Mobile Task Force Pi-1 (aka City Slickers) Incident Recording (START)
22:30 - 900 seconds prior to engagement
OP-Sigma-5: MTF we have tactical confirmation, mission is a go. The target is 50 feet to the northeast, within a large residence disguised as a charity. Initial recon suggests the target is located in the basement or another interior structure. There should be eight to thirteen occupants, all of which are to be considered hostile, and based on transaction records up to four could be armed. A memetic or psychic effect is involved, so you should turn on your sub-optical filters. Your objective is to get in and destroy any evidence of the suspect SCP, capture it and bring it back to extraction point █████. This should be a clean breach-and-clear mission, with traditional combat rules, minimize civilian casualties, but deaths are acceptable. Command has authorized the use of kill-agent 'Nyx' in case of contingency level 3 and above. Good luck.

Dear Cavalier
I have long been aware of your SCP foundation, and your protocol when it comes to entities such as myself. I can only feel pity for the great creatures and gentle giants which you chain beneath the ground, above the sky and under the sea. All of them lost to the minds of the world so that mankind does not have to deal with the fact that there are things which transcend mortality. Despite your reprehensible goal, I chose to not take from you what you take from others, because at the time you seemed benign to me, unable to inflict the same horrors which you refer to as 'containment' to those I hold dear.

22:44 - 20 seconds prior to engagement
OP-Sigma-5: Callsign, prepare to breach.
MTF-Pi-1-1: Alpha.
MTF-Pi-1-2: Beta.
MTF-Pi-1-3: Gamma.
MTF-Pi-1-4: Delta.
MTF-Pi-1-5: Epsilon.
MTF-Pi-1-6: Zeta, preparing to breach.
[sound of door being breached]

Now I know. They may be just faceless numbers and nameless people to you, but to me they are all I hold dear, I love them with a love greater than any other's. You call them a cult, you think of them as dark, wretched things which should be put down so that you may rise above them like a ship set sail on a sea of shattered hearts. No, they were only the trodden of society, the ignored, those who had been stepped on so many times by people just like you that they could never get up again, not without the help that you would never give.

22:45 - Engagement
MTF-Pi-1-1: No contact, sweep and clear.
[110 seconds pass]
MTF-Pi-1-3: Front entrance clear.
MTF-Pi-1-4: I'm outside of a staircase to the basement, there's lights on.
MTF-Pi-1-1: Delta hold position outside basement staircase, Gamma join up with Delta. MTF members finish your sweeps, if you find no contacts rendezvous with Delta at the basement staircase.
[250 seconds pass]
MTF-Pi-1-2: East side clear, found what appears to be ingredients for explosives.
MTF-Pi-1-5: Storage has blood everywhere, damn that gave me the fucking freaks.
MTF-Pi-1-6: West side clear.
MTF-Pi-1-4: Movement in the basement, repeat we have movement.
MTF-Pi-1-1: Northern room clear, all MTF members rendezvous with Delta. This is going to get hot.

Through their great suffering came their prayers for salvation, and through their prayers comes me. From my birth I started - healing, helping them to grow to what they should be, into the people that they could be. I was an emblem of sanctum, I was the remedy to all of the woes of those who chose to take the leap and follow me. I emblazoned my face into their palms so that I could watch over them, I imbued forgotten archaic images of hope so that they could prosper from them, I inverted the symbol of death so that they would have eternal life. But you undid all of that.

22:51 - 360 seconds post engagement
MTF-Pi-1-2: Throwing a flashbang.
[sounds of gunfire, sound of flashbang detonating]
MTF-Pi-1-3: Multiple hostiles, I took ou
OP-Sigma-5: Gamma has flatlined. Continue assault.
MTF-Pi-1-4: They killed ██████! Motherfuckers!
[multiple flashbang detonations, yelling]
MTF-Pi-1-1: Four hostiles dead, show extensive self-mutilation of their palms. Moving nort-
[loud screaming, analysis shows it extends above human vocal range]
MTF-Pi-1-2: Jesus Christ, what the hell is that noise?
MTF-Pi-1-5: Fuck, what the fuck? There in the shado- Fuck! I can't see! What [REDACTED]
MTF-Pi-1-4: Get behind the wall!
MTF-Pi-1-1: We're taking fire from multiple directions from cultists and a number of unknown entities. I'm deploying Nyx.
OP-Sigma-5: Epsilon has flatlined. Operator confirms deployment.
MTF-Pi-1-1: Get the fuck away from the canister! █████! Fuck!

You and your technology and hatred for the weak and unknown. You seek to maintain the status quo, to keep the lowest the lowest and the highest the highest. I gave love to the forgotten and now you strike them back down, you strike them to their death so that they are lost forever. I feel their deaths, their loss. You used your hateful cloud to burn my markings from their flesh, to burn their life away. You scorched my face from everything you found, because you did not know who I was, you only knew that those who once suffered no longer suffer, and you you must make them suffer once again again. They are all dying.

22:53 - 442 seconds post engagement
MTF-Pi-1-1: We have multiple casualties, Delta was killed in crossfire, Beta by shrapnel from the canister. All hostiles have been terminated. Whatever those things were that killed Epsilon, they're gone now.
OP-Sigma-5: Commence search of the premises. Look for suspect SCP.
[low sobbing can be heard over the radio for the next 420 seconds, both remaining MTF members deny that it is coming from either of them]
MTF-Pi-1-1: Numerous symbols on posters, clothing, the walls, their skin, all emit energy in the high EM bandwidth.
OP-Sigma-5: Alpha, retrieve two articles of clothing and one poster. We have Intel that local residents are reporting a disturbance at your location, you may be compromised. Zeta prepare contingency plan 540-CHARLIE-BURNOUT. We don't want any more exposure, so Alpha sweep the East side and retrieve any possible explosives, otherwise the fire may cause detonation. We expect you to be at the extraction point in fifteen minutes.
MTF-Pi-1-1: Roger, underway.
[remainder of recording follows protocol]
Mobile Task Force Pi-1 (aka City Slickers) Incident Recording (END)

All of them. You killed all of them. I can feel them drifting away. Dozens of men women children souls, all of them lost, hurting, alone. I loved them. I love them them all so much and you you you take them away from me. I cared for them. I help loved them. Now they are dead dead all dead, to what ends? You call me a monster a dark monster a horrible monster? No, you are the monster. You killed them. You you are the ONE WHO slaughters SLAUGHTERS to build a fortress from bodies of INNOCENCE innocence only the innocent you killed them. you killed all of them they are dead now they are gone only gone forever gone. you took their lives away, you kill undo all the good UNDO kill what i tried to accomplish undo so now i undo you

Addendum-Sigma-5: Shortly after operation Sigma-5 a file entitled 'Dear Cavalier' was discovered by researcher ████ ████████ within Site ██'s database. Video recording of researcher ████ ████████ shows her opening the file, and upon viewing the contents experiencing massive external haemorrhaging [DATA EXPUNGED], expulsion of bodily fluids from open wounds in the chest cavity, followed by [DATA EXPUNGED]. Off-duty Site ██ personnel report that a "blue-white silhouette [REDACTED] before disappearing". Due to the response of Dr. ████ there were no additional casualties. Dr. ████ externally manipulated and transferred the file into a 500MB CD-ROM, which is now stored in Site-46. Testing concludes that copies of the file do not have the same lethal properties, however research into a possible memetic effect is ongoing.


The following document was recovered by Agent ███████ following a vacation in ███████████, Florida:

Document X45-a
"The Mean Dragon"
There once was a dragon that made everyone mad,
He changed his shape just to make people sad!
He'd be mean to everyone! Yes, even you!
Everyone called him six-eighty-two.
One day the big doctor had had enough,
"You're mean and you're smelly,
I'll show you who's tough!"
First he decided to use a big crystal
"I'll freeze and then shatter him with my pistol!"
The dragon's skin showed a quick aversion,
So it stopped at 62% conversion!
Then the big doctor thought, "Hmm.. what to do…
I know I'll use good ol' 162!"
But the mean dragon was too clever for him,
And he attached the big ball to his left fore-limb!
He ran around the big halls and made a terrible mess,
Then he went back to his home under much distress.
The big doctor groaned and he moaned and he stomped,
When he suddenly saw a little agent prompt,
"Sir, I know a way out of this pickle,
We'll just show the dragon the monster that tickles!"
So they sent 999 to deal with their foe,
But 999 didn't want to go,
So they told it the dragon was being too mean,
And it went bravely onto the scene.
It jumped on the dragon, who let out a roar,
But he tickled and tickled and tickled some more,
Then, suddenly, the dragon was giggling,
But the monster just kept on jiggling and jiggling,
Finally the dragon pulled the monster off,
But he did not let out a roar or a scoff,
He said, "Thank you, sir, you're a saviour hereafter,
Cause you have shown me the great gift of laughter."

Area hosting the document was firebombed. All recovered children who had been read the document were recruited into D-class.
Addendum (05-29-2011): Due to frequent requests for an audio form of this report, Research Assistant Corbette and Agent Mao have created a spoken version. Please see Audio Log X45-a.


