of her face and smiled, for she was alive again.

These were the seven that would destroy the king. The little bastard Empress in her veil, her head swollen and her tongue mute. Harker, the man who shattered the dreamtime with a single strike. The Exile, who long ago cheated the Brothers Three. A'habbat the Unbroken, seventh Bride no longer. The apostate Fawn astride the Saturnian Stag. Set, third son of Adam. Isabel the Maker of Wonders.

The woman's name was Mary-Ann, and she was no longer a soldier.

Seven spears pierced the Scarlet King.
One pierced his right eye - this was Harker's spear.
One pierced his left eye anew – this was the Fawn's spear.
One pierced his liver – this was Set's spear.
One pierced his hands – this was the Exile's spear.
One pierced his feet – this was the Empress' spear.
One pierced his heart – this was A'habbat's spear.
The last was driven down through his skull – this was Isabel's spear.
The Brothers Three thus came to claim the King, as had been their right since the beginning. His body was cast into the Abyss, and Death hung over the waters.

Mary-Ann swam about in the pool for a time. She floated on her back, and looked up at the trees and their branches, and the sun in the sky. The occasional bird would flit through the sphere of her senses – she cooed back up at them. She dived underneath the surface and rose up, again and again. She would pick up handfuls of smooth pebbles and mud only to let go and watch it all fall back to the bottom. She swam about, with front stroke, backstroke, breaststroke, with the joy that her body might be exercised with something other than killing.
After a time, she rose, and waded back to the shore. She was naked, but there was no shame or fear to her nakedness. She found a patch of soft grass on the shore, nestled between two mighty roots, and here she lay down in the speckled sunlight.
She slept for a time, and her dreams were of gentle, formless things.

The seven stood upon the King's empty throne in silence.

When she woke, the shadows had grown long, and the sun now burned golden-orange. By her feet lay a stack of neatly-folded clothes. A grey shirt, sand-colored pants with many pockets, and heavy, strong boots. Mary-Ann dressed herself, and felt like she was whole again. Not Mary-Ann the soldier in those legions of the dead. Just Mary-Ann. A name, a face, a body, a life. All whole again.
She wandered into the forest without a direction in mind, her hands in her pockets. There were bright flowers of blue and yellow and red and pink and purple and orange. There were great mushrooms and molds, white and red and dun. There were birds, plain and ornate. There were little scurrying and burrowing animals. In distant shadowed hollows she could make out the shapes of larger creatures. Here and there were crumbling ruins of stone, or the mossy bones of giants, or a winding trail of cobbles. The evening waxed.
A leopard, grey like shadowed snow, sat perched upon a vast tree's root, smoking a pipe. Mary-Ann scratched it behind the ears as she passed by. The cat flicked its tail and purred, puffing out a ring of applewood smoke.
Shadows grew longer, and the night birds began their calling. The path Mary-Ann had been following became more finely made, the cobbles younger and more neatly fit together. The ancient forest gave way to an expanse of grassy hills. The wide open sky was pink and orange and blue with the last remnants of the sun, and the fat silver moon had risen.
A man stood there, on the road where the forest ended. He was old and bent over, leaning on a cane, with short grey hair and a clipped grey beard. His clothes and air were proper, polite, wise. Gentle eyes sat in a dark, wrinkled face. He was feeding birds.
Mary-Ann ran. Tears welled in her eyes. Time stopped.
“SALAH!”
She tripped over her own feet, her momentum nearly carrying her to the ground were it not for the wild flailing and pinwheeling of her arms. Her boots pounded on cobbles. The birds scattered at her voice.
“SALAH!”
Her arms pumped madly, her legs strained as she urged herself faster, faster. A single moment longer would be intolerable, unendurable.
They met. She wrapped her arms around him, and his around her. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, blinding her to everything but the warmth of his body, the sound of his heartbeat, the texture of his jacket, the smell of coffee and old books, that gut feeling of belonging. Here. Right here. Home, right here.
Home. Home. Home.
She buried her face in his shoulder and shook with laughter and sobs, and she cried. She held him close, and showered him with kisses, and she cried. She looked into his gentle eyes and saw that he too was crying.
Home.
“You got old, Salah,” she sniffed, blinking at her tears.
“I hope that's not a problem.”
“I'm not letting go.”
“Not ever?”
“Never ever.”
Mary-Ann rested her head back on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Everything was still. The night was soft. Moments passed, mountain-bone heavy. Time seemed to have lost all of its pretensions of before and behind, and was content to remain.
Together. Home.
Mary-Ann lifted her head, and looked back into her husband's eyes. He looked younger now, closer to the Salah she married. Still had a little bit more grey around the temples, though. She didn't mind.
“Okay, I don't think you're going to vanish. I'll let you go now.”
Salah laughed. Mary-Ann let go, but only with her arms. He didn't vanish.
“Do you have plans for tonight?” He asked, taking her hand in his. She could feel the ring still on his finger.
“Only the ones that involve you.”
“I like those plans.”
Above their heads, a great celestial squid with a mane of nebuli twisted across the star-spilled sky. It was good to see stars again, instead of the thick smoke-and-blood smears of hell.

There was stillness. Creation was cold, and it was empty.

“But, before we do anything, there's someone here to see you,” Salah said, motioning off into the night. Mary-Ann followed his finger to see a figure emerge from the darkness: A woman, short and wire-thin. Close-cut, dirty-blonde hair. Darkish skin, splotched with splashes of bright red.
Mary-Ann stared for a moment. Realization crumbled her heart into a painful dust.
“Fuck…” she croaked. “I thought I was done crying today.”
“Hi, Mom,” the woman said, waving a little awkwardly.
Whatever Mary-Ann wanted to say in response, the words where stuck in her throat.
“Go to her,” Salah murmured in her ear, but her feet remained rooted to the stones. Her mind flared with once-buried feelings. The horrible heat of a furnace. The crackling of burning tinder. The smell of charring flesh. The cries of her baby girl as she burned.
“Naomi…”
“Yeah. It's me.”
To look was painful – a horrible, aching, dreading pain in the soul. Mary-Ann clenched her eyes tight, buried her face in her hands, shuddering as the tears came anew.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” the mantra spilled out, over and over again.
She felt thin arms hold her…
“It's all right, mom. I love you.”
The briefest and smallest of whispers.
“Love you too…”
…and then let go…
Mary-Ann opened her eyes, and saw her-daughter face to face. Naomi was older than she was – there were strands of silver in that hair, age lines around her eyes and mouth – but in those eyes she saw all the other Naomis. The little girl with curly hair and twiggy arms filled with books. The dirty-faced youth with the patched jacket and cap, shoes muddy and gun in hand. The clean-cut teen with slender glasses. The stern young woman. The stalwart mother. Mary-Ann wiped at her eyes again. Her daughter's scars had faded.
“Look at you… all grown up and respectable,” she said.
“You helped a lot.”
“I tried to kill y-”
“You saved me. End of story.”
Yeah, Mary-Ann supposed that would be it. End of the story. That was a good ending.
“You might not have been around, but I looked up to you,” Naomi continued. “I didn't want to let you down."
“Oh stop it.” Mary-Ann punched her daughter in the arm. “That's just overkill.”
“I mean it!”
“I know you do, kiddo. I know you do.”

In the stillness, Isabel smiled. Flickers of the first fire danced and swirled in her eyes, spinning about like galaxies. There was a warm wind upon the throne, and it smelled of summer.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mary-Ann spotted a quartet of other figures lingering in the background, who had gone unnoticed in all the excitement. A huge man built like the offspring of a grizzly bear and freight train, with a beard that bent down to his waist, two teenage girls (the older one tall and plump, the younger one short and thin), and a young boy who looked to have singed his eyebrows off.
“Who's the Viking?” she asked.
“My husband,” Naomi answered.
Mary-Ann paused for a moment, before grinning and hoisting her daughter off the ground with a tight hug. “THAT'S MY GIRL!”
“Ack!”
“Sorry, sorry!” She put her daughter down, and cast a glance over to over to her newfound son-in-law and grandchildren. “They are not calling me grandma.”
“We can arrange that.”

