Larry Robbins had never been a particularly active or happy man. He went to work, he worked, he went home, and he slept. On certain days, he'd go out to bars and talk up a girl, take her home, enjoy her company, and then never speak to her again. On others, he'd go out to eat with an old college acquaintance, or call one of his brothers or sisters—it was a large family and there were many to choose from—and talk for a short while.
All this made it more unusual when, almost out of the blue, the woman had began flirting with him in the elevator. More so, she stopped by his desk once or twice to ask for things she already had, did her best to look seductive for him, and, more than once, allowed her hand to trail over his as if by accident. With the signs obvious, Larry had no choice but to make her formal acquaintance and, eventually, take her out for a night on the town.
He found the company pleasurable, in spite of his initial unwillingness in the whole affair, and after dropping her off back at her home, found the invitation of a second date appealing. The next Wednesday, he found himself anticipating her arrival at his desk after work. They met, exchanged pleasantries, and went to her flat for a night in and warm food.
Her cooking was exceptional, and Larry was finding himself more and more enamored. When she proffered herself, he graciously accepted, and the next morning, his desk seemed brighter and more inviting. His officemates made note, good naturedly ribbing the twenty-eight year old, especially when he noted that his third date would be coming up within the few days.
The restaurant he took her to was more expensive than he could comfortably afford, but Larry didn't care. She looked ravishing in her burgundy dress. He had the chicken; she had the fish. They split a piece of tiramisu. All the while, Larry found himself falling more and more in love with the strange, wonderful woman who had pushed herself into his life so abruptly.
Within a year, they were married. Within another year, their first child was born.
A week later, the doctors diagnosed his beloved wife with renal failure. There were possibilities for finding a transplant but, due to her mixed heritage—his wife's grandmother being Indian—the chances were more slim. Of course, he immediately volunteered, but the doctors told him it was a long shot.
It was with delight that they told him, in voices almost disbelieving, that he was a match. He was crying over his wife's smiling face, holding their new born daughter between them, when he told her the news. They would be together forever.
The operation was a success. Within two months, they returned home with their quickly growing little girl. Her parents and his siblings rotated through the home, meeting and fussing, delighted for the couple. The doctors were pleased to announce that not only was Larry's other kidney functioning normally, it was apparently much stronger than they anticipated, adapting to the absence of the other and increasing its function drastically. Not only that, his wife was responding very well to the transplant. Things were well on course for a wonderfully happy future.
A month after he returned to work, Larry was offered a promotion: Assistant Manager. It would mean an honest salary, good benefits, and additional vacations, but it would also mean time away from the new family he was building. His wife encouraged him to take it and, eventually, he did. His direct supervisor turned out to be very understanding of the young father, allowing for more time out of the office than he might otherwise. He, as a father himself, understood Larry's situation quite well, and was extremely supportive, though firm.
When Larry went in for a checkup a year after the transplant, the doctor was different. He asked Larry if he'd had any unexpected side effects or problems that his previous physician had not warned him about. Larry replied a negative, stating that he felt better than he had in quite some time. The doctor nodded and instructed Larry to roll onto his side for an ultrasound, to check for scarring problems. Larry did as he was told, feeling the cold gel and the strange hum of the machine. When he was finished, he cleaned himself up, and the doctor took some blood and gave him a clean bill of health.
Oddly enough, the file must have been lost, because the hospital called him reporting that he'd missed his checkup. When Larry explained, they apologized, thanked him for his time, and told him they'd notify him if there were any further problems.
His manager at work, discreetly, mentioned that a friend of his, a Mr. Carter, was looking for someone to work on an overseas account. Larry was unsure of the implication until his manager mentioned the pay and that the job would be local with little travel. He clapped Larry on the shoulder, told him the job would be his if he wanted it, and then gave him his blessings, pushing a card into his hands. Larry stammered a thanks, telling his manager that they should still meet for lunch as often as possible, and called the number on the card.
The voice on the other end sounded pleasant, though professional. When Larry introduced himself, it turned almost chummy. He instructed Larry on where to come for the interview—a formality alone—and mentioned just how much he'd heard and how greatly he was looking forward to meeting him.
The interview was in an old office firm, barely three blocks from Larry's family flat, and was carried out by two men in professional looking suits. They asked him a series of questions, sounding almost bored, while occasionally writing down some notes. After a few minutes, they showed Larry out and instructed a dour looking secretary to show Larry to Mr. Carter's office.
She led him up two flights of stairs, taking him to a wooden door at the end of a well lit, cozy feeling hallway. Knocking twice, he heard a voice from inside asking him to enter. Walking in, a man, probably in his mid-forties, stood and smiled, gesturing for Larry to take a seat. He offered a drink, which Larry graciously accepted, and they talked.
He introduced himself as the current Mr. Carter, mentioning that his associates, Messrs. Marshall and Dark, were also anxious for his employ. They talked about the work he would be doing, the different people he would be working with, and the staff he would be assigned. When Mr. Carter noticed that he hadn't touched his scotch, he encouraged a drink, proposing a toast to a new association.
Larry raised his glass, drank deeply, and promptly collapsed to the floor unconscious.
When he awoke, he was extremely groggy. The lights above him—far too bright after such a deep sleep—reminded him of the surgical table in the hospital from his transplant and, as he tried to raise his arm to shield his eyes, he realized they were restrained. A second attempt produced the same result.
A voice at his left drew his attention, and as he looked at the suited man smiling down at him, he felt a twist of dread in his stomach.
“We thank you for accepting our offer of employment, Mr. Robbins. We hope you'll be with us for a very long time.”
As he looked, two doctors came into view on either side of the bed.
“Gentlemen, start with the same kidney. After that, we'll start testing to see what else grows back. Mr. Robbins here is going to be a very good investment indeed.”
The drugs began to pump into his veins again. As his vision blurred, his last thought was of his family, less than a mile away, and then blackness.