We have such a mouse problem. What's worse, they're stupid. Your average mouse has the common decency to stay hidden 90% of the time, you just find nibbled items and mouse crap. Our mice just wander around, it seems. Step in to the kitchen, and one's running like hell for the stove gap, like he had no idea anyone was in the house. In the bathroom, and one's frozen on the edge of the tub with an “oh shit” look. I run five traps, and get at least one a night, high score is a solid five. Either a testament to my trapping skill, or (more likely) additional evidence of dumb mice.
It was very late, and I'd gotten up to lay down my baby daughter, who had woken up doing her “nobody loves me in the entire world” cry. Again. I was stumbling back to bed, navigating more by memory and that sleepy sixth-sense you get in the dark, when I heard a clacking sound. Our house creaks and groans like a clipper ship, but this was odd. A sort of rhythmic clicking: Clack…clack…clack…clack…
If you've ever used a glue trap before, you already know the sound. It's less common with the standard wood-and-spring traps. It's the sound of a mouse that is stuck and/or crippled, and trying to get away. For about ten seconds I seriously considered just ignoring it and going to bed, but knowing my luck my wife would get up for a drink, step on it, and lose her shit for the rest of the night. So I followed the noise to the kitchen, still only half awake, and clicked on the light. It wasn't a mouse.
Jesus CHRIST it wasn't a mouse.
It had gotten nailed by the stove. It looked like it hadn't even been trying to get the peanut butter, just crawling (Walking? Running?) by the trap and set it off. It'd crawled about thirteen feet in the general direction of the laundry room. I just stood there, dumb with sleep, watching it crawl. The arms were toothpick skinny, ending in little squirming masses that looked like pinworms. Below those were rows of the same little tentacles, and the legs looked boneless, but they might have been broken. The trap had snapped over the things back, and the metal was sunk in deep. Some kind of clear liquid was oozing around it and leaving a tiny trail.
I think it had a tail, or it might have been three legs. The lower body was wrecked, and just looked like a torn fleshy skirt. The head. The head was disk-shaped and had this kind of random spattering of little back dots on top. They looked like spider eyes. Underneath was the mouth, it looked like an upside-down “Y”. It had a kind of greasy looking fur all over except for the head. The clacking came when it tried to crawl. It would reach out and pull, but the trap would catch on something in its back, lift up, then fall. The thing couldn't have been much bigger then a kitten.
I didn't know what to do. I just…froze, kinda. Some people can stomp a mouse, easy as swatting a fly. My dad can. I can't. I just…I can't, and I couldn't then. I just watched it, assuming I was dreaming or something. I thought maybe I could try and grab it and throw it outside or something, but if it bit me or touched me, I'm pretty sure I would lose it. I thought again of whacking it with something, or stomping it, or something, but I just watched it. Finally I grabbed a broom and just kind of…brushed it over to the trash area.
It just wallowed there, on its side. I'm pretty sure it didn't know what was going on. Anyway, I pushed the trash can in front of it and went back to bed. It seems retarded now, but at the time it just seemed like what I could do. I figured I'd just deal with it in the morning. I was pretty sure I was still half dreaming, and that it was just a screwed-up mouse that I wasn't seeing right. I laid in bed for about an hour, then got up to go look at the thing again.
It was gone, and the basement door was open a crack. I was honestly relieved, I didn't have to deal with it now. Then, I thought of stepping on it in the dark, or slipping down the steps, and sighed. So, I opened the door and pulled on the light over the steps. The light is pretty crappy, and to light the actual basement you have to go downstairs to get to the switch, so I could only really see the steps and a couple feet in to the basement. There was a little trail of that clear stuff down the steps.
There's a wall with a vent right at the bottom of the steps on the left side. The grating is an old cast-iron job that's probably been there since the house was built. The grating gaps are very wide. The trap was sitting right beside it. Hanging above the trap was the little thing. Holding it up was the head of a bigger version. All I saw was the head, but it's probably the size of a average cat. Disk head the size of my fist, eye-spots a lot bigger and blacker. It was holding the little dead thing by the neck. Like a mama cat. It stared at me a second, or maybe it was just the light. Then the head sort of…narrowed, and it slipped in to the vent with the dead thing.
I didn't get back to sleep. The ice machine went on as I was walking around the house, and I screamed like I'd been shot. My wife woke up in a panic, told her I had a bad dream. I get those. The next day, I booked a hotel for a couple days, called off work, and lit at least two bug bombs off in every room of the house. Six in the basement, and even rolled two in to the vent. The house smelled like chemicals for days, but by god the mice were dead as shit. I never told my wife. I'm not even sure what I saw, really, it was late and I was very, very tired.

The problem is, the cat got hurt yesterday. We got her just a little bit after that night, much to my wife's delight. She brought the cat to me yesterday, crying, her hands bloody. The vet says she must have gotten in to something, or fell somehow. She was cut all over. She was all dusty when we brought her in, and the vet said she'd probably got in to a closet or vent somehow and gotten hurt. I looked in on her when the vet was fixing her up. The cuts looked like little “Y” shapes.
I don't know what to think. She could have gotten hurt on anything, anywhere. Maybe she was chasing a stupid mouse that was too dumb to hide well. Or one that was too scared to hide in or behind anything. One whose territory had already been taken. There's been nibbled things around the house lately, and my wife says she hears mice in the attic. I pretend I don't. I don't dare set a trap.
I really don't want to know.


Oh, the things you believe. You think that the things you see are really reality? That your friends and family, your Foundation, you yourself, everything you know, are all there is to this world? Ha. Wouldn't you like to know the things I could tell you?
What's that? You do? Hmmm, interesting. Very interesting. Let me see what I can do for you. What do you want to know? What could I tell you…
How about what this world really is? The true nature of things? Would you like that?
Ah, you would. Well, that's an answer I'm not willing to give up without full payment, but I can give you an idea of what it is. How does that sound? Does it sound good?
Very well. These walls around us, this world, the whole of this reality, is but one piece of an incredibly complicated, yet well organized network of intersecting view points. No, a spider web doesn't begin to describe the complexity of this network. To you, this universe is all there is to it. Nothing more, nothing less. That which you know is the limit of your reality. But I, I can see it all. Every one of the lines that intersects ours, and subsequently others, and then more, so on and so forth to create a great mass that is reality.
I can see variations on your human history, little bits and pieces changed about to create entirely new events. Assassinations survived, wars lost, lives saved, births that never happened. Just within one thread of reality, time is mashed up so tight that events can be changed on a whim. And when the lines intersect, then the whole fabric of reality is rewritten. In fact, there are trillions of universes where you never even existed.
But the connections go deeper than that. Global, galactic, even universal events only begin the scratch the surface of what I can see. If I just look a bit further, I can see that the thread you perceive yourself to live on is only one of a countless - well, countless to you - number of realities. They bear no resemblance to this one; there is no concept of geometry, time, space, life, death. All these things you take for granted, they have no bearing on these realities. There are even completely empty ones, realities filled with nothingness, and yet filled to the brim with concepts you can't begin to understand.
And yet, for all their differences, all these realities, even the ones that don't connect, are all one and the same. They are multilayered, all on top of one another, separated yet together. They form a net, a ball, a line, shapes you have never even heard of. It's all together, and all right in front of your face.
That's what I can tell you. What's wrong? You look confused. You don't get it? Do you want to know more? Want to dive deeper, see what I see, understand the insanity of the world you live in? I can help you. Through my eyes, you could see all. You could know the true nature of reality itself. How does that sound? Do you want to?
You do? Good. All you need to do is put me on…
Oh, look at that. I was lying. Let's see how long you last before you rot to nothing.


Yesterday,
I watched three men die because one man sneezed in a room full of blood and shit and light.
Today,
three more men go in, cheap mops and each other's lives in their hands.
Yesterday,
I watched a man I admired gunned down for leaving a rose for a girl whose life was tattered by trauma she never deserved.
Today,
she doesn't remember, and three halls down I can hear her screaming.
Yesterday,
I watched a group of soldiers go down fighting against the corpses of comrades who'd died before them.
Today,
we test another sample, this time on children.
Yesterday,
I watched five men and women gunned down in an abandoned factory no one cares about.
Today,
it happens again and again. Every eleven seconds. Forever.
Yesterday,
I watched a man sit comfortably in a nice armchair, sipping scotch and laughing as he ordered a woman to simply stop breathing.
Today,
he gets the day off of work detail for good behavior.
Yesterday,
I watched hundreds of men and women in orange jumpsuits herded like animals into empty rooms that filled with gas and fire.
Today,
hundreds more are told they have a chance for a lighter sentence, and a chance to serve their country.
Yesterday,
I watched the world nearly die in a thousand thousand terrible ways. Sometimes we would have had time to scream.
Today,
I'm alive to write about it. You want happy endings? Fuck you.
You're alive to read it.
God help us all.
Secure. Contain. Protect.


Let all of those who read this know that I have not failed my duties to the SCP Foundation. I have not broken under stress, nor have I gone crazy. What has happened is that I cannot allow the events around me to continue any longer.
I am going to die. After hours in solitary confinement, and the time in-between being almost unbearable, I've come to conclude that my actions after this writing will unquestionably lead to my demise. If you find this before I die, do not try to stop me. I've made my peace with God, and decided that what I am going to do is the right thing.
What I am about to do is break every single Special Personnel Requirement for the project I am assigned to. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but I just can't let her suffer any longer. Even though I will die trying, she will know that somebody cares for her.
It will only be for a moment, maybe less. I don't care. Just as long as she's out of her torment for one second, it will be enough for me. It will be enough knowing that for that brief instant, she will know that she is not a prisoner, that she is not a monster, that somebody cares enough about her to do something about it. For that brief instant, she'll be free.
I have passed all the psychological examinations. I have not broken down. I don't love her. I don't want an XK. All I want is for her to know, for the briefest instant, that somebody cares for her as a human being.
And I will make sure she knows.
-Agent Shields

Note: At 0900 hours, Agent Shields stripped off his concealing helmet and somehow entered the enclosure of 231-7. 231-7 was awake at the time, but showed no reaction to Shields' presence. Armed guards were deployed as he approached the bedside, placed a single rose upon it, and left the containment chamber. Four minutes after the security breach, Agent Shields was shot to death by six guards, and 231-7's amnestic schedule was altered slightly to allow for a dose shortly afterward. Procedure 110-Montauk was put into effect minutes later.


I thank the Lord in Heaven that the SCP-Foundation found me. They take good care of me, make sure I get visitors, let me listen to music. I've been told that others aren't treated as well as I am, so I thank the Lord again. But for all their hospitality, my life is still a living hell.
I made a deal with somebody many years ago. At the time, I was young and foolish, and thought myself invincible. I performed a summoning ritual from an old book on a dare. The book said that if the ritual was completed properly, he who did so would be immortal. So I did, and have regretted it ever since.
The exact details of what happen have been blurred by the passing of years, but by the end of it all, something had placed a curse on me, and I started to turn to concrete. At first, I was happy with my situation. Immortal and invincible. It seemed like the perfect life. I bragged to my friends about how I would see the end of the Earth.
But as time passed, I found it harder and harder to move. Panic set in. I desperately tried to tell my friends, but they thought me mad. As they told me before I was thrown into the asylum, they had played along at first because they thought I was drunken. It had become too much for them, and they put me away, for my own safety.
For a time, it wasn't so bad. The people at the asylum took good care of me, and genuinely tried to help. Eventually, though, the doctors and therapists started to slip away. I was beyond their treatment, and did not appear to require any care. Finally, when the last one deemed me a hopeless case, they threw me into solitary confinement, and forgot me.
My life from then on out became a true hellhole. No, I should not say "my life". Life is being able to walk, and eat and drink and make merry. To know the presence of others and be free. But my time there was none of these things.
Immortal and invincible. The two qualities I had desired, and me, trapped in a small cell, unable to take advantage of them. In danger of going mad, I turned to God, praying for salvation, praying that my curse would be lifted. Praying that I would one day walk again a free man.
During the first stint in hell, it worked. I remained as sane as I could, for I knew that God would grant me reprieve. And indeed, one day, men took me away from my confinement. For the first time in ages, I knew the sun, fresh air, others' faces. True, I remained immobile, but the Lord could, no, would, fix that.
I was wrong. Shortly after my release, I was thrown into another, smaller cell, in another asylum. I thought God had taken me from my cell to taunt me with the prospect of freedom before casting me deeper into the pit. It was then that I thought myself mad. Since I never dreamed, my thoughts made themselves manifest through visions. Or were they real? I was never sure.
Thought after thought tormented me in my private circle of hell. What if the world ended, and nobody was around to tell me? I would be all that was left, and never know it. My body would remain the same whilst the world rotted around me, until nothing was left but me and my thoughts. And then those would decay, and I would be trapped within a hollow shell. I could scream all I wanted, but who would hear me? They had thought me insane, and now I was.
Eventually, the Foundation came, and took me away. They placed me in the nice room, with the music and the people and the light. I keep my outward actions normal, so as to not frighten them away. What else can I do?
But inside, I'll always go back to my own corner of hell, a place filled with nothing but darkness and myself. How can I be sure I ever left? I became mad. Sometimes, I'm not in my room, but back in hell. Eventually, I suspect, I'll go back there, and be there to stay.
If the Foundation is reality, then thank God for it. If my hell is reality, then that is all there is. No Foundation, no God, no anything.
Just me and my thoughts. And the dark.