Isabel closed her eyes, inhaled…and breathed out.
And there was fire.
She inhaled…and breathed out.
And there was a song.

“Well, Salah? Anyone else ready to pop up out of the woodwork?”
“No, I think this is everyone.”
“Awesome. Come on over, guys!” she shouted out to her new extended family. “Don't be shy!”
There was a gathering, and hugs and laughs and names and stories and a few more tears. The moon shone high above, and after a while the family began to walk down the road into the hills. They did not know where they were headed, but the tugging of their hearts drew them along.
There was a little house on a hill. The lights were on.

In the Fire, and in the Song, there was Wonder. Ways bloomed out from the Fire and Song and spread out across the waste and void. Though they were long and winding paths, they were strong and safe, well suited to the pilgrim souls that would soon tread upon them. This was the final wonder to be made, not by Isabel's hands alone, but by the hands of all her forebears, across all times and worlds and peoples. A final work.
Home.

The end of the world went like this: Everyone lived happily ever after.


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A collection of sonnets based on different SCPs.

184
134
1733
1370
2201
2000
2999/1903/1619
006-J

The Architect
The temple now is slumb'ring in its sprawl
The dark of night has taken it upon
But growth can yet succeed within its walls
And rooms within continue yet to spawn
Does wood not crack if alterations made
Continue so to do while it does wake?
Do tiny Buddhas ever truly fade?
And hallways moan, and bones and teeth do break
To craft the yawning caverns of the god?
A frozen earthquake, trapped within the mud
Always growing, shifting where we trod
To craft a place of worship dripped in blood
And later when the lives and walls can't keep
I wonder, will we remember to weep?

Star-Eyed Child
She cannot see the dark inside her eyes
A film, in day, that eats the world within
The horror that the blackness does imply
Does not reflect upon her gentle skin
A child yet, a flower not yet grown
A bud attempting sight unto the world
But even here, ensconced among her own
She cannot try to even come unfurled
She only sits and stares, her eyelids gone
And never even really there to start
The curtains to her solemn mind are drawn
Her eyes, reflection, lonely counterpart
And yet within, below the membrane lies
Her galaxy, a heaven in her skies

Season Opener
In darkest room a researcher sits still
Rewinding on the Motorola box
To watch the 'faithful' execute God's 'will'
Proselytizing vainly to their flocks
"What makes a man descend so far below?"
He wonders as he presses pause to stare
Bathed in the television's bright blue glow
To watch them, fans still dimly unaware
That nothing will allow them to escape
The hellish nightmare of this picture show,
This prison cell, this never-ending jape
That lost its comic timing long ago
But who'd have thought a basketball's long arc
Can mirror us truly within the dark

Pesterbot
Destruction is its one prerogative
But fate has doomed it to a life of want
Its threats become merely declarative
Without the weight behind to truly daunt
It tries on names like different kinds of hats
Attempting to find one that truly strikes
Fear into hearts of men, those bureaucrats
That treat it like a toy that's meant for tykes
But deep within it burns a heart of flame
A thirst for blood that's never been compared
Yet locked within a body that's been lamed
Its only comfort never truly there
Those empty threats are all it ever had
And in the end that's really rather sad

Cross-Dimensional Barbershop
"Did you know, boy, this shop used to be full
"Of barbers, not just me, a massive fleet
"Of men with gel and deft fingers that pull
"At curls and kinks, voices raised to greet
"The men who came to us, with coins in hand
"To ask us for our willing expertise
"In all things follicle, to make them grand.
"Surgeons, lawyers, corporate types, police,
"All came here to Giuseppe. Now, they're gone,
"Absconded," he said, glowering past me.
The bags below his eyes belied a yawn.
"A handful left, perhaps a score, and thee."
His accent was too thick for me to grasp
"It was fun, once," was all I heard him rasp

Deus Ex Machina
We live our lives in quiet discontent
But safe among the rambling lies we weave
About how we've protected our ascent
To afterlife, and yet we thought to leave
A ranger station, quiet in its place
Among the geyser's roaring waterspout
Concealing network hoping to replace
The world that we can learn to do without
A hidden comfort we cannot learn of,
Despite the fact that it would bring us peace,
A magnifier of the dang'rous love
A counter to the promise of release
But in the end, with blackness ending yawn
I bet no one will even know we're gone

The Black Cat and the White Rabbit / Jackie's Secret / Site-45-C: Floor 24
Oh, listen close to humming in the air,
The disk drive, like a flitting moth, awakes
And spins the empty numbness it can spare
From lines of code that slither through like snakes
The party's in full swing now, and the lords
And ladies in their grandeur turn to watch
The cat among them, slowly drifting towards
The center, now devoid of all debauch
But even masks can't save him now in this
Emaciated form, he tries to tamp
The feeling grown of dread encasing bliss
He's wond'ring if he should have asked the lamp
A sharpened mind's no match for rabbit's claws
Our Sarah isn't here now, never was

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING
Do living creatures not deserve respect
No matter how upsetting their visage?
Maybe. Perhaps we all need to reflect
Upon the thin genetics, and the bridge
That draws us close together, us and them
(Disgusting though their many legs may be)
The tree of life has crafted many stems
And good or ill, entwined with them we see
Them only through the crystal glass I wield
To capture them, release upon the earth.
The index card's a flimsy sort of shield
Protection that we've borne against since birth
Yet tender love for them—oh no, it fell
Oh shiTTING FUCK, IT'S ON MY FACE, OH HELL

« First Quarto | Second Quarto »