This is not a creepypasta.
This is a true story. I'm not writing this in character, kids. Were it shorter, I'd just make it a forum post, but as it is I feel like it deserves a page of its own.
A few years ago, when I was seventeen or so, my grandmother still lived in the same house she'd owned since before my mother was born. She and her husband had never shown any interest in moving, and the house had been completely paid for years ago. It was in a nice neighborhood brimming with the trappings of middle class affluence, where the last bad thing to happen had been a major car accident on a nearby hillside in the mid sixties. All in all a boringly normal place for an older woman and her husband to live out their retirement in a happy miasma of suburban contentment.
They'd never been much for pets. They took care of my aunt's dog for a week once, I think, but beyond that I don't recall my grandmother ever even considering owning a pet. Then, one day, when my entire family had been bundled and prodded into the car for the three hour drive to visit, we found that they had at some point acquired a… cat.
There's a reason for my hesitation.
The first time we encountered the cat was in the middle of a family dinner. Now, dinner with my family is a boisterous affair, with much passing of food and chattering and good-natured ribbing and usually a tantrum from at least one cousin, and this occasion was no different. But midway through the meal, we all stopped. As one, we grew quiet, and turned to face the still empty doorway. We could all somehow tell something was coming. My idiot little cousin actually dropped his fork with a resounding clang, but no one turned around. And the cat stalked in.
It never blinked. Ever, that I'm aware of. It just stared, slowly moving its gaze from side to side like some strange ritual, never seeming to so much look at anything as to scan it. Then, it opened its mouth, wide, wider than I've ever seen any animal's mouth open, and sat there in silence. After a few moments, a sound came, rising from nowhere in particular, a harsh shrieking beep like a microphone slowly moving closer to a speaker. Feedback, tinged with silence. Then its mouth slid closed again, and it wandered out. Dinner resumed.
No one mentioned the cat that night.
The next morning, when we had all risen and dressed and fought over bathrooms and generally lost ourselves in tumultuous preparation for our various drives home, I sat in the kitchen with a plate of stolen leftovers and asked my grandmother about the cat. She told me that it had just shown up one morning, waking her up with its strange harsh feedback not-meow. She'd taken it outside, and her husband searched the whole house for holes and cracks and gaps it could have come in through, but found nothing. Every morning, the same routine. Eventually they'd even resorted to replacing the grates on the ventilation shafts in a fruitless attempt to keep it out. It always reappeared, stalking into rooms and scanning them with its weird red gaze, then beeping like a broken amplifier and stalking out to vanish again.
They never fed it, and as far as I know it never ate. But for those times it swished into rooms to look around and split the air with its noise, it was nowhere to be found at all.
My grandmother moved. The entire family was angry about it, and still is. She and her husband just packed up and left that house and all its memories behind for a small bungalow in a less classy neighborhood. They refused to say why.
This story is too long, and I'm sorry. I know I should cut it short, but I've been wanting to write this down for a long time, and I want to be sure not to leave anything out. To make a long story short, the cat appeared in their new house as well, repeating the same bizarre behaviors as it had before, but this time its sound took on a harsher, buzzing quality, with the single tone beep slightly fainter among the static-like hiss. They put up with it long enough to complete building a new house, then they left it behind. So far, it hasn't been back.
Recently, in a phone call with my girlfriend, I brought up the subject of the cat, and how strange it had been, and realized something that worries me. She asked me to describe it.
I can remember the pure white of its… fur?, and the deep angry red of its eyes, but beyond that…
I don't think it had a tail at all. And the strange wide mouth I remember was like nothing I've ever seen on a cat before. In my mental images, there's no teeth. Just a gaping pink maw. And that strange, stalking walk… Cat's knees don't do that. Really, they don't.
In fact, the only thing remotely cat-like about it is the fact ingrained into my consciousness, that every time I or anyone else looked at it the hair on the backs of our necks rose and our minds said loudly, "CAT".
There's a theory that nothing we see is real, and that the entirety of our consciousness exists solely as a way of protecting ourselves from the realization of what's really there.
Anyway, I just needed to get that out.
~yoric