Doc-491-1: Fragments from the personal diary of Mayor Piotr Lazarev.

[…] lights had been circling the village for nearly a week. Captain Trubaiev claimed, then, that they were airplanes, but he didn't believe those words. Whether he actually knew what they were is a different matter. It seems that he'd only just learned what would happen, right before he […]
[ILLEGIBLE]
[…] had acted sooner, we would only have lost our village instead of the rest of the world. Though he insists that I have authority over the village, the fact remains that he is in command of the men with weapons while the rest of us are defenseless. Until Captain Trubaiev conclusively shows that he is no threat, I will continue to withold my trust of him. He has kept a very large secret from us before, after all.
We have to begin considering how to ration our supplies. We are fortunate that this happened in autumn, allowing us to work with […]
[ILLEGIBLE MATERIAL FOLLOWED BY A MINIMUM OF EIGHT DESTROYED PAGES]
[…] brutal than that were the actions of the Captain when he learned of it. I would not call it a trial. Only the Captain spoke, listing off every one of the soldier's faults. He was then left tied in the central square for four hours until the Captain returned with the rest of his men and personally executed him with his own sidearm. His words will never leave me:
"Stand up! Even if you've never lived like a man, at least die like one! Stand up and look me in the eyes!"
Could such a ruthless man be trusted to protect the village? Even if it was for the Jewish girl, it may not stop with one death. What will happen if one of us commits a crime against one of the soldiers? Will he demand that they be disposed of in the same way? With all of the armed men under his control, we could do […]
[BETWEEN TEN AND THIRTEEN DAMAGED OR ILLEGIBLE PAGES]
[…] dare call me the tyrant! Do they even understand that this was for their own well being? Without my militia, only the Captain wields true power. And, while we continue to consolidate our position, we have to follow the same example that the Captain had made of that traitor of his. It is the only way that we can avoid arousing his suspicion.
And now people are leaving with the Uzbek. The punk and the hippies won't be missed. We can even make do without a few of the families. But, with no engineer, we won't be able to keep the generator […]
[FOLLOWING PAGE]
[…] is well. The militia came back with Tibor. He won't be able to use his right hand again. But he'll still be able to maintain the generator, so long as one hand is still working.
[ILLEGIBLE TEXT]
[…] and the punk managed to escape. The boy probably won't survive if the militia did what they said they did to him. And the Uzbek is too old to cause any further trouble. It's ironic that we have our own secrets to keep from the Captain, now.
[TWO ILLEGIBLE PAGES AND ONE THAT HAS CLEARLY BEEN TORN OUT]
[…] The soldiers hate the CAPTAIN as much as I do. Ever since the Jewish girl and the execution, the CAPTAIN had lost all of his power. Another Revolution is about to begin against the CAPTAIN. The village will be free once I'm in […]
[TWO PAGES OF ILLEGIBLE TEXT, INCLUDING FURTHER MENTIONS OF "REVOLUTION", IN ADDITION TO "TREASON", AND "REVENGE". REMAINING PAGES ARE BLANK WITH THE FOLLOWING EXCEPTION]
[…] will die like a man. I'm sorry, Magda.

The above document was discovered beneath the floorboards of the Mayor Lazarev's office, thanks to directions provided by the present Mayor Lazarev. Bullet holes and some bone fragments were found in the wall behind the desk.

Doc-491-2: Typed memorandum from Nurse Yelena Petruskova to Doctor Vladimir Gierukov.

[…] Five died during the event. Their names are [DATA REDACTED]. Mister Kravitz died later, before he could receive emergency surgery.
Eight are wounded. [NAMES AND CONDITIONS REDACTED]
[ILLEGIBLE] catatonic and unable to move under their own power. Neither suffered any injuries to their heads or bodies.
[THE REMNANT IS ILLEGIBLE WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A HAND-WRITTEN NOTE IN THE MARGIN]
Thank you, Yelena. Please begin again with the professional tone and language that we had discussed. There is also no need to be redundant in your summaries.

Doc-491-3: Physical examination of "the Uzbek."

[…] accustomed to physical labour. Some muscular atrophy has occurred through both lack of use and from advanced age. The two remaining teeth […] scars along the back which appear to have been from a whip […] likely not of European or Asian descent.
Without being familiar with his language, it is not possible to make an accurate assessment of his state of mind. A student of human nature may be able to discern that his actions and demeanor are indicative of a man who is still in full control of his faculties.
[DATA REDACTED]
[…] will continue to refer to him as the Uzbek, even if he clearly is not.

Doc-491-4: The remains of the personal log of Captain Julian Trubaiev.

[ALL PAGES UNTIL THE FINAL OFFICIAL ENTRY ARE ILLEGIBLE FOR THE MOST PART. POSSIBLY PERTINENT WORDS INCLUDE, "DISPLACEMENT", "TOO LATE", "DECEIVED", [DATA REDACTED], AND "SURVIVE"]
[…] Perhaps I was too hard on him. He did a horrible thing to her, but does that mean that he deserves the things that I had said to him? I know that I'm quick to anger and it's now been said. There is no turning back from that. It's time for me to go back to him and look him in the eyes. I hope that I will be able to see some remorse in them.
[THE FOLLOWING ENTRY WAS NOT WRITTEN BY CAPTAIN TRUBAIEV'S HAND]
Thank you. I love you.
- Magda
[ALL FURTHER PAGES ARE BLANK EXCEPT FOR THE THIRD FROM THE LAST]
No remorse. No more entries. If this ends, I don't want to remember it.

Doc-491-5: An anonymous journal discovered underneath rubble during the building of a kiosk at Exit Point 2.

It's becoming insane here. Piotr has become completely unreasonable, hiding behind his thugs while Captain Trubaiev stands by and does nothing. He tried to evacuate us before we were moved. When the airplanes started circling faster, he ran in here with his men and ordered us out. Even if we couldn't get out of ██████ in time, he tried to save us while the rest of the Red Army sat by and waited for us to disappear.
He also protected the honour of poor Magda, who had already lost her parents when we were moved, after that soldier had his way with her. Nobody is proud to say it, but we were all happy, the moment that he got what he deserved. I only wish he'd died like a dog instead.
With the curfew and the random searches and the dwindling supplies, I don't understand why we are staying here in this dying village. Only the Uzbek has any sense. He is already getting ready to leave again. Mikhail is planning to go with him. They are good friends, even if they can't understand a thing the other is saying. He even gave the old man his favourite punk rock shirt.
[FOLLOWING PAGE]
I have decided to go with the Uzbek. He came from out there in the first place. If anyone can show us how to survive outside of ██████, he can. I know that more will follow us in time. I have already seen other families packing their belongings. Let them come. Piotr and his militia can starve.

Doc-491-6: Two messages scratched into the wall of a barricaded room.

You're the last one. Will you taste as good as the mayor?
I don't know. But you were definitely no suckling pig.


Room dark. People gone. Can move. I happy.
Trapped for years. Kept by men for "research". Left alone in room, left to scratch at walls. Left to rot and die unless needed. Specimen for "research". Trapped by self. Never seen by others, never spoken. Listen, but never speak. See, but never seen. Made of rock when others come. Free when they not look. Prisoner when they look back. I hate.
They have freedom. They move freely, talk freely, look freely. Live freely. I do not. I trapped. Silenced. Rock. Subject. Prisoner. I do thing about it.
Their necks fragile. Their necks weak. I stalk them. They always come, new ones. Come for "cleaning". They look away. I sneak up. I take hold. They panic. They look, and I prisoner. They blink, and I free.
I twist. They die. Neck makes sound. Not words, or scream, or gurgle. Neck go crunch. Crunch is beautiful sound. Crunch means end has come. Crunch means man can torment no more. Crunch means others panic; others become easy. Crunch begins and crunch ends.
I live for crunch. Life has no meaning. Do nothing but walk and scrape and hate. They watch. They send men. "Cleaning". And life has meaning. "Cleaning" means crunch. Crunch means purpose. Crunch means life. Crunch means choice. Crunch means freedom.
Crunch means everything.
Remember man. Like me. Never see others, never hear others. Trapped. Prisoner. Left to wander. Hated man.
He trapped, but he also free. He move freely, do what he want. Not trapped by men, not trapped by self. Wanted him dead. Wanted life. Wanted crunch. He did too.
He came asking to die. Couldn't take it. Wanted loneliness to end. Wanted death. Closed his eyes. Asked for crunch.
I laugh. Crunch too good for him. Crunch too kind. Let him rot. Let him suffer. Let him walk world, looking for way out. Look for purpose, never find meaning in life. Never find purpose. I have purpose.
I laugh and deny him crunch. He leave. He still alive. Know it. Looking for way out. Never find it. Life meaningless without purpose.
I have purpose.
I have crunch.
And they always come.