Misser Sticks was not enjoying his existence. For one he was jammed into a storage closet with no company but some paint cans, and for another his elbows were pressing into his featureless face. For yet another the woman from across the fence had screamed at him a few minutes ago. He didn't much like that as it made his head ring even though he didn't actually have any ears to hear with.
Long fingers slid across the wooden door until he found the knob, and he slowly creaked it open. He never really had much of a choice when opening doors; they always creaked. His long limbs and its many joints allowed him to fully open the door without unfolding himself from his spot between the two paint cans. Nothing seemed to be happening, but he had been told to stay in the closet.
Soon a small girl slid into the view on sock-skates. For want of a mouth a smile was lost, but Misser Sticks silently radiated happiness. In turn she exclaimed his name and hugged his leg, which was poking out of the closet.
"Misser Sticks," she said, looking up at him. "I think it's safe to come out now. Mrs. Weisgarber is in her house. She's still yelling, but she's on the phone."
After unraveling his other limb from around the mop, he leveraged himself against the door frame and slowly lifted himself out and up to his full height. Well, most of it at least, as he had to bend two sets of his knees and tilt his head slightly.
Misser Sticks was, to put it simply, not entirely human. He was technically asleep, though it was not too deep a sleep. But someone was certainly dreaming of him, if not quite fully.
The certain someone at his feet, one Tiffany Roads, was entirely human. She reached up and grasped one of his slender fingers. He wrapped the digit around her hand, and they stood together for a moment, enjoying the reunion. It ended when he raised his hand, lifting her several feet into the air. She squealed and giggled as he gently swung her like a pendulum.
Across the room the clock struck noon, which meant it was his young ward's lunchtime. Still tilting her back and forth, Misser Sticks ventured into the kitchen. He deposited the child onto the island within and set about opening cabinets and drawers around the room without ever actually moving his legs. Soon, Tiffany was holding a peanut butter and banana sandwich, which she eagerly sank her teeth into. He made sure she was also supplied with a glass of chocolate milk before patting her head and departing from the room.
Once outside her vision, Misser Sticks rapped his knuckles together nervously as he scuttled over to the door to peer through the looking glass. Not that he had any eyes to look through it with. But he saw that the street looked as it always did. No screaming humans or whining police vehicles. Perhaps all would be well.
He once again crossed the room, over to the staircase. Rather than actually climb them, he reached up to the railing on the second floor and slowly hopped up. He went into the laundry room and unloaded the clothes from the washer, then dumped them into the dryer. He was playing with the dials when he heard a knocking from downstairs.
He tried not to panic.
But some base part of Misser Sticks, within his innermost depths, entered a deeper sleep. It dreamed of Things, and They of him, an intimate link between what he had once been and what he was now. They told him things, of what it meant when you were discovered. He saw images of humans in uniforms. The meanings of paranoia and of confinement. They let him know now was the time to panic.
And so he panicked.
It lanced through his twisted limbs, launching him out of the room and over the railing like a coiled spring. He landed in a mass of elbows and knees, which coiled up beneath him like a rattlesnake. The door hung open, and a half-eaten sandwich lay on the floor in the middle of the room.
Without bothering to untangle himself he crabwalked over to the sandwich, scooping it up in one overjointed arm. Limbs snapped around as he examined the discarded foodstuff, bringing himself to his full height. His back pressed against the ceiling as he looked on in horror, his chest expanding and collapsing aside from the need to breathe.
Taking a step forward he gripped the door frame and leaned out, taking in the various vehicles in the street with an emblem of a golden eagle over a blue disc. At the three men with strange guns. At the unconscious child being carried away by a fourth man.
The contractions in his chest spread until his entire body was pulsating, the expansions growing ever stronger than the retractions. Misser Sticks shoved himself through the door before he became too large to fit.
Behind the cover of their vehicles, the armed men glanced at each other. A broken, black humanoid figure was now standing on the house's doorstep. It was large, and quickly getting larger. A fuzziness surrounded it, blurring all around it in a dreamy haze. By the time its head passed the roof of the house, the agents could barely actually see the house through the haze. Instead they could faintly see a foreign landscape, dotted by strange entities eying them.
Misser Sticks rose his arms, blooming several more in the process. He took a step forward with a foot the size of a coffin. The grass around him wavered between its natural lush green and a deep purple. A flurry of limbs reached for the man carrying Tiffany, but he clambered into the waiting arms of an armored van.
The Dreamtime creature fell to his knees, and then again, and then yet again. The armed men fired their guns, and Misser Sticks defended himself with his branching arms. He continued lowering himself until he could see within the van, ignoring the needles burying themselves in his limbs.
Within the van, the man was holding a small box of white rocks up to Tiffany's face. She stirred and opened her eyes, and the connection to Misser Sticks' homeland was severed. Without the aid of his friends, he could not hold his larger form, and was unable to fight the bite of the injection needles and their payload of adrenaline.
His mind spinning, he was vaguely aware of the three men guiding him into the van. He heard the doors shut, he felt the warmth of a small hand in his own, and he caught of a whiff of the smelling salts.
And then Misser Sticks fell awake.

Close of Play »


Incident 209-A
Experiment 209-A
Experiment 209-B
Experiment 209-C

"Hey. Up late? Thought you were off duty. What you got there?"
"Oh, I'm just going over the old reports from SCP-209 again. You know, the files it sticks on the thumb drive. Wanna watch with me?"
"The dream recorder? Heck yeah, I'd love to see those! Be right back, I'm going to want a beer with this. You want anything from 294?"
"I'll take a scotch."
"Ha! I'd never have thought you a scotch drinker."
"…Crap. Okay, yeah, I'll have the scotch. It's a 209 thing."
"Um, okay. But like, why'd you need hard liquor? It's not like anyone's been hurt by 209. It just sits there and records. Safe as can be. You lucked out for a first assignment."
"True. But you'll see. Here, this first one is what was on the drive when we found the SCiP."

imadethisyoubitch.m4a

You find yourself in a room with wood paneling, a large lit marble fireplace, two mahogany side tables, and two red velvet-upholstered wingback chairs. On the walls are various hunting trophies, comprising deer, Komodo dragon, cat, and human. On one side table is a chess game, set up at the beginning of play. On the other side table is a tumbler of a golden-brown liquid, under a glass bell jar.
With you is a young man, Caucasian, skinny, with short light brown hair. He looks at you, smiles with familiarity, and laughs triumphantly, stating, "It works! It works!" Another figure emerges from the shadows in the corner of the room, a butler, no, his features are too perfect, too standardized. A cartoon of a butler. The butler states, "Welcome to your dream. Please, be seated. In this portion of the dream, you will play a game of chess. The winner shall have the opportunity to drink this glass of fine scotch." He then stiffly returns to the shadows.
You and the young man sit and play the game of chess. He moves his piece wrong. Very quickly, you win the game and the butler reappears and removes the bell jar. "Your drink, ma'am," the butler intones. You accept your prize and drink. It is scotch.
The young man becomes agitated as you sip your scotch. "This is my dream. I made this machine, this is my dream! I should have won the game! Where's my scotch?"
The butler snorts and replies, "You are out of line, my dear fellow," and a rusty iron cage descends from shadows at the ceiling, capturing the young man. "I don't like the tone of your voice," the butler adds. He clears his throat and adds, "What shall I do with the riff raff, ma'am?"
Your mind fills with anger at the young man's arrogance and whining. You reply, "Make him a toy, smaller. Shrink the cage."
The butler replies, "Very good, ma'am." The cage starts shrinking, and the surroundings shift to become the quad at your university. The young man starts hunching over in his confined space, complaining of the pain and continuing to state that he made the machine, everything should be his. Annoying little jerk. Other people in the quad approach you, all smiling and fawning, asking about your new toy. The cage shrinks smaller than dimensions necessary to contain a human, but the young man is still inside, crushing his body into a catlike animal. His agonizing screams become shriller and more rhythmic, crying out every three seconds, but everyone else continues to gush over the quickly diminishing toy.
Tired of his wailing, you pick up the cage and squeeze. A wet-sounding crunch is heard, and the cage, now the size of a packet of cigarettes, contains a small, unidentifiable mass of tissue. It is thankfully silent. The butler appears again and intones, "Thank you, ma'am. I shall dispose of the cage for you. Good morning."
You wake, refreshed.

Closing Remarks:
SCP-209 was recovered from a makeshift sleep lab in the basement of the Biomedical Engineering department building of ███████ University. The thumb drive attached to the computer component of SCP-209 was found to have a single file, "imadethisyoubitch.m4a".
Subject was L███ G██████, (23 years old, female, Han Chinese ancestry). Upon interview, subject confirmed that this was her dream while attached to SCP-209. She did not know who built the device, nor how it appeared in the basement. She did not suffer any other ill effects and had a healthy psychological profile, and so she was given a Class B amnestic and released.
Researchers note that SCP-209 is designed to handle two subjects simultaneously, and recommend that future experimentation should be done with two subjects.