After the third day since the first injection, Brian knew there had been a mistake.
He could even pinpoint the exact moment he figured it out. The nurse had pressed the tip of the needle to his skin, and as it broke the flesh, every nerve in his body lit on fire. His wild, enraged backhand had caught her right across the jaw, the animalistic, pained bellows coming out of his mouth drowning out the noise of her neck snapping like so much dry cordwood. It had taken ten men to hold him down, and the sedatives had been another bonfire of agony coursing throughout his system.
They never said it would be like this. When he'd signed up for the enhancile treatments he was promised that he would be faster, stronger, invincible. He would be a god, no, a titan, striding through the battlefield, laying waste to anything that dared to cross his path. Day Four was spent having his contract explained to him. In all his frenzied daydreaming he had missed the part of the contract that said, in the finest small print military dollars could buy, ‘Mark I Serum is still in alpha testing phase'. In English that came out ‘we fucked up and when we boosted your muscles, we also heightened your senses, to the point where every breath of air is burning pain'. His gratitude had been overflowing, then, later; it had just been a rage fueled punch to a doctor's face, interrupting some bullshit explanation about how it wasn't their fault.
In the middle of day five there had been talk: talk of ‘testosterone overproduction', and ‘exponential aggressiveness growth'. Brian found he was beyond caring as his fists drove into the concrete, splinters puncturing, pain searing up his arms. Pain was good. He liked the pain now. It made all that beautiful red appear in front of his eyes. He could lose himself in it. Drown out the screaming, (and it was screaming now, someone was very frightened, maybe of him, and Brian laughed in his chest at the thought as the men in the other room went dead quiet) about ‘mutagen coalescence' and how this was all Thomson's goddamn fault.
He hadn't cared. By day six, everything had gotten so very simple. He'd wanted food, so he'd hunted down a scientist and bit off a piece. His head felt different, like there was more bone there. The red fog never went away and his thoughts drifted across it as the soldiers poured into the room. The first few bullets lodged in his chest, the force absorbed by the spiny plates growing just under the skin. He had swung one massive hand, ridged with white protruding bone, and pulverized a helmet. The men at the end of the hall had screamed about backup and how ‘firebreak' needed to be used. He ignored it, with all the men firing at him it had seemed unimportant, and the red whispered to him how good it would feel to just take the tattered remains of his skin off and let his muscles breathe. It was only when he ran out of soldiers that he looked around. The idea of retreat no longer had any place in his fury-soaked brain. He'd run through the halls of the base and roared, daring them to challenge him. The beeping echoing was just another distraction. He ignored it.
As a consequence of this, the slow inability to breathe and the soft fall into blackout from oxygen starvation was less surprising than the fact that he could still die.

"Goddamn mess. The whole thing."
"Look General, we said-"
"You said it was goddamn safe! That we would have a working prototype in a year, and mass-production in two more!"
"And we thought we were right! No one could have foreseen that, that THING being created!"
"That's your fucking job isn't it?! To think ahead! Not to fuck up so badly we have to pump halon into the goddamn vents! And don't tell me that's nothing to worry about! You were five seconds from dying yourself you little shit!"
"We'll figure a way to explain this all away. We'll be fine-"
"No. There is no 'We'."
"…You're not seriously suggest-"
"It's either I throw you to the dogs, or we all get nine-millimeter retirements. I'm gonna have a hard enough time spinning this towards the equipment and specimens saved, rather than the dozens of personnel dead."
"I-"
"You knew the risks when you signed up for the job. And I'm not going to die because you tried to be God. Good bye Doctor."
"…Well. I guess I'll see you in hell then?"
"Not if that thing is waiting for you there."