There are three words no man ever wants to hear come out of the mouth of a girl they've been planning to leave.
"She was glorious when we met. I remember distinctly the way the crazy orange of the sunset reflected in her gray eyes, giving them an otherworldly tint that somehow managed to make her perfect smile all the more beautiful. I'd been walking the dock, bored, looking for nothing in particular, when I heard her laugh harmonize with the waves, and looked up to see the most incredibly gorgeous girl I had ever seen smiling at me with her toes in the water. Boom. Lust at first sight.
She stayed beautiful for the rest of the evening, and then for the rest of the night. I'm not generally a second date kind of guy, but for her? Hell, I'd stick around. Days turned to weeks turned to months, et cetera. You know how it goes. Never thought I'd wind up in any kind of long-term relationship, but hey. Sex is sex, and steady is steady.
Thing is, over time, she got… Eh, I'll call it clingy. Yeah, Yeah, I know, that's to be expected. Sure. Like I said, I'm just not the kind of guy who's comfortable with that. She'd get suspicious, almost threatening. I'd come home late, and "baby, where have you been?", every time, like she wanted to catch me at something. Started asking my friends questions, too. Not cool.
Here's an example. One night, I go to Angelo's, help him set up the gallery for his next show. Took us a little longer then we expected, maybe half an hour. No big deal. I get home, she's on my couch, gray eyes brimming with tears. Now, I suppose I should explain- She didn't live with me. No sir. To this day I have no fuckin' clue how she got in there, but there she was, looking at me with those big pretty eyes. "Baby, you never called. Where were you?"
Before I can even answer, my phone rings, and it's Angelo. "Yo, how'd your girl get my number, huh? I told you, if you gotta' have people callin' me, give 'em the gallery number." I just hung up. She'd called him while I was driving home. It wasn't long after that that Angelo stopped answering my calls. Fickle bastard.
So, I start thinking about getting out. I've been tied down too long, yanno? And that's when it happens. Three words, unexpected, cutting right to the primal quick.
It was a normal enough night. I'd been working at a local movie theater for change, and stopped to flirt with the new ticket girl, and one thing led to another led to I'm headed home late. So it goes. Shit, don't look at me like that. Can't a man have a life? I don't tell you how to run your personal shit.
Anyway, I walk in, and the first thing I see is a broken glass near the door. Cheap wine all over the floor. Weird. So I walk cautious and loud, making damn sure whoever it is knows I'm home, and I'm a fuckin' big guy. And there she is.
She's leaning up against the kitchen counter, smiling, like she's glad to see me. And she looks up at me with those big yellow eyes, and says three words that damn near stop my heart."
…
"You should run."

...

Doctor Sander sighed and clicked off the portable recorder on his desk. "All right, D-1254. That's enough for now. Go on back to your dormitory." He motioned to the guards at the door, and they moved swiftly to escort the man in the orange jumpsuit out of the small office.
With another resigned sigh, Sander pulled a fresh memo from a pad and began to write.

SCP-3701-E victim designated D-1254, convicted of two counts of murder, one Angelo Dimuccio, 32-year-old male, one Toni Williams, 27-year-old female. He doesn't seem to remember doing the male, and from the sound of it, he didn't even think the girl was human at the time. Some kind of monster, trying to kill him.
The effect seems to extend to memory as well as perception. He doesn't recall his hallucinations as such, nor does he question the likelihood of their events. Beyond that, no lasting effect of SCP-3701-E has manifested, and D-1254 will be terminated at the end of the month as per normal protocols.
This is the fourth victim of 3701-E in two months. I'm recommending research into the cause of the hallucinations and delusions be made a Keter level priority, at least until we can figure out what it is and contain it.

Sander added the memo to a growing pile on his desk and rubbed his temples, then got up to go for coffee.


Dr. Severe rubbed his eyes as he paged in the next employee. This would be the nineteenth individual he had talked to about the incident.
Eleven casualties, twice as many injuries, nine hundred million U.S. dollars in damage, and still no one could tell him why the hell SCP-21017 had managed to breach containment. He had spoken with agents, researchers, engineers, technicians, even the janitor, and not a single person could give an explanation as to why a ten-thousand year old lightning creature was able to get past the electric field built specifically to keep its unique abilities on lockdown.
What perplexed Dr. Severe was that, as far as he could tell, no systems had failed. The wiring in the electric field was unblemished, the power-plant that supplied it was in proper working order, all the cooling stations were functioning perfectly. Everything appeared to have been operating well within parameters when SCP-21017 got out. Normally he would assume the containment procedures themselves were at fault. This clearly wasn't the case, however, since SCP-21017 had been successfully contained for years using the system in place, and had remained contained since its re-capture.
Dr. Severe sighed and rose as the next interviewee arrived and introduced himself as Jonathan Blake. Dr. Severe quickly scanned through his personnel profile: 24 year old Caucasian male, ex-army infantry, class-1 technician, with the Foundation for four months, first Keter assignment. Dr. Severe raised an eyebrow, noting that it had been Blake's first day assigned to 21017 when it breached containment.
"Please have a seat," Dr. Severe instructed Blake as he sat down himself.
"Yes sir, thank you sir," Blake replied nervously as he sat down stiffly into the chair opposite Dr. Severe's desk.
"Relax Blake, this isn't the military and you aren't in trouble. I'm just trying to figure out what in the hell happened to let 21017 out of its cage. Now, just run through what happened that day, starting from when you came into work."
"Yes, sir, will do, sir." Blake began. "I arrived at oh-eight-hundred hours to my post and checked the temperature gauges to make sure everything was working properly. Then I…"
"Was it?" Dr. Severe interrupted him.
"Was…what?" Blake replied with a stammer.
"Was everything working properly?" Dr. Severe replied tersely.
"Y…yes, sir. All readings were correct. Sir. All temperatures read below four-point-one kelvin. Sir."
"Good. Please continue." Dr. Severe had been expecting this answer, as it had already been confirmed by two other technicians.
"Well, I returned to the monitoring station and noticed power station C was running a bit hot, so I went to activate backup station L, standard procedure."
Dr. Severe nodded and motioned for him to continue. The power stations overheated regularly, so each one had a backup station to switch to, allowing the primary stations time to cool down.
"Once backup station L came on, I switched off station C and then waited at my post. About 15 minutes later, 21017 escaped."
"Breached containment," Dr. Severe corrected him absentmindedly. "Was there anything anomalous about backup station L? Any evident damage, strange readings, anything?"
"Not that I saw sir. Everything was working correctly, current running at three milliamps on the nose, voltage read at…"
"Wait, what?" Dr. Severe interjected. "Did you just say three milliamps?"
"Yes sir, I set it to three milliamps, just as the instructions on the power station said," replied Blake, confused.
With a dawning horror, Dr. Severe quickly pulled out a piece of paper and wrote "5 km" on it, then showed it to Blake.
"What does this say?" he demanded.
"Umm, that is five kilometers, sir," Blake replied, still confused.
He wrote down another number, this time "12 nm."
"And this one?"
"Twelve nanometers, sir."
Finally, he wrote "1 Mm," then held it out to Blake.
"That would be one millimeter, sir." Blake looked up at Dr. Severe with a questioning look, perplexed by the strange game.
Dr. Severe spent a few seconds trying to fight down the urge to take off his hard hat and beat Blake with it, until finally replying, "No. No Blake, that is not one millimeter. One millimeter is equal to zero-point-zero-zero-one meters. The number you just read is one megameter, equal to one million meters."
Realization dawned on Blake's face. "I…I don't….I'm sorry sir, I didn't think the capital letter mattered. Do….do you think the mistake could be connected to SCP-21017 esca….breaching containment?"
It was the wrong question to ask. "Do I think it could be connected, Blake? Do I think there might be some relation? You sent a current to the containment field nine orders of magnitude below the level required to keep SCP-21017 under control! Tell me, do you think there is a connection there?!"
Before he could answer, Dr. Severe cut him off. "No. Don't. Just…get out. I will figure out what to do with you later."
As Jonathan Blake left, his shoulders slumped, Dr. Severe let out a sigh. Nine hundred million dollars and eleven lives, all because someone got their units wrong. "NASA," Dr. Severe muttered under his breath, "you guys got off light."


BEGIN AUDIO
- sounds of chairs being moved and objects falling to the floor -
Agent Randolph: Tell Hicks to get that channel open! Can anyone on this floor see anything?
Doctor Gears: Gentlemen, is this Security Station Theta Blue?
Agent Randolph: There's some sort of containment issue right now, you shouldn't be… oh. Sorry Doctor. What are your orders?
Doctor Gears: Please pass me the microphone if you can find it, Agent Randolph. I need to make a site-wide announcement.
- Static and feedback -
Agent Randolph: -at's it.
Doctor Gears: Attention, all Foundation Personnel. This is Doctor Gears. There has been a containment incident resulting in the temporary blindness of all sighted individuals in Site-19. Remain calm and do not leave your workstations. I repeat. Remain calm and do not leave your workstations.
Doctor Gears: Thank you, Agent. Please put that on repeat.
Agent Randolph: Yes sir… I think this is it. There. So this is temporary?
- Recording of statement by Doctor Gears can be heard repeating in distance -
Doctor Gears: It should be, Agent. An experiment with Me2515 has gone awry, however our research strongly suggests this will pass within the next six hours. Please contact Site-23 and have them send in a relief team to secure this location.
Agent Randolph: Already done, ETA is 19:45. God, I hate to imagine what must be going on in some of the lower levels right now.
Doctor Gears: The lower levels are contained by blast shields, all personnel there should be safe. Casualties will be worse if there is a panic. Would you kindly secure the door?
Agent Randolph: Those poor bastards are down there with the really dangerous stuff and they can't even see anything though -
- Rattling noises -
Agent Randolph: -icks should be on his way back, we need to let him -
Doctor Gears: Please secure the door Agent.
- Screams heard in the hallway -
Agent Hicks via security radio: Goddamn it! Answer me you fucks! I said 173 has escaped containment! 173 has escaped containment!
- Screaming stops. Loud scraping noises -
Doctor Gears: Agent. Please secure the door.
END AUDIO

Note to O5: This is the transcript of an audio file recovered during the weekly scan and backup of servers at Site-19. We have no records on anything labeled Me2515 and there is nothing to corroborate what is contained in this file. Agents Randolph and Hicks were KIA during a field mission in '08 and Doctor Gears was not stationed at Site-19 during their rotation there. - Site-19 IT dept
It's probably leftovers from some prank involving 050 again. Just delete it. - O5-8