"Fancy. And hey, there's your scotch!"
"Mhm."
"That one guy was so annoying, though! I'd have crushed him, too."
"I know, right? Last time I dreamed of some dork like that, I dropped him in a vat of cement."
"Ha! I once used a jerk for laser practice."
"That's so awesome! Hey, you want the next one? This one gets steamy."
"Oh? Show me show me show me!"

romanceisfrownedupon.m4a

You awake in bed, a large canopied one. It is still dark, and you can only see a small distance. Next to you in bed, a lovely young woman with long brown hair, green eyes, and an orange Class D jumpsuit wakes up. She giggles and grabs you, kisses you, saying, "We did it! We've got all evening to ourselves."
"What if they find out about us?" you ask, nervously.
She laughs, as she runs her hand down your body. "Don't be silly, it's a dream. No one is going to care. None of this counts. We can do whatever we want."
A viewscreen flickers on, and a familiar green puppet appears on screen. He speaks. "Hi ho, Kermit the Forg here." Forg? "Welcome to your dream! For the first part, we're going to play a game of paintball! Painball! Payball! Yaaaaaaay!"
You and your date are apparently standing, wearing futuristic form-fitting armor, and are each armed with a rifle and a pair of pistols. Clear acrylic tubes descend from above to encase you and her separately. A voice is heard on your helmet's radio: "Entering arena in 3! 2! 1! Zero seconds! Ah ah ah…" Lightning is heard to crash over the radio.
You drop through the floor and slide down, speeding through a tube to the arena. The arena is an abandoned factory of immense size, with pipes and steel girders and large moving gears and catwalks everywhere. Various grinding noises can be heard. Although she is nowhere to be seen, your date can be heard through the helmet radio: "Hey! This works! I'm gonna get you! Just you wait!" She laughs playfully with fake malice.
You spy a red sign on a machine of unknown origin: "Romance between Class D personnel is frowned upon by the Foundation." The radio crackles back to life: "Mobile Task Force Unit 'Heartbreaker' is now entering the arena! Yaaaaaay!"
The sound of combat boots is heard, and a squadron of fully armed MTF personnel appear and fire at you. They miss, but their paint strikes a metal gear, which immediately rusts through with a seeping hiss. An alarm is heard, going off with a single klaxon blare every three seconds. You run. Run for your life. Standing still is death at the hands of the MTF.
You turn the corner, knowing that they are following you, and nearly run into your date, frightened. "Are they chasing you, too?" you ask. She nods, and you run on together, but quickly find yourselves in a dead end. Another red sign with the same message hangs over the unit as it approaches in lockstep. You fire at the unit, but the paint boils away before it can reach them.
She narrows her eyes and pulls out her pistol. "They're not who we're trying to tag. We're supposed to tag each other." She fires the pistol at you. It stings and nearly knocks the wind out of you. Reddish-pink paint scatters across your armor.
"We have a winner! Yaaaaaaay!" The arena and the MTF unit disappear, replaced with a white marble pedestal, with a tumbler of scotch. "Miss, here is your prize! Enjoy!"
She snorts and laughs. "Whiskey? I hate whiskey! Go ahead, you drink it." You shrug, walk up to the pedestal, and sip it. It is smoky, smooth.
The scene shifts to a typical suburban kitchen, in the morning. Your date wife, back in her Class D jumpsuit, is humming while baking at the stove, your baby daughter sits in a high chair, watching Kermit on a television, and you, also in your jumpsuit, lean back in a recliner at the kitchen table, scotch and cigar in hand, reading the newspaper. The headline reads, "Romance between Class D personnel is frowned upon by the Foundation." You looks up at your wife. "Are you sure this is okay?"
"Of course," she replies, "They can't get past our white picket fence." She glances out the window, where the front yard is visible, bordered by the white picket fence. Immediately beyond it, waiting, are a number of armed MTF soldiers and lab researchers in white coats.
You look back to your wife and ask, "You know, I only know you by your number. What's your name?"
"My name?" she replies brightly, "It's D." She stops, concerned. "No, it's not D, it's D."
A quick look outside the window shows that the fence has gotten closer to the house, and the personnel are closer as well.
"D!" Kermit calls from the television holding up a large letter D. "What other words begin with D? Dream! Doctors! Death row!"
Scared now, the wife adds, "I made you a cake." She reaches into the oven and pulls out a frosted yellow cake with strawberry filling, pink fondant, and light brown buttercream.
"Doubt! Dread! Dunce! Disaster! Detain! David drowned himself dead!" Kermit starts dancing.
The fence is now inside the kitchen, and half the room is filled with armed guards and researchers.
You finish your scotch and feel emboldened. You stand. "No. That's enough. I can't do this. This is my dream, and I am not going to fill my home with the likes of you!" You pick up Kermit's letter D and use it to chop the guards and researchers into pieces.
"Destroy! Devastate! Decimate! Decommission!"
"Come here, mine!" You pull her in, kiss her deeply. You unzip her jumpsuit and lift her onto the kitchen table, crushing the cake.
"Delicious! Delectable! Devour your darling deeply!"
She's pink. Pink fondant. Brown buttercream hair. You bite into her shoulder — soft, sweet yellow cake. You greedily tear off a chunk and swallow. She screams in pain. You keep eating. She made you this cake. Strawberry filling oozes out of her as you stuff your face with her intense, rewarding taste. She cries out in excruciating agony.
"Don't! Desist! Desirable!"
You have your fill. Satisfied, you turn to the TV. Kermit looks at you. "Wow, that is really something. That is a very good cake! Don't worry, I'll clean up the mess." Kermit hops out of the television and hums while he sweeps up the remaining crumbs.
You awaken, refreshed.

Closing Remarks:
Subject: D-39584
Upon interview, the subject confirmed the dream while attached to SCP-209. He appeared refreshed, and a post-experiment physical revealed reduced stress hormones and feelings of euphoria.
Subject wished to add a statement to the report: "Here, I thought I had hit bottom, but here, asleep today, I discovered my dream girl. Literally. I guess it's only fitting that she only exists in my mind." Given the minimal risk caused by the experiments, regular personnel are allowed to participate as subjects.
Researchers note that SCP-209 is designed to handle two subjects simultaneously, and recommend that future experimentation should be done with two subjects.

"Hottest. Cake. Ever."
"Pfffft!"
"And scotch again."
"Yeah. All the dreams have scotch. We aren't sure why. We've marked it as an anomalous behavior."
"And they both start with someone saying it's a dream."
"Yup! It's weird, when you're hooked up to the device, your dreams are more vivid and lucid. Probably something to keep you from recording a dreamless night. I mean, it's not a dangerous SCiP, but there really is some weird spooky stuff happening in that computer. It's got to be feeding a dream just as much as recording one."
"Feeding you scotch, apparently."
"Yeah, it really gave me an appreciation for single cask vs. blended."
"Huh? What do you mean? You've been hooked up to it?"
"Mhm. Since regular personnel got cleared to be subjects, I tried it out myself."
"Oh, really? Do you have that dream?"
"Right here."