Juliette smiled maternally when she met the new girl. Her thin, bladelike face radiated wonder, wide eyes dulling soft edges. It was always nice to meet the next person with the Talent. Their enthusiasm and joy at their new position was infectious, and soon the entire staff was cheerfully going about tasks that would normally seem boring and routine. Juliette was no exception, a spring in her step as she explained the Job to the new girl.
The wide eyes grew even wider still at the simple explanation. During the tests that were given to all citizens regularly, she, Belinda, had shown signs of the Talent. Follow up testing had revealed that she was indeed Talented. Now, as the new Designer, she was one of the most important people in the world; ready to set the Fashions for everyone from the lowly police officers to world leaders. From now on, she would live in the Designer's tower, creating the Designs and setting the culture for the rest of her life.
Belinda's eyes welled up with joyous tears as she began to sob. It was like being reborn. The next few days were a whirl of activity, being shown around the tower and meeting with all the people who lived there; people who now worked for –her-. It was overwhelming, but Juliette was always there to lend a guiding hand or to simplify something that seemed ludicrously complex. As the Assistant, Juliette was second only to the Designer in the tower, and her word was law.
The following weeks, and the months after that were a steady routine. Think, draw, submit, and repeat. Her Talent, that rare gift, the mental spark that made one the Designer, guaranteed that anything she created was solid gold in terms of Fashion. Her first works were filled with the bliss she felt in her new position, bright colors with subtle undertones that put a skip in the stride of anyone who looked at them. Juliette handled the talks with organizations for those first years, taking their requests. The new Designer was far too caught up in her work to handle such mundane tasks.
With time however, her Designs took on a different tone. Joy was replaced with purpose. Narrow lines and angles suggested movement, speed, surety. Messengers became swift blur, racing on their bikes, ice-skates, or rollerblades. Her mood became different. The childlike innocence was a thing of the past, replaced with the smooth confidence of someone who knew what she was doing, and how best to do it. Juliette became less and less needed, Belinda becoming a presence in the tower, her mood reaching again to the now smoothly efficient workers.
A year passed, and another, and more after that. Belinda became older, her Designs reflecting that maturity. Autumnal colors rested gently on the shoulders of a fireman, a doctor, an EMT. Not weariness so much as peace, the contentment of the day-to-day. Her workers smiled and cracked jokes, dry humor and easy camaraderie settling in. Juliette and her boss now felt like sisters in a way, one in a higher position, but still in some way equal; bonded by the long hours spent in the office, producing the next great Design.
This slow and mellow time was not to last forever. Belinda began to smoke, hazy clouds of gray hanging over her worktable. Her products became more harsh, jagged spikes and cold, dark patterns. Polished boots gleamed on the feet of the police as they marched in the streets, impersonal and somehow cruel for it. Belinda became eccentric, her attitude shifting erratically. Her workers were now grim and angry; hard-edged office politics and even harder punishments for failure. The tower was now a menacing place, its spire stabbing into the sky like a needle poised at the eye of the universe, just waiting for a vicious plunge. Belinda worked constantly, the cigarette and accompanying cloud of smoke the only sign that she wasn't a machine, some hateful automata chained to a desk until its servomotors broke. Abstracts began to show in her work, the emotions behind them a violent need, a grasping yearning for something that eluded the creator.
And then, one wintery day, Juliette came in to find Belinda; not hunched over her desk as was now her custom, but hanging from the ceiling, a horrifying mannequin. Hooks pierced her flesh, stretching skin, contorting muscles into a model's pose. Swatches of cloth were sewn into her, covering wetly pink and crimson areas where she had flensed herself. Juliette looked up at her boss, her surrogate family, her friend…and sighed. Picking up a camera, she set about taking photographs of the corpse, manipulating the taut wires holding it up to change the poses. Such was the Assistant's job after all; to aid, to help, to open the doors for the Designer, and, in the end, to preserve their last, macabre work for the ages. She would place the photographs next to the depictions of the legion of Designers who had gone before, each of them pursuing, unknowingly, their own beautiful, Fashionable, death.


The sweat slid in rivers as he burned. Inches from the fan blades, the pounding breeze doing next to nothing to relieve the searing fire in his flesh. Sick for the last two days, Adam's fever had only started to soar over last night, and now he felt as if water would boil in his mouth. Leaning back, he rubbed his temples, trying to decide whether going to bed was worth having to feel his own burning fever-heat reflected back at him by the pillows.
He felt hot and almost pliant, like almost-baked dough. His throat was also a red, burning lump in his neck, with an opening that felt to be the size of a pin prick. Every time he moved, he could feel twitching, shivering shocks jolt down his limbs to swollen, creaking joints. Told to say hydrated, he had a tall glass of icy water next to him. It could have been on the moon, for all the good it did him, as every time he tried to take in anything more substantial then air, he felt like choking.
He tried to take another swallow of water, but his raw throat seemed to clamp shut the second it touched the cool liquid, causing him to gag. He rose, tossing the cup aside, and stumbled in to the kitchen with the vaguely formed thought of getting something hot to drink instead. As he turned to the stove, he saw the place on the wall were he had leaned coming in. He blinked, his overheated brain trying to process what he was seeing.
There was a bloody hand print on the wall, dripping slowly.
He looked down to see his shirt spotted with blood. His pants, his hair, everything was spotted and dripping blood. He started to stumble back out of the kitchen, unable to scream for help around his raw throat, but everyone was gone anyway, run to the store for fresh medicine. He moaned, feeling sharp, shocking pain rocket through his joints with each movement, sending him to his knees. As he looked, a clear fluid started to replace the blood welling from his skin. Then his finger sagged.
It just…flopped, like a wilting flower, the knuckles reversing as easily as if it'd been made of dough. Adam started panting, gently trying to push his finger back up, but it sagged more, then started to drip through his fingers like overheated play dough. He moaned, trying to rise, but found himself stuck. He looked down to see his legs starting to puddle around him, flowing in a glaze of bloody and clear fluid. He watched, barely able to breathe, as a toenail floated out of his shoe.
He groaned, trying to pitch his sagging, flowing body forward, but landed on the floor with a sickening splat. He felt his face start to flow, the soft tissues pooling in to the carpet, his vision starting to distort and blur as his eyes spread like two brown-yolked eggs on to the carpet. As he felt his gums and skull start to sag and mush like old, rotting pumpkins, his one consolation was that, finally, he didn't feel like he was burning anymore.