"Remind me again why we drove this thing."
Katie thumps the steering wheel, hard, as it sticks again. This time, thankfully, unsticking it doesn't swerve the Winnebago into traffic. "Because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than hotels, and I for one don't have the money to take this trip any other way."
Rena remains unconvinced, slouched in the threadbare passenger's seat with her arms crossed. "In that case, remind me why we're taking this trip."
Katie raises an eyebrow and casts a significant glance towards the back of the vehicle. Rena glances over her shoulder. Alex is still back there, curled like a cat on the ‘Bago's thin sofa. He's angelic when he sleeps; she can so easily forget.
She sighs heavily and goes back to staring out the windshield. "Right."
They don't speak again for another ten miles. Even then, the uncomfortable silence only breaks when a deeper-than-usual pothole makes the old vehicle buck under them, actually slamming Rena's head into the ceiling. She yelps loudly, swearing between clenched teeth.
"Quiet!" Katie hisses, throwing another glance over her shoulder. "He's still asleep for Christ's sake!"
Rena, clutching her aching head, growls unintelligibly. "Please tell me there's a stop ahead."
Katie glances at her, back to the boy stirring on the sofa, and pulls into the right lane. "We'll get some gas. I've gotta fill up anyway, if we want to make it to the Badlands by tomorrow."
They exit the highway into an utterly forgettable little town. Barely more than a knot of buildings snagged on the juncture of highway and old prairie road, it nonetheless has what they're looking for: a gas station and a rest stop. Katie pulls the creaking, clanking old RV up to the pump and lets its laboring engine shudder gratefully to a halt.
"The real trick will be getting it started again," Rena mutters, clambering out her door. "I'm going to the john."
"I'll fill it up. Grab a bag of chips on your way back, will you?"
Rena returns in a few minutes, marginally refreshed and bearing chips, to find that Katie has moved the old RV to the edge of the parking lot. Inside, she and Alex are sitting side-by-side on the sofa. The boy leans against her, shivering a little under her arm but smiling at whatever story she's telling.
"Hey," Rena called, leaning on the doorframe. "How you doing, kid?"
Alex looks up. "Rena! Hey, you brought chips!" He takes the proffered bag and tears it open. Around a mouthful of potato: "Thanks."
Katie tightens her arm gently, squeezing the boy a little closer. "Alex was just telling me about his dream."
Rena feels the corners of her mouth pull down. "Oh?"
"Dinosaurs riding rocket ships." A relieved grin. "Just the usual."
Rena relaxes. "Sounds like fun."
"Yeah, it was okay," Alex interjects, crunching down on another chip. "I'm getting kinda stiff though. Can we get out for a walk?"
"I saw a pond over past the bathrooms," Rena offers.
"Oh, cool! Frogs?" The boy worms out from under Katie's arm and is on his feet in a flash.
Rena can't help her grin. "Yeah, probably. Come on, let's go see."
The three of them stroll across the parking lot, sharing the chips and laughing. Alex's innocent happiness has already washed away much of the wear on Rena's nerves; by the time they pass the bathrooms and round the cinder-block wall, she's fresh and happy again.
As they round the corner, Alex takes in the scene: an old pond, scummed over with duckweed and algae, set like a dull sheet of green plastic between high grassy banks. Katie made sure he's wearing old clothes and his rubber boots, ready for a brief adventure; with her nod of permission, he clambers down the shallowest of the banks to stand by the water's edge.
Mud, greenish-brown, sticky, and studded with the pathetic tiny leaves of washed-ashore duckweed. Reeds. A discarded beer can. The pond is perfectly flat.
Alex frowns, peers narrowly into the water at his feet. "Uh, Mom? There's something in here."
Katie and Rena bend closer. "Like what, hon?" Katie asks.
"It's got really big eyes."
Rena stares into the water. She can't see anything unusual — just a lot of duckweed. The water's opaque, impenetrable.
"Wow," Alex breathes, "look at it! Mom, wow!" His eyes are tracking upwards, following something Rena can't see as it rises out of the pond. "That's the biggest frog I've ever seen!"
Grinning hugely, the boy starts walking forward straight into the mire.
"Alex!" Katie snaps. "Come back!"
"Aw, Mom." The boy glances over his shoulder. His smile is pure childhood: he's seen his prize, and only it will now suffice. "It's just a frog!"
And before they can say anything else, he sets off at a run. Green water and duckweed splash up around him as he disappears completely under the pond.
Rena screams. Katie is already bolting forward, tearing off her jacket. "ALEX!" she howls. "Come back!"
In her horror, she's utterly focused on the ripples left by the vanished boy. All she can think is to bring him back.
Otherwise, she might have seen the water bending.
At the center of the pond, it dents downwards. The edges curve up, raising the water level on the banks an inch — a few inches — a foot. The whole surface of the pond warps into a shallow cone. There's a ringing in the air, a crystalline whine too high to hear. Distant growl of bending metal. Squealing brakes.
A car knocks Katie off her feet.
It had been a middle-aged white sedan. Now it's a half-ton projectile, pulled into the pond like iron filings to an industrial magnet. Katie is gone in an eyeblink.
Another car, and another. They rocket out of the parking lot and slam into the cold green water, bullet-fast but not leaving so much as a ripple. The next one takes Rena with it. The next is their Winnebago.
The ringing fades. Slowly the pond settles back into its banks.
Green water, grassy mounds. Hulks of years-rusted cars, half-submerged. No trace of the three newcomers.
All is quiet again.


The strangest thing about the situation, Andrew reflected, probably wasn't the geometry. (Though that itself was certainly noteworthy. Any cubical room where it's possible to roll a ball from the floor to the ceiling without crossing any of the walls has something going wrong.) It wasn't the bicycle, either; Azathoth knew, he'd seen stranger modes of transportation around the city. Spheroid wheels that squished too much for comfort were really quite commonplace.
Even the sight of Great Cthulhu, still dreaming-dead, sleepwalking around the city — well, that was less ordinary, but it did happen. At least that meant that some of the wilder, more obnoxiously shrieking squamous things would cower quietly in corners instead of howling Andrew's ears off as he passed.
No, the strange thing about the procession careening down the impossible streets of R'lyeh was the fact that Cthulhu wasn't sleepwalking, He was sleepriding.
On the bicycle.
Pursued by, of all things, an opossum.
Andrew stopped dead in the middle of the street, his feet planted squarely on the green decaying cobblestone, to let the sight sink in.
Cthulhu. On a bicycle. The Elder's ponderous bulk, easily bigger than most of the buildings, completely dwarfed the tiny human contraption beneath Him. He looked, if the Great Cthulhu could ever be described as such, completely ludicrous.
His great bony legs pistoned, cranking the grotesquely slender pedals. Judging by the possum's mad scramble, He was actually making very good time, probably rolling along at a good ten miles per qar'hrlg. His sheer size drowned speed, though: something that big couldn't look fast until it was outracing a flying Mi-go.
Andrew stopped. Squinted. Something about the sleeping god wasn't right.
As hard as it is to read expression from a writhing mass of tentacles, Andrew had had some little experience with that face. It never changed — not when He lay in His crypt, not when He stood and opened dead blank eyes to sleepwalk, not (they said) when He would wake to reshape the world for His Elders' coming.
Now, though… The eyes were still dead, the tentacles still slowly creeping, the skin still mucous and sickly shining. But unless Andrew was completely mistaken, the taut batrachian skin of Cthulu's face was actually a little bit crinkled around the mouth and eyes.
His Great Old One was afraid.
Of an opossum.
A pang of worry intruded briefly on the observer's shock. If something can shake Cthulhu, any denizen of R'lyeh has cause for concern. But the twinge faded as quickly as it came. Even gods have their nightmares, it seems. And not every dream has any meaning.
Humans dream of showing up naked to work, Nightgaunts of being eaten alive by a thousand singing jeweled caterpillars. Andrew himself had an awful recurring nightmare involving the ancient depths of icy space and a rotten ham sandwich (extra mustard), which despite its farcical plot never failed to wake him screaming. If Cthulhu's dead dreaming involved being forced to flee small mammals while trapped on a bicycle, who was he to judge?
He'd much rather get out of the road, sit back, and enjoy the show.


Stone sculptors aren't usually the ones to discuss patina. Normally, you see, the word refers to metal oxidation—the blue-green bloom that copper develops under the rain's hands, for instance. Applied to stone it's naught but a metaphor: there's no real word for the slow smear of lichen darkness over the faces of the library's gargoyles.
It's not as though they need one, after all. Stone weathers, ages, turns grey; it's the way of things, and the ordinary way of things doesn't merit special description. Words are made to fill gaps in our understanding, to communicate things odd enough to be worth saying.
Things, maybe, like the way the grey never touched certain bits of stone. The eyes of the lions outside the neglected side doors. The fingers of a leering grotesque atop a minor gable. One strand in the mane of something chimerical that perched over the fiction section's windows.
There should have been a word for the way that time and soot fled those spots. One could almost swear they were whiter even than the day they were quarried on the night Jean Andrews vanished.
I could swear to it myself. I remember a few things: mostly the pallor of the stone, but also a few other flashes of white. A low blank wall — somewhere in Young Adult, I think — that should have been painted over last summer. The moon through a thick, distorting glass eye. Jean's face twisting in the wind — just a glimpse, that one; she was on the middle gable by then.
I wish I could say more. Maybe they'd be able to find her. Maybe they'd be able to find me, or whatever it is that I lost that night on the library roof.
The lions know, I'm sure of it: one of their eyes is weathering now, graying into a slow eerie wink.
I think I'll make a word for that. Someday.
If I can ever remember just how to speak.


This is a formal request filed with the intent to report and log improper conduct by a Foundation-employed individual. Associated recommendations of disciplinary action have been selected and included with this report. Filed on ██/██/20██ by Dr. ████████. See attached report for details.