scp6823110montauk.m4a

You enter a bathroom stall, a standard stall in Site-19. You hear a woman's voice in the stall next to yours: "Psst! Hello? Anyone there?"
You realize the toilet has not been flushed. You peer into the bowl, examining closely as you flush. The filthy, brown matter within the toilet splashes out, and the head a malicious green creature, resembling the head of an octopus, emerges from the depths of the commode.
The creature speaks, in a low, scratchy, hollow voice, "Welcome to your dream and doom. You are tasked with researching the worst SCP ever. The most destructive demon ever existed. You will work on SCP-6823110-Montauk."
The woman in the next door stall shudders. "No. Not that. Anything but that."
The creature presses, "Prepare to meet your doom. There is no hope. Your soul will be crushed and violated."
The stall door opens, entering into a large, wide containment chamber. The lights fade out to black farther into the chamber. The only apparent item in the chamber is a single medical operating table, empty, illuminated by a harsh medical lamp. A respirator can be heard, pumping air onto the table, every three seconds.
You start walking toward the table. A child's sobbing can be heard. Just beyond the edge of the darkness, scales and undulating motions are detected, a blackish green against black, belonging to what looks like four giant monsters.
The whimpering in the stall next to hers continues: "No, no please, I can't think of anything. The neighbor's stall closes. "No, I need something else. Something else."
You approach the medical table. Although the rattling hacking and wet slurping of the monsters in the shadows can be heard, they stay back. Only suggestions to their presence remain. Next to the table, the electrodes to a machine resembling SCP-209 dip in a tumbler of scotch. A girl's voice is heard: "You're supposed to fear me."
You laugh and look around. What, this is the worst that could happen? What's supposed to be here? You pick up the scotch and sip it. You look into the glass, inhale the aroma of the scotch, and reach out to flip a light switch.
The entire containment chamber floods with light, showing stark white walls. A loud screeching is heard as four creatures, each about 8 meters tall, resembling giant lizard-octopus hybrids wearing overalls, cower in the corners of the containment chamber trying to avoid the light, trying to avoid you. A large viewscreen on the back wall of the chamber flickers to life, showing the image of the octopus head, still in the toilet as previously. It speaks: "The experiment was a success. The end of the world has arrived. The planet falls into an inferno… and you are now in charge." Scenes of devastation appear on the viewscreen, but the containment chamber remains normal, unblemished, antiseptic.
You shrug, and look around. You remember you are supposed to wash your hands after leaving the toilet. The woman cowering in the stall, opens the door, stops wailing, and watches you closely, in awe of your bravery. You finish your scotch and walk over to the sinks at the side of the containment chamber and wash your hands. You grab a terry cloth towel. You are about to dry your hands when you notice an unidentifiable insect crawling on the towel. The cowering woman approaches slowly. You flick the first insect off the towel, only to find two more. You scrape the towel, but the insects multiply in number, become larger, more asymmetrical, more deformed.
Disgusted, you toss the towel to the cowering woman. "You're a wimp," you challenge. "Come ooooonnn! You didn't help one biiiit!" The woman starts jerking and screaming as the insects crawl all over her and start to bite. "I should just leave you to them," you spit in contempt, pointing to the monsters in the corner. They slither out and approach the screaming woman. You turn to leave the room, the voice of the creature in the toilet calling over the intercom: "Commence Procedure SCP-6823110-Montauk." As you leave, the woman screams in abject horror.
Outside the chamber, the world is intact and opens to a lovely park/meadow. The mountains at the edge of the meadow rise majestically, the ground is carpeted with beautiful wildflowers, and children play on the jungle gym in the park. There are no signs of devastation anywhere.
You awaken, refreshed.

Closing Remarks:
Subject: Junior Researcher ██████ ████████
Upon interview, subject confirmed the dream while attached to SCP-209. She appeared refreshed, and a post-experiment physical revealed reduced stress hormones and all markers of 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, corresponding to her actual sleep time.
Of note is that the subject is new to the Foundation and had never heard of Procedure 110-Montauk before, even in rumor.
SCP-209 is designated Safe and it is not considered harmful. Further testing should focus on how the dreams are generated and recorded.
Researchers note that SCP-209 is designed to handle two subjects simultaneously, and recommend that future experimentation should be done with two subjects.

What? This test was supposed to have two people. We've already run it with one. We know it works just fine with one. When are we going to try it with two?
If I have to be the next subject, I will. This thing is harmless. Heck, it's only anomalous because we don't know how it was made. Maybe a little for dream content. I'm sure the world could handle learning about a dream recorder that works, but until we know how the two-person function operates, we can't risk it.
- Dr. ████ ████

"Oh my god, that girl was such a whiner! Leaving her with those things? Totally deserved it."
"Yes, I mean, please, 'no, no, not that, I'm so scared of an empty table!' What, does 110-Montauk have to do with a medical table that attacks you or something?"
"…You really don't know what that is, do you?"
"I'm new, you know. A couple months ago, I'd never even heard of the Foundation."
"Right… but… how did you dream about it?"
"I don't know. Why did I dream about scotch, too? Heck, we don't really know all the capabilities of 209. Like I said, I think it records dreams from others and uses them to feed dreams for the subject? Maybe someone who used this early on really liked scotch. We still don't know who built it. Anyway, I've got one more dream here. Wanna see?"
"Let's do this! Better than a movie marathon, this is."

ignorethatmrpresident.m4a

You are on stage, at a podium with a plate with your name ("Agent Rashaun Washington"), facing an audience shrouded in darkness, with a blue background behind you. A second podium shares the stage with you, manned by a Vietnamese man, mid-50s, in a lab coat. The second podium bears the nameplate "Doctor Troy Minh".
At the front of the stage, just before the audience, an elderly Caucasian male wearing glasses and a blue suit the same shade as the stage background sits at a desk. He states, "Welcome to your dream. Tonight, we will be listening to our two Presidential candidates. The first question is for Agent Washington. Are you the first President of the United States?" Emboldened, you say yes. A light bell is heard. "That is correct. The next question is for Dr. Minh. Is this the dream you wanted?"
Dr. Minh replies, "Agent Washington and I are here, together, aren't we? We are sharing the same dream?"
A buzzer is heard. "I'm sorry, I'll ask the questions tonight. The next question is for Agent Washington. Why are you going to lower taxes?"
You think a moment and say the first thing that comes to mind. "Nobody likes taxes." The bell rings.
"That is correct. The next question is for Dr. Minh. You are polling well in Ohio, Puerto Rico, Uganda, and [REDACTED] (this is shown by the word "REDACTED" showing up over the moderator's mouth). Do you think you will win the electrical vote?"
Dr. Minh becomes agitated and conjectures, "Wait, all these dreams start with a competition between two people. When there's one subject, they just win against some dream. But tonight there are two subjects, and we're fighting head to head. Who wins? Do we both get scotch? Does the scotch drinker win the dream? And so what happens to the loser? Is the loser the winner's dream? Oh no, does this mean the loser is forgotten like a dream?"
The buzzer sounds. It repeats again and again, every three seconds. The moderator replies, "I'm sorry, that is incorrect. Congratulations, Agent Washington. You are the new President of the United States!"
The audience erupts in applause. You see yourself, fireworks erupting behind you. You smile triumphantly, a glass of scotch in your hand. Drowned out by the thundering applause, Dr. Minh says, "No! Don't drink!" But you down the scotch yourself anyway. You notice your shoelaces have been stolen.
The moderator turns angrily to Dr. Minh. "You, sir, are out of line. Out of order. Out of options." He adds, "Mr. President, please choose your executive order."
You look at your podium, which has grown larger, become oval in shape, and carries a large number of oval buttons on it. In the seconds taken to examine the podium, buttons labeled "Nuke," "Taxes," "SCP-1981," and "Change" are visible. You press a button labeled "Guantanamo."
You look up and see Dr. Minh wearing an orange jumpsuit and surrounded by military personnel. The soldiers strike Dr. Minh and force him to his knees. They wheel out a large, bloody wooden table. Everything suddenly turns to static, with a horizontal bar over the static, labeled "DATA EXPUNGED".

"Aw, c'mon, are they serious? They're expunging this record?"
"No, be patient and look closely. This expunging is part of the dream. He dreamed his dream being expunged."

The static has a horizontal bar over it, labeled "DATA EXPUNCHED". Cranking is heard behind the static, with the occasional sound of marching soldiers. It becomes clear that the static is reddish and chunky, as if it was a fine spray of ground meat, like pork being made into sausage. The bar reads, "DOCTOR EXPIGGED".
The moderator addresses you, saying, "Well done, Mr. President. I shall clean up for you. Enjoy your adulating public." The point of view shifts to see the audience clapping in the dark, then the city clapping, then the state, then the entire United States. The entire nation erupts in fireworks.
You awaken, refreshed.