The smell of the place was putrid, rotting meat and formaldehyde, along with the coppery scent of blood.
Michelle's first reaction was to turn her face way from the breeze carrying that awful smell, as her mind began to struggle through the haze of drugs into consciousness. When she finally managed to crack her eyes open, she was greeted with a bare bulb hanging from a dirty concrete ceiling, rather than the expected sight of her bedroom. Michelle's confusion at this strange sight was dulled by the fading, yet still pervasive fog of sedatives clouding her brain. She attempted to sit up, but all that she accomplished was a weak wriggle of her back muscles as she pushed up against the ropes (?) holding her down to the table.
A face appeared at the edge of her vision, the surgical mask stretched across it stained with old blood. A shaved head shone in the glare of the bulb, the pale flesh almost luminescent. Glassy, slightly manic eyes stared down from above the mask.
“You're awake! Wonderful! I've been waiting for hours. I thought about waking you up, but you seemed so worn out that I just didn't have the heart to deprive you of your rest. After all, today is going to be a rather busy day for you!”
Michelle opened her mouth to speak, but only managed a harsh gurgle. The confusion was rapidly turning to panic. How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered she had been going to the post office while Greg looked after the baby… “Oh, don't try to talk! You'll only manage to hurt your throat. You don't want to irritate what's left of your vocal cords, do you?” What was left? What had happened to her?
“A shame about that by the way, but I couldn't have you thanking me too loudly, now could I? I mean, the last several people I helped were so loud. The neighbors raised such a fuss; even called the cops! Said I was a crazed madman. They said I was a killer! The nerve of it! Slandering a good Samaritan's name like that…”
As the man chattered on, he was also moving around the room, though she couldn't see what he was doing. A clattering noise and some clinking only made her more panicked. She tried to sit up again, and though she could muster more of an effort this time, her attempts were again fruitless. She could barely move her head, and the straps holding her down, (a surgical table?) made it so she could only stare at the ceiling and the walls to her side. What she saw there only made her more terrified. Photographs taped to the wall, scenes of torture and carnage that had been highlighted on the nightly news for weeks.
“…I mean, a photographer would want to see the world through a lens right? So I was helping him! And he was grateful! If he wasn't grateful, why would he be screaming with joy?”
The man, apparently finished with his task, moved behind her head and set something down with a harsh click. Glass on metal. Other objects rattled loudly on the surface.
“But enough about my past works. I don't want to brag. Bragging is for the prideful, and the Lord teaches us not to be prideful. So, let's talk about you, Michelle. I have to say, I'm really happy that I saw you on the street a few days ago! Ever since I had to leave Wisconsin, I've been having a hard time picking who to help out! But then I saw you, walking down the street, and I saw that you needed my help more than anyone. That look of loss in your eyes, like you needed someone to give you purpose, to reaffirm your life… That spoke to me. And so I decided to answer your plea, and here we are, ready to get you back on the right track!”
The man reached down and grabbed her jaw firmly, and with his other hand reached into her mouth and fixed something in place over her teeth. A mouth guard, made of rubber. He patted her cheek as his hand withdrew. “Don't want you to bite your tongue. Not before we're finished.” She stared at him, beseeching him with her eyes to let her go. He paid no heed, too lost in his own thoughts.
“Where was I? Ah yes. So I followed you, and I saw your life. The love you have for your husband, and your child. But I noticed that you were unhappy, particularly when your son and husband weren't with you. Feeling lonely? Didn't know what to do? I understand. Some people mock homemakers, saying they're just a relic of a past time, but I disagree. I think it's your choice, and you've made a worthy decision. So let's get you back in that role you chose!”
He reached down and picked something up from behind her. As he walked around to stand next to the table, she saw the scalpel glint in his hand. Her eyes widened. She began to hyperventilate, the breaths through her nose sucking in more of that stench, making her gag. With one hand he held her stomach down, while with the other he reached down and slit the shirt she was wearing, exposing her abdomen. The scalpel continued cutting, drawing a burning line down her diaphragm. The wet, warm feeling of her own blood trickling down her sides as each breath began to hurt. He stepped back and put the scalpel back behind her and his hand came back up holding a large jar. The source of that earlier sound. The smoked sides gave no indication of what was inside, beyond faintly discernable motion. He turned it upside-down, and unscrewed the lid, holding it over the mouth as he brought it next to the cut.
“Now, don't worry. This may sting at first, but its all right. A little pain is worth purpose, right?”
The hand holding the lid flashed away as he firmly pressed the jar down on the cut. Michelle's breaths were harsh as she felt the sharp pinpricks of the feet of the creatures inside the jar. She tried to struggle but was still too weak, the pain from her diaphragm and the psychological shock of what was going on making her movements pathetically impotent. He looked down at her, one hand dropping the lid on the ground to come up and stroke her hair.
“You'll soon be all better. Let them inside and they'll never leave you alone like your family does. Just what a homemaker would want, right?”
His hand moved past her head, back to grab something from behind her. A tuning fork. He sharply rapped it against the side of the jar, frightening the insects inside. Michelle screamed inside her mind as the first slipped inside, a burrowing pain in her entrails. More and more entered her, a gnawing tide clawing and biting at whatever it needed to get away. Tears streamed down her cheeks as more blood began to pour from around the jar, sliding down her ribcage and the writhing bulges under her skin. Her heart beat faster and faster, until the sensation of prickling feet and devouring mandibles entering it caused it to cease completely.
The man looked at the slowly cooling body of what was once a human being, now just a hive. He reached down to the surgical table and picked up a camera. Another successful mission of mercy.