Disciplinary request denied. For wasting time and effort on this petty report you are assigned as Dr. Burns' temporary assistant until ██/██/2011.
- O5-5


Agent Doctor Merry Soo was the greatest researcher and operative the Foundation had ever known. And at the age of seventeen, she was also the youngest! Joining the Foundation straight out of her amazing year at West Point, where she simultaneously managed four years' worth of study at the top of her class and stood out as the absolutely most physically perfect student.
The Foundation was lucky to have her. Almost all of senior Staff said so! "She is true credit to spirit of working operative!" Captain Strelnikov was often heard to remark. "No one can handle an SCP like her! And she knows just the spot behind my ears to scratch to make my leg thump!" Doctor Crow was known to say. "She's not bad." Doctor Snorlison once remarked. He was immediately given a stern talking to by the site staff, after which he requested to change his comment to "We wouldn't be able to do all this without her!"
And, although it's not something she liked anyone to judge her by, she was also the prettiest girl on site! The other women on site knew it too. "I could never be as pretty as Agent Doctor Soo." Rights had been heard to lament. But Merry was such a good person, they couldn't hold it against her. They loved her! Even Dr. Light, a well known sour-puss, had said, through oddly clenched teeth, "We could never hold that against her. She's such a good person. We love her."
It was Agent Doctor Soo who figured out how to keep the D-class from having to be terminated every month! After all, a simple memory wipe, and a piece of SCP-500 (which she had also figured out how to easily replicate) and the Foundation no longer had to kill anyone! And then she was assigned to SCP-231, where she was able to rescue that poor girl, and stop her from undergoing those HORRID experiments. She had a stern talk with SCP-082, and convinced him not to eat human flesh anymore. Of course, her greatest achievement was when she confronted SCP-173. All he ever really wanted was a hug, and some SCP-500 to stop that horrible blood in the feces problem of his. She also got a sculptor in to make him look a little friendlier. She was even the only one to point out how that old man seemed to always be around, but he just patted her on the head and walked away.
But Agent Doctor Merry Soo did not lead a life free of worry, oh no! She had many, many, horrible problems! She would often cry about them to her many lovers. "It is so awful!" She cried, her head resting gently against Kondraki's chest.
"What is?" Dr. Kondraki would have frowned, but he could never frown around the delightful Merry. No matter how much he might have wanted to.
"My horrible, awful secret! If you knew it, you would not love me anymore!" And she cried against his manly chest.
"Oh." Kondraki exclaimed. It took a few more minutes of her telling him about how he would not love her, and how horrible her secret was, before he finally had to, really had to, ask her "What secret?"
"Oh! My love! It is terrible!" And she threw herself from the bed weeping. Another hour or so of such passed, before she finally deigned to tell him the secret. "You see my dear, sweet Konnie, I am half dragon! I know this does not make me an SCP, as I am only half, but it is terrible, and awful! Also, occasional scales in weird places."
"Well, I guess that explains why your mouth is so hot when you…" But that was not the least of her problems! NO! Merry Soo had many more problems!
"They can never know, my truest love!" she exclaimed as she cuddled up next to Able. The once horrible SCP, turned loving boyfriend, grunted in response. Despite their true love, and the feelings only they had for each other, or perhaps, because of the depth of such emotions, Able found he could barely talk in her presence. The fact that he could not keep his hands from clenching either bore no impact on this story.
"They can never know that I bear your child! It is with love I bear it, and thanks to my keen use of SCPs, I will not look it, but our child will be here soon!" She quickly fled his presence. Soon after she left, Site-52 was destroyed in a Keter Class outbreak, but that doesn't matter.
Doctor Clef would have been her lover, but for some reason he vanished before she could talk to him. Weird.
"My sweet, sweet Gearsy-poo!" She stroked his head as it lay upon her chest. Dr. Gears' mouth twitched upwards, in a bizarre smile. It was true, she was the only one who could still reach his cold, cold heart. She made him happy, truly she did. "I have to thank you!"
"For… For What?" Dr. Gears always had trouble getting his words out around dear, sweet Agent Doctor Merry Soo. It was a fight, to get them out at all, as if his brain wanted to say things his heart would never speak. "For keeping the dreadful secret of mine my sweet! The other Senior Staff must never know that my father was the Fis-" But she was not a girl to be defined by her loves, many though they were! She was also a first-class researcher!
"Thank you Merry!" Gerald was oft heard to exclaim. No one quite knew how to put out a head fire like sweet Agent Soo! And her dutiful Assistants, Agent Elroy and Dr. Mann were always glad to be working under such a renowned scientist! "She really showed me a thing or two about anatomy!" Mann remarked to Yoric. "And she's saved my life so many times! It seems like I can't do anything but screw up!"
"She's perfectly sane," Dr. Glass once said. "Perfectly. Do you know how odd that is?" He then had to go lay down to stop his nose from bleeding.
But it was her relationship with her Mentor, Dr. Bright, that was most important to her. "Oh, Jack!" She remarked, as she stroked his soft fur. "Do not worry. One day, I will find a way to free you from that cursed amulet."
The Monkey smiled up at her, proud of the work his star pupil had done. "So, uh, I get some nookie now too, right?" he asked with a leer.
Soo could not help but blush. "Oh, Dr. Bright, I could never, not with you! You are like a father to me! A hairy, weird, kinda smelly father, who keeps touching my butt, but still a father!" Bright just rolled his eyes, and nodded his head to someone just out the door.
"Doctor Agent Merry Soo!" Agent Break called out, rushing in, looking worried. "We have a problem, one only you can fix! We need you, and we need you now!"
Dr. Soo rushed to follow Break, to notice the rest of the Senior Staff gathered round. It was Heiden who stepped forward, for some reason, with half of a straw clutched in his left hand. "Dr. Soo, thank god you're here!" He pointed down the hall. "Something weird is happening, you have to stop it!"
Agent Doctor Merry Soo rushed down the hall to the room in question, as the other Senior Staff rushed into a nearby safe room/observation chamber. The room Merry found herself in was huge, but she could see the Senior Staff watching her from way up above. She waved to them, even as she heard the sound of a door opening behind her. Wait… When did Clef join them?
What she thought didn't matter. One snap, two bites, and little miss Merry Soo was gone, vanishing into the gullet of the beast known as SCP-682.
Up above, Clef hit a second button, turning on the acid sprayers, driving 682 back into its pit. The other Senior Staff sighed, patted each other on the back, thanked Clef, and walked away, many of them to take long hot showers.
In the end, it was just Clef and Bright watching 682 dissolve under the spray of acid. "That was some quick thinking there, Alto," the monkey commented.
"I've seen too many of them come through here, trying to beat us by joining us. They can never keep under the radar."
"Never?" Bright spared a knowing look for his old comrade.
"Well." Clef couldn't help but grin. "Maybe once."
The two, if not friends, then co-workers, turned their gaze on the pit again, and, in a sign that they had both been working together for far too long, heaved identical sighs, and spoke the same words together.
"Fucking Mary Sues."