Closing Remarks:
Subject: Agent ███████ ██████████
Upon interview, the subject confirmed the dream while attached to SCP-209. Subject proved to be in good spirits, scored low on anxiety tests, with low levels of blood cortisol and other stress markers. Subject remarked, "Did you see that? I got to be President!"
Subject asked about Dr. Minh in his dreams, apparently reporting deja vu. Researchers checked Foundation personnel records to confirm that no person by the name of Troy Minh has ever been hired. Satisfied, subject resumed duty.
Researchers note that SCP-209 is designed to handle two subjects simultaneously, and recommend that future experimentation should be done with two subjects.

"You know, Rashaun insisted on being called Mr. President for a week after this experiment."
"Haha, you serious? Well, let's face it, he had an awesome dream. They're all awesome in their own way."
"Heh, true. Even mine, it was like it was supposed to be scary, but I had no idea why. So everything became scared of me, and I was a total badass."
"Yeah! …You know… You think I could try it out?"
"What, you want to dream for 209? We could do that. It's not in use tonight. And I'm the principal researcher, so I have the access card for it."
"I still don't know how you got that. Usually there's a doctor who's principal researcher, not some newbie junior researcher."
"Yeah, but like, this thing's so safe, they don't need huge containment protocols on it. So yeah, let's go. Maybe we should do it together. After all, we've never tried two subjects yet."


It was eight in the morning and researcher Riven Mercer was on fire.
That fact was probably something he should be more worried about, he thought to himself as he walked a pace and a half to his right and reached for the cold water tap of the lab sink. It was just too damn early to be in the experimental rooms. Dunking his now gently-smoking lab coat sleeve into the stream of icy water, Riven leveled an unamused glare at the lava-burping rainbow lorikeet sitting on a perch a few feet away. The bird had the cheek to blink innocently back at him. Riven caved and reached over to ruffle the bird's head feathers before he looked over his lab notes. "There's a good birdie."
Maybe he'd be more impressed if he hadn't seen that tortoise with a shell that could be used as a barbecue grill. That was part of the cache from six months ago.
Grabbing a pen and scribbling down a series of observations about the bird, Riven glanced warily at said bird and wondered if he should relocate to the combustion lab in case lava wasn't the only thing the lorikeet could barf out. He flipped through the initial data collections: the bird's diet wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but it was reputedly brought to the mainland after being purchased somewhere near a Hawaiian volcano from someone shady-looking… okay what the hell, the bird was coughing up black pellets onto the experimental lab floor.
Riven put down the notes and dove for the broom and dustpan.

It was nine-thirty in the morning and Riven had found a new intern to watch (observe, engage in experimental scrutiny with, poke until something interesting happened, etc.) the bird. Riven was now sitting in the spare room adjacent to the experimental labs, sipping from a cup of tea (lukewarm, getting colder by the second) and reading through the current list of anomalous items assigned to Kiryu Labs.
The bird was something Mark had been nice enough to assign to him, Riven thought. He liked animals. He'd studied behavioral biology, and his eventual doctorate (courtesy of accelerated Foundation programs) would be about that topic. Level-2 researchers were rarely given charge of creatures that merited special containment, so being able to study the less-dangerous animal anomalies was something Riven constantly looked forward to.
The door opened, and Agent Tai Yang Shen walked in. Riven made eye contact and suppressed the subconscious urge to spit out the tea in his mouth so he could ask if it was time to go on another offsite field trip. Agent Shen rarely, if ever, showed up at the Labs, and when he did show up, it meant an interesting assignment outside the experimental rooms.
“Did Mark page you?” Shen eventually asked. Riven shook his head and mentally cataloged the agent's appearance: plain slacks, white collared jacket, light briefcase…Maybe they were headed to an anomalous bank? Or some corporate agency? Would he get to go undercover? He'd never gone on an undercover outing! Maybe he'd have an alias and alternate identity and everything!
Shen was sporting a small, though rather amused grin when he handed Riven a sheet of paper. It appeared to be a printout of a transcripted note. “You should read this before you ask any questions.”

READ ME IF YOU DARE
This is a message to all of you that work at SCP, as a sort of challenge.
My name is the Grinner, and I am an "anomaly" of sorts. For you see, I devour the flesh of any creature with a heart beat, and it has led to the deaths of hundreds upon thousands of people, luckily at times where war was afoot. But I digress, I will continue to devour the flesh until my untimely capture.
Perhaps, I should enlighten you on what I am, as a way of making things easier for you scientists, if I am captured. I'm 10 feet tall, and my neck is bulbous in size, and about 4 feet long. I appear to wear a mask with a huge grin on it (it's pure white, and is my face). I speak through my teeth eloquently, and only open my maw when consuming flesh. I am not satisfied until my face becomes completely red and dripping with crimson. I have massive fists for mashing and smashing, but a small set of legs. Oh, I forgot to mention, I also have a long, black mane! It's quite luscious, I assure you.
But to make things quick, since it's almost time for my 2:30 meal, I leave you with this: If you dare to find me, you'll have to search all of canada, and pray that you have some powerful tranquilizers, unless you really want me to feed so badly.
Sincerely, The Grinner.

“So we're looking for a reverse T-rex with a thing for face paint?” Riven flipped the sheet over, then flipped back to the note and scanned it again. “Well, they signed it ‘sincerely'. I suppose that's got to count for something.”
“That letter is actually about ten meters long,” Shen opened the briefcase and took out a series of photographs, handing them over to Riven. “It was found by Foundation recon during a routine sweep. There's an old abandoned office building a few kilometers from the site, and the entire parking lot was turned into a calling card.”
Riven stared at the photos. It looked like a preschooler the size of a building had scrawled giant letters across the formerly neatly-partitioned lot, in what looked like dried glue. “Did anyone run analysis on the area? What the writing ink stuff was, or if there was any other evidence left at the scene?”
Shen nodded. “The writing was done entirely in some sort of opaque white substance, similar in chemical composition to, well, snail slime. We're not sure how long it had been sitting there, but the team that discovered it put a tarp over the words so we don't get curious helicopters landing near the suspicion area.”
Flipping through the photos again, Riven spoke up, “So how does Kiryu Labs relate to this thing?”
“A secondary team was sent out to scout the area. They've identified a building with trace residue at the entrance and a few inner rooms. That residue matches the samples collected from the giant parking lot letter.” Shen took the photos back and closed the briefcase. “Infrared scans are pretty inconclusive at the moment, but there's some sort of entity in the building. It's small, but it's there.”
“So both of us are being sent in?”
Shen sat down on one of the sofas. “Yes. You've done some good animal behavior work and your biology background makes you ideal for this task.” The agent glanced at his watch. “You've got half an hour to come up with a list of sedatives and any other equipment you think you'll need. I'll wait here for the moment, but remember—”
Riven was halfway out the door. “Gotcha. I'll be back with five minutes to spare, Tai.”
“—to pack light.” Shen watched the door swing shut.

Twenty minutes later, Riven was staring at a row of syringes neatly arranged by dosage on the lab bench in front of him. Tai had even provided a handy carrying case for the capped needles, clearly, the man had access to all kinds of strange things. Foundation gear could be oddly specific.
Riven would later find out that he did not need an alias for the assignment. This disappointed him somewhat, but he was given a just-in-case cover story: he was an environmental specialist traveling with his entrepreneur friend Shen to “inspect” the abandoned office facility.
Riven began to consider all sorts of potential dialogues until Shen told him that it wasn't likely they'd encounter any other humans. So Riven switched to rehearsing in his head rather than out loud. He also thought it was a little unfair that Shen got to carry a Taser and he didn't. Then again, Riven had enough sedative in his pockets to knock out a small herd of elephants.