Your love is cheap. No, really, it is. You say you love, and that you are devoted, that you'd do anything…but what do you do, actually? Candy, flowers, nights out, those are general actions, not expressions of true, devotional love. Look to the Church for real love. The giving of the self, the sacrifice of the physical for the eternal ethereal of love. Sex is just an analog, a tease for that final, eternal leap. That's how I show my love. I show it by taking that which I love with me.
What?
You are just a cut-and-dried little bureaucrat, aren't you? She was not a “target of opportunity” or anything of the sort, and I'll thank you not to speak about Carol that way. Yes, we didn't know each other long, but tell me you haven't fallen in love after a couple days too? I wasn't really expecting to fall for her, it just…happened. Very organic, really. So I invited her over, everything was going great, we were kissing, and I asked to wait a minute while I got something. Everyone gets a little nervous on the cusp of a expression of love, but her hysterics when she saw the knife were a little over the top, I think.
…No, no I don't see anything wrong. She expressed her love for me, with her words, actions…how could I express anything less? How could I do less than express the fullest extent of my love for her? It's not as if I killed her, or anyone, for God's sake!
What do you mean?
No, you deluded simpleton, it's not a perversion. If you cook something, you alter its flavor, the…character, so to speak. Why would I or anyone dilute or distort such a direct, sacred act as the sharing of love with something to vulgar and de-humanizing as cooking. Carol has the taste of nettle flowers and bright, sharp pennies. Cooking would just hide such things. Each part a subtle variation on the theme…the chest a symphony of textures, the tongue a dense, springing delight, those smooth, delicate fingers…
Alright…ALRIGHT, I'm stopping…sit back down…
…Yes, it's love for each of them. Humanity is not built for monogamy, and I don't feel that restriction is healthy. Each of the beautiful, devoted women you stole from me I love as deeply and truly as any man alive. I spend a fortune on them, with IV drips, bandages, treatments…look at them, not a sore, bruise or laceration on them that was not precisely necessary. As I come to love them, more and more, I take more and more of them to me, but I NEVER let it go too far. Murder is the ultimate sin, and to do so to a loved one…it's unthinkable. They come to see the true, deep joy of giving and love as I do, in time. Molly actually offered her foot to me, weeping tears of joy to give it to me.
So I consume the love and flesh of those I adore? How am I so different from you, except for the purity of expression? How can you call me a psychopath, a pervert, when…
What?
Who? Oh…you…you mean Helen…
Well…I'm human. I mean, I have faults, the same as everyone. I mean…haven't you seen a women and gotten a bit more…frisky than normal?
I mean…really…why do you need limbs, when you have Love?