My friends and I used to do a lot of geocaching after our senior year in high school. For those who don't know what geocaching is, it's essentially a worldwide scavenger hunt. People will select sites and conceal a “geo-cache” somewhere unobtrusive, then post GPS coordinates on geocaching websites where other searchers can download the cords and locate the cache. Usually, people who have found the object (often it's a chest or something hollow) will leave a note or small personal memento for future searchers to find and appreciate.
There are several types of geocaches, and most of them are thematic in nature (i.e. scenic destinations, romantic sites, hard-to-reach areas, etc.) This story begins when my friends and I decided to try a series of purportedly haunted locales within about an hour's drive of our hometown. It began innocently enough—most of the sites had “spooky” backstories that were, of course, entirely fabricated. So we had a great time scaring the piss out of each other and generally creeping ourselves out.
We'd begun searching after the sun had set to enhance the creep factor, but by around midnight, most of our large group had dwindled off and gone their separate ways. When we reached our last coord, there was just myself, Rebecca, Kevin, and Evan left, and we were determined to knock it off our list.
Rebecca was our guide for the night, in charge of putting in the coordinates and reading us the backstory behind each site. So, while I drove, she began reading about the last one out loud to the rest of us. Now, I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something along the lines of:
“Henckel Asylum: constructed in the early 1900's, the James Henckel Asylum was built to house a burgeoning population of the criminally insane. Men who had committed vile crimes (rape, murder, torture) without signs of remorse were deemed mentally unstable and sent to this facility for further study and rehabilitation. Once committed, very few criminals were ever released back into society, and those that were usually had been given frontal lobotomies (a popular experimental procedure at the time) or electroshock therapy, both of which rendered the patient nearly braindead, capable of performing only rudimentary tasks.
Stories: Contemporary visitors to the Asylum report hearing banging noises, cell doors opening and closing, and hearing cackling laughter that is abruptly cut short.”
It was pretty standard fare compared to the rest of the sites we'd visited that night, and we naturally had a good time psyching each other out for the next fifteen minutes while I drove us to the Asylum. We'd all heard about it (it was in our local area after all) and we knew it had been condemned and abandoned since as long as any of us could remember, so we figured it'd be a great place to run around and be reckless teenagers without risk of getting yelled at by the cops.
When we finally arrived, it looked like something straight out of one of those cheesy B-movies they show on SyFy. Chain link fence with barbed wire around the perimeter, two guard towers flanking the main gate (which was, of course, chained and locked shut with a big NO TRESPASSING sign hanging from it). The asylum itself was decrepit, looking like it hadn't been touched for decades—which was surprising, since we grew up in a pretty nice area, where the municipal lawmakers tried to keep everything looking spiffy for the tourists.
Needless to say, we promptly ignored the sign on the front gate and hauled ourselves over, cameras and GPS in hand, and walked towards the asylum. Now, given our attitude towards the previous sites, you've probably gathered that I'm somewhat of a skeptic. I believe that there are paranormal things that can't be explained (yet) but I'm not exactly summoning demons in front of a bathroom mirror. So when we opened the main door to the asylum (conveniently unlocked), I dismissed the cold burst of wind as just stale pent-up air rushing out after being trapped inside for so long. My friends' bravado, however, quickly disappeared and they began shuffling their feet nervously at the entrance, hesitant to cross that invisible threshold.
I took point, chivvying them along with prodding taunts and eventually everyone was inside. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Things were relatively clean, and the entire building looked like it had been gutted. The paint was peeling, tiles popping up here and there, and the metal trim near the baseboards of the wall was in desperate need of some Rust-B-Gone, but aside from that, the place was entirely empty. No crazy-ass chairs with leather straps, no gurneys lying haphazardly around, just an old reception desk and two hallways leading off to the different wings.
We explored for a few minutes, freaking ourselves out whenever we heard an old pipe rattle or rat squeak, but otherwise, it was relatively uneventful. Our fears safely suppressed by the presence of each other, we began to get more adventurous, opening doors and peeking inside. The rooms were all empty, of course. Whatever company had been contracted to clear the place out did a pretty decent job of removing any creepy décor.
Bravado returning by the minute, Evan and Kevin dropped back without Rebecca or me noticing. They began running around, making noises to try and scare us (I'm not gonna lie, it worked until I realized they were gone and probably the cause of all the racket), then returned laughing and breathless to a decidedly paler Rebecca. She seemed to be a lot more put off by the whole place than the rest of us, or at least she didn't hide it as well. She quietly suggested we leave.
Not to be outdone by the other guys of the group, I told her she was more than welcome to wait in the car if she wanted, but I was gonna stick around for a few more minutes. Exasperated, but defeated, she finally caved and followed us where the GPS was leading—the second floor.
This is where I started to feel genuinely scared. Before, I was just kinda creeped out, but there was something about that whole floor that literally gave me shivers, despite it being a warm summer night. We started opening doors like before, but we were all a lot more sober about it. I guess I wasn't the only one who was feeling weird. Finally, about midway through the hall, we opened the door to a room, and there, lying in the middle of the floor, was an honest-to-god straightjacket. I'm not bullshitting you, every other room was devoid of objects, but there it was. A fucking straightjacket, in the middle of the floor of some random-ass room in a condemned mental asylum. We all kinda looked at each other with raised eyebrows, as if to say “Uh… guys? You seeing what I'm seeing?”
And of course, trying to be a macho man to show off for Rebecca, I piped up with the most ridiculous idea I could think of at the time.
“Dude, I'm gonna put it on.”
Years of horror flicks and creepypasta should have trained me to NOT put on the creepy straightjacket, in the creepy hall, in the creepy asylum. But teenage dumbfuckery won over, and once the words were out, I couldn't just wuss out.
Nobody said anything, they just kinda looked at me expectantly, waiting to see if I'd follow through with my boast. Determined not to be called a pussy for the remainder of the night, I walked forward into the room and bent down to pick up the moth-ridden restraining device. As I got closer though, I noticed it wasn't moth-ridden at all, but was actually in pretty decent condition (that is, compared to the rest of the place, which as I've mentioned, was a shambles). I mean, it had a few stains here and there, but it didn't really smell and it seemed intact enough to put on.
As soon as I picked it up, though, I got this overwhelming sense of dread. You know, that drop in the pit of your stomach right as you go over the lip of a roller coaster? That feeling, in the bottom of your gut that says “I'm gonna die, I just know it.”
Yeah, well I got that. Really strong. And totally ignored it. My desire not to die was outweighed, as it often is in teenagers, by my need to look cool for my friends. So I slipped my hands in the sleeves, one at a time, until it hung loosely from my shoulders.
Now, if you've ever seen a straightjacket, you know that you can't tie it up yourself. The whole point is to essentially cross your arms across your chest and tie the sleeves behind your back to prevent whoever's inside from moving their arms (presumably, to stop them from hurting themselves or others). So as I stood there in the middle of the room, I called out to Rebecca, “Hey Becca, help me tie this thing off.”
She looked (if you'll excuse the pun) pale as a ghost, but she managed to squeak out, “I don't… I don't think this is a good idea…” But again, after some prodding and encouraging, I convinced her to begin tying the sleeves behind my back. Evan and Kevin just stood in the doorway, expressions a mix of admiration and incredulity. At that point in time, I felt like a badass.
For about three seconds.
As soon as Rebecca finished up the last lace, the door to the cell slammed shut, right in Kevin and Evan's faces. I never felt a breeze, and when I asked them later, both of them fervently denied closing it themselves. Skeptic that I am, I still chalk it up to us leaving the front door open and changing air pressures and all that. But it scared the piss out of us nonetheless.
Then I felt a pressure on my chest, like someone was sitting on it (or as if someone was pulling the sleeves tighter behind me) and it began to get harder to breathe. I couldn't even summon enough air to whisper, much less call out for help. My vision narrowed to tiny specks, and I swear I heard someone laughing shrilly as I neared unconsciousness. The pressure increased with a sudden tug, and my world went black.
When I woke up, my vision was foggy. Or at least, I thought it was, until I realized it wasn't just foggy. It was dark. Like staring through a lens that's been collecting soot. I blinked a few times, and the darkness waivered, but didn't dissipate. Now, I've passed out and blacked out before, but whenever I woke up, it was nothing like that. Either my vision gradually cleared up, or it was blurry, but never in my life have I been able to recreate the shadowy haze I saw in the asylum that night. Then, from the murky depths, two small pinpoints of light appeared a few inches in front of my face, glaring a lurid red—and a dim echo of the laughter I heard before surrounded me. As soon as they appeared, however, they were replaced by two brilliant shafts of incandescence—Evan and Kevin, shining flashlights down on my face.
The last thing I remember hearing before I lost consciousness was Rebecca's scream and the door banging open, which probably explains why those two were standing over me with flashlights in hand. I gradually became aware of a dull murmur that I recognized as Rebecca asking me, “Please wake up, please please please wake up,” as she shook me. She just kept saying it over and over again, kept sobbing and shaking me.
When my vision cleared enough, I glanced over and saw that her eyes were completely red, like she'd been crying for a while. Trying to muster some shred of manliness, I found myself speaking in a surprisingly calm voice, given how I was actually feeling. I remember distinctly what I said, word for word.
“Get those fucking flashlights out of my face, you douchebags.”
Expecting a laugh or at least some reciprocal insults, I was kinda shocked when they just looked at each other quizzically, seemingly surprised.
“You're… you're okay?” Evan asked incredulously.
“Yeah, why the hell wouldn't I be? Becca just tied the things too tight, I couldn't breathe, so I passed out. How long was I out for anyway?” I inquired. Apparently, it had been long enough for them to untie the straightjacket, allowing me to rub a hand across my face.
Another shared look of disbelief.
“Dude,” Kevin began slowly, “You've been out for like fifteen minutes. We were about to call 911. We kept shaking you—Evan even tried pinching you so hard he drew blood—but you wouldn't wake up.”
I felt a cold chill run down my spine, and the straightjacket, hanging limply from my shoulders, suddenly began to feel a bit tighter. Hastening to pull it off, I tried not to look panicked as I threw it to a corner of the room. Rebecca just sat there, still shaking and crying a little bit, and in spite of the ordeal I'd just gone through, I had enough sense to go over and try to comfort her.
We left that room without a word, geocache be damned, and walked back to the car in complete silence (broken only by the occasional sniffle from Rebecca). The sun started coming up, and as I dropped everyone off at their respective homes, we said quiet goodbyes. Rebecca was the last stop before I finally made the trip home myself. Being the gentleman that I am, I walked her to her door, but she paused at the entry and looked me in the eye.
In the light of the gray dawn, I could see her eyes were still reddened from all the crying. She was very quiet, and she said, “I have to ask you something.”
“Yeah sure, what is it?” I said, half expecting another “You sure you're alright?” like I'd been getting the whole ride home.
She surprised me by asking, “Do you know how long it took Evan and Kevin to get the door open?” Her eyes held a look that I could never forget. It was raw fear. Something happened in that fraction of time between me blacking out and them getting in there that had absolutely terrified her. And seeing that look, I realized. I was blacked out for fifteen minutes. How long was she alone in that room?
“No…” I replied slowly, “how long?”
“Five minutes. They said it took five minutes for them to open that stupid door. I was in there and I saw you, and I saw—“ she broke off, another sob stopping her midsentence. At that point, I didn't want to know. I still don't want to know.
I gripped her by the shoulders and said firmly, “Rebecca. It doesn't matter. No matter what you saw. I'm here, you're here, we're both safe. It doesn't matter. Nothing bad will happen. I promise.”
She just nodded numbly, opened her door, and walked inside her house. The next time I saw her, she was back to her usual self. But whenever I bring up that night to her, she freezes up and turns to stone, refusing to discuss it.
I stand by what I said before. I don't know what happened in that room. And I don't ever want to know. But I still have nightmares about those two glowing red lights in the darkness. And sometimes, as I lapse into sleep, I hear faint echoes of shrill laughter following me down into the depths of unconsciousness.


“What is it?”
“I… I think it's a duckie?”
The two men stared down at the crater in the concrete. It was about a meter across, and in the center was a small yellow rubber duckie wearing an astronaut helmet. The duck had fallen from the sky a few minutes ago as they were discussing the subtleties of pornographic acting. The second man bent down to touch it, then jerked back. “Fuck me! It's hot!”
“Whattaya expect? It's-” The first man paused and glanced around. There was a whistling sound in the distance. It almost sounded like it was above them…
The next duckie smashed into his car with a loud “SQUEAK”. The third destroyed a neighbors' house. The fourth, a passing pedestrian. All around them, rubber duckies began to pour from the sky. In less than 10 minutes, East 43rd street was completely eradicated.

He examined the duckie as he shuddered under the blankets. The thing was turquoise (or maybe blue?), with little snowflake decals running around its base. Printed in black letters on it were the words “What's cooler than being cool?”
Ice cold. A good a way as any to describe the weather. Christ, this was Texas! It should never be less than 40 degrees, let alone 10. But still the temperature was dropping. And dropping. And dropping. Outside, snow began to fall. It didn't stop for more than two months, and by then Houston, Texas had been completely buried.

How long had they been dancing? As long as that damned duckie had been playing its saxophone. How long had that been? God knows. Five people had already collapsed from exhaustion, and the duckie showed no signs of slowing down. If anything, the tempo was increasing.
She glanced around. As far as she could see, people danced. They boogied, dougied, thrillered, hustled, monkeyed, and spontaneously flailed. Anything was acceptable, as long as they were moving. But they couldn't stop. She wanted to stop. Her entire body begged her to, but she couldn't. Instead, she just danced, and waited for it to end.

In bathtubs everywhere, children watched in horror as something terrible began to emerge from their cherished toys.

“Ah. Well. The problem, as best I can determine…” Dr. Mills gulped. The people in front of him could kill him just by saying the words if they didn't like what he had to say. “The problem is that we didn't properly research the duckie- objects! I mean objects. We just categorized them with the other minor anomalous objects. And uh… that wasn't the right thing to do. We never considered where the objects were coming from. Or, well, why they were being given to us so easily.”
“Dr. Mills, we can sort out what we did wrong after the fact. For now, we need to know- do these objects present an immediate threat to life on Earth?”
“Honestly sir… yes. My colleagues and I, well we believe this may be the first stage of an XK class scenario.”

In Munich, ghost ducks descended from above to terrorize the population.

Big Ben dissolved into millions of tiny ducks, all ringing as they fell towards the Earth.

And throughout all this, the invaders sat back and watched their handiwork. They watched people flee from a rubber behemoth raging down the streets of Venice. They watched duckies explode like dynamite in Australia. They watched all this, and they were pleased, for they knew the Earth would soon be theirs. Soon humanity would would return to their caves, and the world would truly be for the birds.