The transport dropped Riven and Agent Shen off at the very edge of the abandoned office complex's parking lot. The tarp stretched over the message to the Foundation was an off-yellow, boring, and probably doing its job well.
“We're looking for the main center plaza,” Shen said as he began to walk towards the offices. “Let me know if you start seeing anything weird.”
“Sure. I brought my field kit, so I can nab some samples if we have the time.” Riven increased his stride slightly to match the agent's. He began to notice that Shen was paying more and more attention to the ground than the old, worn-out buildings they were walking amongst.
After about five minutes of staring at Shen staring at the sidewalk, Riven began to spot patches of shining pale mass, crystallized an amorphous, glossy white and gleaming in the sunlight of late afternoon. “We're close?” he asked.
Shen bent down and examined a patch of dried slime, eyes following a splattered pattern further on. “It looks like a trail begins near those double doors.”

“Old places like these give me the creeps,” Riven confided as he and Shen stalked through the remains of old filing cabinets, shelving units, and rickety tables. Mildew speckled the walls, and Riven stepped away from Shen at the moment to examine a small patch of mold that looked like it had been scraped at. “So much for the eating human flesh bit. If there's anything alive and eating here, it's gotta be an herbivore. The most it'd find around here is maybe the odd mushroom.”
“That's reassuring,” Shen replied evenly as he used his foot to scuff at a patch of slime. It made an unpleasant sucking sound. “Hmm.”
The faint shafts of sunlight filtering in through the dusty windows cast the room in a greyish sort of haze, and Riven paused in his somewhat-dazed examination of a withered office plant. “Is that…?”
Shen was using a silver-colored stick-like implement (probably the latest in Foundation investigative poking-tech) to jab at the mucus. Unlike the dried and slightly crumbling remains they had encountered before, this blob was softer, and gave way. “I think we're close.”

The trail of fresh off-white mucus grew thicker down the hallway, and about three-fourths of the way through veered off sharply into one of the adjoining rooms.
“I've notified a backup team to be on standby,” Shen whispered as they slowly approached the open door. He was slipping his phone back into his pocket. “If I'm not out in ten minutes, leave the building.”
Shit, I hope it never comes to that. Foundation protocol is scary sometimes, Riven thought as he nodded in reply to Shen. Shen's probably said that line a million times, though. I wonder if he ever thinks he won't actually make it out.
The agent slipped into the room on silent feet, walking smoothly as if he had every reason to be in an old abandoned office complex. Riven waited.
There was a muffled squeal and a slightly wet sounding squishing, as if someone had stepped in a bucket of far-too-overripe fruit. Riven shuddered and patted the pocket his case of syringes was in. He waited a few heartbeats more. There was a muffled noise of surprised, and a single spoken “huh.”
Riven decided he was done waiting. “Shen? You there?” He called cautiously into the hallway.
“Normally, I'd tell you never to reveal yourself unless told to, but I think you should just come in.” To Riven's relief, Shen sounded as unruffled as ever. “Our terrifying monster was, ah, a bit exaggerated.”
Riven dashed into the room and paused when he saw its anomalous occupant.
Shen wasn't quite kidding. The entity they both were looking at seemed more like an overgrown garden slug with stubby legs than what Riven had been expecting—though it seemed like the statement about the four-foot long neck was accurate, at least. It was a dull, pasty white, and the face at the end of the neck was smooth and featureless, save two eyes and a mouth. When on its feet with its neck low as it was currently standing, it barely came up to Riven's knees.
Upon Riven's sudden appearance, the creature reared up in alarm, surprising Shen into reaching for his Taser, when it screeched in a slightly gargled-sounding voice, “You'll never take me alive!” and attempted to throw itself out the nearest window. Its neck prevented it from getting far. Apparently, Riven deduced, speaking long vowels with its mouth open caused its neck to inflate rapidly. The creature unbalanced itself and flopped over backwards, deflating rather sullenly as it lay on the ground.
Agent Shen poked it with his foot. “Are you really this alleged Grinner?”
The creature burbled something resentful, and then replied, “No. That's my big brother. He's the real Grinner. He's real. He's going to come and eat you all. Be scared.”
Riven and Shen exchanged looks.
Rocking itself from side to side, the creature struggled to right itself back onto its stubby appendages. “You'll be sorry you messed with me. I'm dangerous too.” Fluid was leaking from its eyes and dripping into a sloppy, soggy puddle near its face.
Shen opened his mouth to speak, but Riven beat him to it. He stepped smoothly in front of the sluglike entity and made a show of uncapping one of the syringes he was given. “Okay, if you're the Grinner's little brother, we're going to need to take you into custody. If you cooperate, I won't have to use this.” He shook the syringe so the fluid within sloshed noticeably.
There was a shriek and the creature's neck began to inflate again. Riven put the needle away, glanced at Shen (the Agent nodded), and continued, “You're a danger to the human race, and it's our job to protect them. And we're going to find your brother too, and give him a serious talk about threatening people.”
The creature deflated again. It lay on its side and sniffled a bit. “You'd better find him.”

It took all of one and a half minutes for the backup team to arrive. It took half a minute for them to restrain and sedate the alleged Grinner's little brother, and twenty minutes to haul it out of the building and into the waiting transport. Apparently it was much heavier and slimier than it looked.

“Your perseverance with this case was appreciated,” Shen commented afterward as he and Riven raided the Kiryu Labs' not-so-secret spare room snack stash. Riven was chomping his way through a bag of cookies while Shen, health nut that he was, peeled a tangerine. The mission debriefing hadn't taken long at all, and now the two of them had about an hour or so before they needed to report for further instruction regarding the entity now in Foundation custody.
“Do you think the Grinner actually exists? Or that there's actually a big brother involved?” Riven asked as he brushed some crumbs off his sleeve.
“No idea. The creature we detained is probably being questioned at the moment, and frankly I'm more interested in how it knew about the Foundation to begin with.” Shen had removed the peel from the tangerine in one piece, and was arranging it back into a sphere-ish shape. “We'll decide what to do after the interview. All in all, it was an unusual assignment.”
Riven nodded. It hadn't been the most exciting Kiryu Labs field trip ever, but it was still pretty fun, Riven thought as he leaned back in one of the spare room chairs. He hoped he wouldn't be kept to the labs for too long again. Getting enough fresh air was something he'd taken for granted when he first started Foundation work, and frankly, the repeated experimental trials had a way of wearing down a researcher—it was a little sad, in a way, that anomalies eventually became something commonplace. The spark of wonder he'd experienced during his first days was getting fainter, and he'd been spending more and more time wondering when the next interesting thing would show up.
Riven's cell phone was ringing. He was probably needed in the experimental rooms to help with the new interns again. He could already feel the fatigue coming on. Was it too much to ask for a nap…
The cheerful deedle-deedle ringtone was persistent. Heaving a sigh of long-suffered patience when he saw the caller ID, Riven answered with a noncommittal “Hey, Mark.”
“Rivs, I'm in the combustion lab. The bird you were working with exploded when we tried to bathe it. Regular water. Strangest thing. I sent the intern working with me to get a biohazard team, but I need someone to help me clean up the bird… or, you know, what's left of it.”
Riven blinked, and realized in retrospect, he had kind of liked that stupid bird. “Wait, Mark, isn't the combustion lab already equipped to deal with—”
“The floor is now lava.”
Grinning, Riven grabbed an emergency fire extinguisher from the spare room's wall rack. “Should've said that first, Mark.”