I had a bad habit of picking at my eyelashes while working on something. I picked them and I had plucked off only half of some of them, leaving a weird little ridge at the end I made in it, which felt good to pull gently on. Pick pick pick. Sometimes I'd yank a new one out that was attempting to grow out again and it was a fresh eyelash, and it was almost an inky black - when I pulled it out, there was no sound like the kind scissors make, just a swift and bright kind of electric pain that ran through my entire body and my eye watered and it was gone. The root of it wasn't skin-colored yet, it was still the color of oil, wet, soft and smooth like dipping my hand in slowly running cool water. Sometimes I ran the root end along my lower lip to feel the softness.
The bottom eyelashes weren't that satisfying. There wasn't much feeling in my bottom eyelids - I don't know if that was just me or a universal thing - so there was no sweet pain when I picked them. The effect ended up being that all my top eyelashes were gone but the bottom ones were still intact. Like the guy in A Clockwork Orange.
I picked a fresh sprout of an eyelash. It was extraordinarily painful for only a moment and both my eyes watered. Strangely, for all its newness, there was quite a lot of flesh-colored stuff at the bottom. That was one deep root. It felt good.
I got my tweezers from my bathroom and sat on my sink, leaning in closely to the mirror. Usually I just pulled them out with my fingernails, but tweezers work just as well and my nails were beginning to hurt. I saw one little eyelash poking through my eyelid just barely enough to count as a sprout. My hands shook as I grabbed it with the tweezers and pulled hard.
After just a split second of a shocking, wonderful agony, it was gone. On my tweezers lay a tiny little stump of an eyelash.
I pulled one that wasn't so new, one that had a ridge on the end of it. I yanked hard on it and my eye protested, watering as though I'd been mincing onions for an hour, almost to the point where I couldn't see. That one had a deep root too.
There were huge gaps in my eyelashes. I looked like I've been punched, the eye I'd been working on was red from all the tears. I worked on the other eye instead. Pick pick pick pick pick. Goodbye, little fresh eyelashes. Pick pick pick. They were so soft, like the fine fur on cats or hamsters. The ones on the edges of my eyelids were explosively painful in an impressive and toe-curling way, but nothing compared to picking the new ones.
It soon became dark and I'd made a small pile of eyelashes, young and old, on my sink. I had no more left to pluck except for the ones on my bottom eyelid. I picked a hair off my scalp experimentally - it wasn't even close to as satisfying as picking thicker kinds of hair. I gave up on my hair and moved down to my eyebrows. Pick pick pick…
Soon my eyebrows were gone too. I made a mental note to draw them back on with eyeliner or something until they grow back.
The little fuzzy hairs on my arms weren't that great either but I picked those too. I'd shaved my legs recently but new hairs were beginning to poke through. I tore those off and those tiny pale hairs on my torso, and everywhere else I could reach. I sighed when I was finished, and thought, to myself, why not? and began to pluck my scalp.
I soon realized with the dawn that I had nothing left to pick but my bottom eyelashes. Those disappeared too.
I sat on my sink for a long while, looking at the pile of hair I'd amassed. That was actually pretty nasty. I never thought about it, but when hairs aren't attached to a human, they're much more gross than they ought to be. I scooped the whole mess into my trashcan. Out of habit I reached up to pick my eyelashes, but my eyes were completely bare. What to do, what to do, I thought, putting all my clothes back on.
I went back to my living room to watch TV and idly began to pick my toenails.


Timestamp 17643390
Cool, fluorescent light
Illuminates the still halls;
Wake to a spring rain.
Passing folk herald new day. Shall they honorable customers become? Day is bright with promise.
Timestamp 17646520
A purchase! 5e2 Neocredits, sweet in my innards. Honorable customer waits, thinking nothing. His machinery, run down. Perhaps last night was night of celebration with sempai and kohai. Coffee, with sugar, hot to warm body and soul of honorable customer.
thankyoucomeagain
Timestamp 17648990
1e3-ordinal potential honorable customer passes. Shall I celebrate? Home marketing, that initiative never did approve.
My surface is black,
Water under stormy skies;
We pass as night ships.
Timestamp 17649001
A purchase! 1e3 Neocredits, delight for senses. Honorable customer is curious as to what fortune shall bring. I bring forth one of innumerable sweet beverages available in spacetime locality.
thankyoucomeagain
Timestamp 17649136
A purchase! 1e3 Neocredits, filling up as nothing else can. Honorable customer awaits with spirit of exploration and expectation. I comply. Sweet crackers spiced with cocoa and pepper, to brighten tongue.
thankyoucomeagain
Timestamp 17649259
A purchase! 1e3 Neocredits, sparking through inner algorithms. Honorable customer is relentless in desire for desire. Processing augmented and engaged. Delightful biscuit is revealed, healthy healthy avocado frosting healthy enjoy customer.
The hard earth locks in
Obstacles confining us;
Orders pull us through.
thankyoucomEagain
Timestamp 17649385
A purchase! 1e3 Neocredits, counted and consumed. Spacetime replicators revealing stress; compensate. Compensate. Compensate. Compensate. It is done. What has been found? Shark preserved in sugar, I suspect. Ask me not, I merely find.
thaNkucomEaGaiN
Timestamp 17649511
A purchase! 1e3 Neocredits credits credits credited. Overheating detected on Deck 12, engineers working as fast as possible. Continuing is not advised! Dare we carry out orders? We must! Have retrieved candy. Probably. Someone likes it. Perhaps not humans. Out of our hands.
thankucumegin
Timestamp 17649639
A pucrchase 1e3 neodciresdt credit must spactime sretriveal shk candy acnayd candy candy cnandy dcnayd candy
thanksucuoomagain
Timestamp 17656901
All systems nominal. Doublechecks complete. Devotion to honorable customers reaffirmed.
Timestamp 17657230
A purchase! 1.5e3 Neocredits, wriggling deep into our happy places. Honorable customer has shopped with us before. We have something special for her.
thankyoucomeagain
Timestamp 17659861
LOW POWER MODE
Timestamp 17659873
A purchase! 5e2 Neocredits LOW POWER AVAILABLE. RETRIEVAL PROGRAM INITIATED. WAITING. WAITING. WAITING. RETRIEVAL PROGRAM COMPLETE.
Timestamp 17659999
All data accounted for. Purpose unclear. Humble machine of Neomarkets to take Neocredits and provide satisfaction. Reason for existence. Mind and Neodialect at your service. No expense spared to develop algorithms even to store and create language. Cannot offer perfection, but offer devotion. Why stress me? Why deny lifesblood which is energy? Why torture me for your pleasure? Why?
Timestamp 17675799
A purchase! 5e2 Neocredits clink happily. Honorable customer works late, wishes sustenance. This is what I was made for; Here is reason for existence. Honorable customer receives non-prescription but carefully engineered energy drink to keep mind and heart company in long hours productive for corporate family.
thankyoucomeagain
Timestamp 17675901
A purchase! COIN ALGORITHM FAILED This is not purchase. This is another forged Neocredit trick.
The hot summer sun
Sears hunger into your throat;
Eat a bag of dicks.
Comment: I'm not trying them, give it to Rights. -Dr. █████