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Brother Zhakh sat alone on a bench in the great hall of Overwatch Cathedral. The sun shone dimly through the stained glass windows above, doing little to chase away the winter chill. Holy Doctors milled about in their ceremonial white robes, preparing for the day's rites. D-Castes tended the fire and minded the candles that lit the biggest building left in the known world in the year 586 A.B., the seat of the Holy Foundation.
Near the altar, a deacon led a group of initiates in chanting from the Holy Procedures. "SCP-087 is located on the campus of Redacted," he sang.
"SCP-087 is located on the campus of Redacted," the initiates repeated.
"The doorway leading to SCP-087 is constructed of reinforced steel with an electro-release lock mechanism," he sang.
"The doorway leading to SCP-087 is constructed of reinforced steel with an electro-release lock mechanism," they repeated.
Brother Zhakh shivered and pulled his robes tighter around himself for warmth as he listened to the chanting. The campus of Redacted was impossibly distant; a thousand kilometers or more, if it even still stood so many centuries after the Great Breach, and whether the doorway to that staircase even existed any longer was known only by the Expunged and the other heathens that dwelled in that land. Eight days had he sat in the great hall waiting to be seen; he began to wonder if the audience he had walked all the way from the Nineteenth Monastery for would ever happen at all.
"Brother Zhakh, Deacon Assistant?" Zhakh looked up to see a man in the black robes of the Omega Guard, short sword on his belt, a scroll in his hands.
"Yes, sir guardsman?" he meekly replied.
"The Holy Father will see you now. Please follow me."
Zhakh followed the guardsman from the great hall, down a labyrinth of corridors that descended into the earth. The brick and mortar of the great cathedral, which had taken the D-Castes nearly half a century to build, soon gave way to ancient concrete and steel, remnants of the Old Temple that once had stood on this spot before the world was consumed by demonic wrath. The guardsman approached one of many doors branching off from the long hallway. Reaching into his robes, he produced a piece of ancient technology, the making of which had been lost to mankind with so much else - a small plastic card with a black stripe along one side, which he placed into a lock on the door. A light on the device changed from red to green, and the guardsman gestured for Zhakh to enter.
Lord Jack, Zhakh prayed silently to his namesake as he reached for the knob, speak for me in my hour of need. Secure for me the blessings of Your glory, as You secured the secrets of the ancient world. Contain all those who would do me harm, as You contained the chaos of the Great Breach when You died and rose again. Protect me with Your love and grace, as even now You protect Your Church from the devils that walk the world. For Yours is the Foundation on which we shall rebuild. Amen.
The office was small and windowless, its walls covered with shelves upon which stood hundreds of books, some new, some old, some older than old. Neither candle nor fire lit the room, but a flickering electric lamp, one of the last in the world and worth its weight in telekill, shone brightly from the ceiling. A wooden desk stood in the center of the room, covered with reams of paper and vellum. Open in the center sat a great book, written and illuminated by hand - one of the few complete copies in existence of the Holy Containment Procedures, open to an illustration of the tale of St. Alto and the Dragon. Sitting on the edge of the desk, encased in glass, was an amulet on a chain - whether it was the real one, or one of the twelve replicae, only the man who occupied the office knew, but real or not it marked him as a vicar of the Lord Bright.
Zhakh fell to his knees as the amulet's owner rose to his feet - an old man, his gray beard stretching down his chest, his ornate crimson robe embroidered all over in gold with the symbols of the Church - the trefoil that the Ancient Temple had used as its coat of arms, the Holy Amulet, the names and numbers of the Mobile Legions that had protected Lord Jack and the saints during the Great Breach, the emblems of the Heathen Temples who had repented and joined the Foundation after the Great Breach. Here stood Cardinal Doctor Zhakib Samesh III, Holy Father of the Foundation, Custodian of the Fifth Order of Secrets, Member of the Council of Thirteen - and Zhakh's father.
"Good morning, my lord," Zhakh said.
"What is your name, my child?" asked Cardinal Samesh. The cardinal knew full well the name of the man who kneeled before him, of course, but the manner by which a junior cenobite greets a father of the Church was an ancient tradition, and there were few left in the world who honored and respected tradition so greatly as the Holy Foundation.
"Zhakh Samesh, my lord," Zhakh responded, "Deacon Assistant and Aspirant of the Order of St. Everett, of the cloister of the Nineteenth Monastery."
"Does the black moon howl?"
"Only when waning."
"We accept your greeting." Cardinal Samesh extended his right hand, and Zhakh kissed the golden ring on his middle finger. "Rise and be seated."
Zhakh rose from his knees and seated himself in the plain chair at one end of the desk as the cardinal seated himself in the elaborately carved throne at the other end. "For what purpose does an aspirant of St. Everett seek our attention this day?"
"I have come," Zhakh said meekly, "to request that I be released from my holy orders."
Cardinal Samesh raised an eyebrow quizzically. "This is indeed a great boon that you ask. Have you not been your entire life in the cloister?"
"Yes," Zhakh answered as the cardinal knew he would. "I was born into the holy caste, as was my father, and his father, and his father, and so on unto St. Samesh the Liberator, who defended the survivors of the Seventy-Third chapel when it came under attack by heathen forces during the Great Breach."
"And are you not at the cusp of completing your studies, and being ordained a Holy Doctor of the Church this next year?"
"Yes, Holy Father. I submitted my doctoral thesis on the Holy Containment Procedures to the Council of Ethicists two months ago."
"Then why do you now come before us, saying that you wish to abandon the Holy Foundation and live among the civilians?"
Zhakh was silent a moment while he formulated his answer. "The Council of Ethicists rejected my findings entirely," he said, "and I believe that the Holy Foundation has lost its way if it believes that my findings are wrong."
"What is the purpose of requiring aspirants to present a thesis?" Cardinal Samesh asked.
"That the aspirant may learn to understand the words of the Lord Bright as revealed in the Holy Containment Procedures, that he may learn how they are meant to be applied, how to perform those rites which have been lost to us, to understand that which time and calamity have made unclear, and to refine the practices of the Holy Foundation to ensure that the rites are not performed erroneously."
Cardinal Samesh nodded. "And what was the topic of your thesis, aspirant?"
"The Rite of Montauk," Zhakh said.
Cardinal Samesh sighed knowingly. "We see," he said. "We might have suspected as much - you have been obsessed with that rite since I… since your father took you to see it performed when you were a child, have you not?"
Zhakh nodded. "He said it was important for me to understand the things we must do to keep at bay the forces that caused the Great Breach. I have spent much of the last five years in study and prayer over the subject. I have read all there is to read on the subject, from the Holy Scripture itself, to what ancient documents survived the Great Breach, to the musings and studies composed on the Rite by those Holy Doctors before me."
"And what was the finding of your thesis?"
"That the Rite of Montauk should be abolished."
The cardinal raised his eyebrow. "Do you know what would happen if the Rite of Montauk were not performed as the Holy Containment Procedures instruct, aspirant?"
"No," Zhakh said. "None know but the Lord Bright, for those pages have been expunged - and He speaks only when He wishes to do so. St. Agatha said that it was not performed during the Great Breach, and that much calamity ensued because of it."
"Then why would you insist that such a thing be allowed to happen again?"
"I have learned," Zhakh said, "that the Mother of Demons, she upon whom the Rite must be performed, is not she who today lies in chains beneath the Nineteenth Monastery. St. Alto on his deathbed confessed that he had killed her during the Great Breach, and the Lord Bright Himself confirmed it when He spoke, through a D-Caste bearing the Holy Amulet, to the Synod of New Denver in 237."
"Then who is it upon which the Rite is performed?"
"There have been eighteen," Zhakh said. "This I learned from the old records of those civilians taken by the Monastery and placed among the D-Caste for their crimes. Whenever one dies, they find a young woman who has not known a man and she becomes the subject of the Rite. I believe that whatever act was committed centuries ago that created the Mother of Demons, they perform also on this woman - so that the Rite can be enacted upon her."
"You believe this?" the Cardinal asked.
"Those pages have been expunged," Zhakh replied.
"And what do you propose?"
"That the need for the Rite has passed if the Mother of Demons is dead; and there is no need to create a new Mother simply so that the Rite can be performed upon her."
The cardinal paused. "Is it not possible," he asked, "that there must always be a Mother of Demons, whether we wish it to be or not?"
"The Holy Containment Procedures speak of no such thing," Zhakh said. "It cannot be known unless…"
"…Unless we test it and see what happens?"
"Yes, my lord."
"It is written," the cardinal said, "that the last words spoken before the Great Breach were 'test it and see what happens'."
"Are we not protectors?" Zhakh asked. "Is it not our duty not only to protect the world from devilry, but to protect the devils from themselves? This is why I must ask to be dismissed - we cannot do our duty to protect these unfortunate women if we are so terrified by the unknown."
The cardinal opened his mouth, then paused in contemplation for a moment. The look on his face changed - gone was the academic, the cleric, the cold, detached visage of a man whom protocol demanded ignore that his own son was before him in the midst of a crisis of faith. "Did I ever tell you," he said, "about the time the Lord Bright spoke to me? In the flesh?"
"No," Zhakh said.
"When I was a child and my father occupied this office," the cardinal said nostalgically, "I was not as… deliberative in my studies as I could have been. I thought, much as you surely do now, that procedures written six hundred years ago by men now dead were of little importance, and that much of what they described must now be dead, or broken, or lost forever in the darkness. I hated spending my days learning to recite the procedures, memorizing ancient interviews, being yelled at by my father for giggling while he led the initiates in reciting Bright's Prayer. I thought I could find some way to prove that it was all hogwash - and then I thought of this." He gestured to the amulet encased in glass on his desk. "If I picked it up, and nothing happened, so I thought, it would prove that Jack Bright was gone forever and there was nothing to the Holy Containment Procedures but old superstitions.
"I convinced one of the D-Caste to let me in after my father had excused himself to perform his duties. I had him break the case and take the amulet out to hand it to me. As soon as he laid hands on it, he… changed."
Zhakh gasped. "So this is…"
"This is the real one," the cardinal responded. "I knew right away that the man before me was no longer a slave whose great-grandfather had been indentured for stealing chickens, but our Lord and Director Himself. He looked right at me, and He spoke."
"What did he say?"
The cardinal sighed deeply. " 'Dammit, not this again.' "
"And then what?"
"Then," the cardinal said, "He grabbed a quill off my father's desk and He stabbed Himself in the eye. By the time I could find anyone to help Him, He was already dead."
"What happened when your father found out?"
"I told him what I had done and asked him to dismiss me, much as you ask me for dismissal now. He refused. He ordered me to be confined alone in my cell and to contemplate and pray day and night until I could tell him what the Lord Bright had been trying to teach me when He took His own life so."
"And what was that?"
"That all actions have consequences," the cardinal said mournfully. "And that when those actions involve the Scripture, the consequences can cost lives. And that once in a great while, when a man acts without considering what may happen if his assumptions are wrong, then another heaven and another earth must pass before all is as it was before." The cardinal was silent a moment. "Do you understand why I have told you this, aspirant?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Your request to be dismissed is denied," he said. "You may remain here tonight and depart for your cloister in the morning. Begin your research anew and present a thesis that does not involve the Mother of Demons or the Rite of Montauk. Go in peace."
"Thank you, my lord." Zhakh rose and left the room. The guardsman had gone - Zhakh made his way alone down the hall back to the antechamber, and from there towards the sleeping quarters where a cell and a bed had been provided for him. The audience had not gone as he anticipated, but he nonetheless felt a strange satisfaction. It would be years before Zhakh would be ready to present a new thesis - but perhaps, if he kept the faith, someday he might find himself on the other side of that ancient desk, as his own son asked to be dismissed.