Doctor Avery Solace woke up, got dressed, and pretended not to notice the black, slime-coated humanoid in the shadowy corner of their room.
Doctor Avery Solace used to work under the memetics department before the accidents.
The entity only began to speak once the psychologist had begun collecting their stationery and papers for the coming day. The warbled voice of Agent Troy Lament, corrupted to become as slimy as his flesh, echoed off the plain white walls.
The paperwork still calls them a 'he'. Those who know them know better.
"Hey Avery. Morning Joke? A neutron walked into a bar and asked, 'How much for a drink?' The bartender replied, 'For you, no charge.'"
Dr. Solace likes to believe that this Lament is a hallucination.
Dr. Solace paused. They turned to stare at Lament, so shadowy that it was hard to tell him apart from the darkness he thrived in. Perhaps there was no difference. Their eyes narrowed, then they nodded and mumbled in response. "…Yes. You're right. I should have some water with my Advil today."
A hallucination brought on by loneliness and appearing only when they're alone.
"I used to work under a man with your sense of humor, Avery. A guy people like to call Dr. Gears. You've probably heard of him."
They can't be sure when they first met the real Lament.
"Thank you. I appreciate being compared with someone so well-respected at Site-19."
They can't be sure of anything since the accidents.
The force of Lament shaking his head splattered black ichor against a wall. The pattern reminded them of an inkblot.
The first order of the day was meeting a new patient, a man by the label of Mr. Laugh.

In a dream, Avery is as they used to be.
Hardworking. Earnest. Prone to anger at small annoyances.

The interview room was organized differently than most. It consisted of two couches and a coffee table laden with snacks, sweets, and soft beverages. A tape recorder for later transcription lay in the middle of the coffee table. Mr. Laugh had already seated himself on a couch, nervously sipping soda. Dr. Solace sat on the other couch to give the man some space.
Mr. Laugh looked up at his doctor, then at his doctor's identification. He arched a brow.
Dr. Solace doodled on their clipboard as they spoke. "Hello, Mr. Laugh. Are you alright with that designation, or would you prefer your number? Perhaps another name? I know my nametag says Dr. Solace—but you can call me Avery if you desire it."
"…You're supposed to be wearing your… your…" Mr. Laugh stopped drinking his soda, downcast, waiting for the laughter. It was expected; everything he did struck people as funny. Even his pain. There was a moment of silence. Another. He looked up after a solid minute of quiet.
He stared. Laughed with relief. Within the first fifteen minutes, he was curled against the doctor's side. Within twenty, he had settled on Avery's lap, swaddled in their arms. He had never known an interaction so painless. A touch so sympathetic.
He tried to express this, but all he could do was weep.
It wasn't unusual to need several introductory sessions per patient.
For the three hours of the assessment session, Dr. Solace accomplished nothing that would make it on the books. A second session would need to be scheduled.

In that dream a man leans against a white hallway,
puffing on a cigarette that produces purple smoke.

Dr. Solace broke out into laughter during lunchtime, loud enough to receive strange looks from the next table over. Doctor Mark Kiryu, sitting in front of them, tilted his head. "What's so funny? Avery?"
Most people avoid Avery. They're a reminder of what happens when you fuck up.
They snickered for a few minutes longer before responding. "Someone told me a joke earlier this morning. I just got it now." Their smile faded, returning to their typical neutral expression.
"It must've been a funny joke, then."
Mark stays around though.
"…No. A jellyfish could have made that joke."
Mark's a good friend.
Dr. Kiryu tilted his head the other way. "Okay, I'll bite. Why jellyfish?"
"Jellyfish. They have no brains. They're also slimy, I think. Ichor-like."
He paused in his eating, then shook his head. "What're you working on, now? We got a lizard in our labs the other day. It's for Riven. It might cheer him up a little."
"…Someone sad, Dr. Kiryu."
"We went over this yesterday, Avery; I prefer to be called Mark. They're always sad, aren't they? Your patients?"
"Yes. Mark. Always." Dr. Solace stared into the remainder of their coffee. "The lizard. Tell me about it."

The man is familiar, but Avery can't place him.
He leans against the wall as if his thin body could dent it.

Their next task was to find an anomaly that had broken out of containment. The Foundation had narrowed it down to a small town. Dr. Solace's job was to find the anomaly based on its behavior, interviewing each male person that matched the description.
They despised these tasks most of all. The interview rooms were always macgyvered. Insecure. The agents were just as haphazard. Most personnel out on these jobs were either people who had forgotten, or had wanted to forget. It only served to remind Dr. Solace how much they would like to forget, as well. But the amnestics didn't take. Then they didn't take again.
That was the worst part of the accident. Everyone else had forgotten or died.
"Please give me your name."
"Dave."
Dr. Solace looked to the agent beside them. The agent paused for a moment. "The guy said Dave." They nodded. The next man was brought in. It had been hours. It felt like days.
"Please give me your name."
"I'm not going to tell you. You'll just ignore me."
The agent scratched his head. "Uhm. Joe something. I didn't quite get the last name."
Dr. Solace stood and walked over to the anomaly. The man stood from his chair and began to back up. They stopped. Slowly so as not to startle, they extended their right hand. "I'm-"
Avery never gets angry at their patients, regardless of any trouble caused.
Joe raised his arm in a fist, then slammed it down on the offered forearm. They winced, then pulled their arm back to rub at the bruising flesh. "Calm down, sir. I'm not going to ignore you."
The agent didn't react, as it should be.
Most of the people are just scared, hurt, or alone.
"You… What? How?" he sputtered. The anger drained from his face like thick honey from a bottle.
It's something Avery can empathize with.
Dr. Solace tried to show confidence in their smile. "I'm Avery. Please give me your name, then come back with me. If you cooperate, we can get to know each other. I can explain when we get back why I don't ignore you. It's not a nice story, but I think neither will yours be."

Avery asks 'who are you?'
and receives the response '████ ████ ████'

When Dr. Solace was done with their day, most of the site had already gone to sleep. They were halfway there themselves but needed to get back to their assigned room. It didn't help that the half-lit halls took a few seconds of walking to recognize movement and fully illuminate.
In each moment before their movements were picked up, they could see their dark companion dance from shadow to shadow.
":3"
Avery is never sure how this Lament speaks.
"I do not know what to make of that… Please explain."
">:3"
But if it's a delusion, what does it matter?
Dr. Solace had to pause and take a deep breath before continuing.
At some point, they could swear Lament had begun to reach out from the darkness to pat their shoulder. Even if he wasn't real, the goosebumps were no illusion.
The hallway with their room was already lit when they turned into it. The janitor was there, cursing as she scrubbed at a particular spot on the floor. She looked up at Dr. Solace, then down at their clothing. "Hey! Watch where you've stepped. I've spent the past 15 minutes getting that black shit off this floor. I don't need you mucking it up again."
Avery liked to believe that he was just a delusion.
Dr. Solace followed her gaze. There, on their left shoe. A splash of sticky, inky darkness. Like a clumsy painter. They stared for several minutes, then looked back up to the woman. "…E-excuse me. The time. Could you give that to me? The time. I don't know it."
You can work around your own delusions.
"Yeah. Hold on." She checked her phone. "One-oh-eight in the morning. Late night, huh."
They checked their phone to confirm the time.
"T-than… T-thank. You. Yes. A late night. Good… Good sleep? Night. G-good Night."

Avery doesn't understand the words.
'What? I didn't catch that.'

Doctor Avery Solace entered their room, undressed, and pretended not to notice the black, slime-coated humanoid in the center of their unlit room.
The entity only began to speak once the psychologist had begun to climb into bed. The warbled voice of Lament, corrupted to become as slimy as his flesh, echoed off unseen walls.
"Avery. Skipping a dose again tonight? You must like me around. I hope the other docs don't get jelly."
Avery won't get the joke until breakfast the next morning.
"…I'm not that bad. I'm their only test subject for these things anyways. I'm not a guinea pig… And the medication doesn't make you go away. So it doesn't work."
"Well, you can't say you're not a lab rat."
They end up almost choking on their bagel.
Dr. Solace turned away from the direction of the voice. Tried to get some sleep. The last thing they felt was someone tucking them in.

The man shakes his head, drops his cigarette.
Scuffs it out. Turns away.