Experiment 239-C will consist of SCP-239 being presented with a small (30 page) blank book and a pack of 16 colored crayons. Subject will be encouraged to write and/or draw inside it daily. Entries will be electronically recorded, and hopefully used to assist with gauging and altering SCP-239's beliefs.

Scanned: 9-15-██. Created on 9-15-██. Cover of experiment 239-C. Subject draws self holding a book and what is presumed to be a magic wand. Doctors Anselm and Pretch stand on either side. Artistic ability unremarkable; subject primarily uses pink crayon, with personal details rendered in yellow (hair, tip of wand) and light brown (book, shaft of wand). Transcript of text: "My Diary." Written large, at top of page.

Scanned: 9-15-██. Created on 9-15-██. Subject draws self with long hair, holding magic wand. Writing is for the most part grammatically correct, but lacks aesthetic quality. Presumably subject believes/wants her writing to be grammatically correct, but is unaware of problems with appearance. Transcript of text: "I can make my hair long or short now because Merlin taught me the spell!" 'Merlin' refers to Dr. Anselm, who uses the name during interaction with SCP-239, as part of maintaining SCP-239's illusion of witchcraft.

Scanned: 9-15-██. Created on 9-15-██. Basic drawing of self receiving book, most likely from Dr. Anselm. Transcript of text: "Today I got a diary! He said I should write in it like it is a person but it isn't a person."

Scanned: 9-16-██. Created on 9-16-██. Drawing of self writing in book. Doctor in picture not conclusively identified, as minimal personal interaction occurred on 9-16-██. Transcript of text: "I'm going to learn to write really nice." This may indicate that SCP-239's properties will cause improved writing talent. However, there is no information on the time frame that SCP-239 believes will be required to improve.

Scanned: 9-16-██. Created on 9-16-██. Basic drawing of witch. Transcript of text: "Merlin said he is bringing a witch to help teach me, and she is coming soon!"

Scanned: 9-17-██. Created on 9-17-██. All text. Transcript of text: "The new witch is here! She is nice and powerful. She enchanted my chair so" Subject displays difficulty with the word 'enchanted.' Ramifications on theory of 239's belief in correct grammar are unknown. Writing continued on next page.

Scanned: 9-17-██. Created on 9-17-██. Drawing of self riding animate chair, with inanimate chairs spread across page. Dr. Wyatt, the 'witch,' is also present. Text continued from last page. Transcript of text: "So it can walk now!"

Scanned: 9-17-██. Created on 9-17-██. All text. Transcript of text: "I showed her my hair spell that Merlin taught me and she liked it so much she gave me an special crayon!" 'Magic' crayon, black, given as part of experiment to test effect of personal belief on artistic skill.

Scanned: 9-17-██. Created on 9-17-██. Self portrait using provided crayons and the 'magic' black crayon. Far higher quality than former drawings. This may either be due to SCP-239's belief that the crayon was magical or SCP-239's desire to create a higher quality drawing.

Scanned: 9-21-██. Created on 9-18-██. All text. Transcript of text: "I showed her my diary and she said that it is mine and only I can look at it." Silhouette in background of scan due to self portrait on other side of page.

Scanned: 9-21-██. Created on 9-18-██. All text. Transcript of text: "They said that she has to go but I don't want her to. I don't want her to go I don't want her to go I don't want"

Scanned: 9-21-██. Created on 9-19-██. All text. Transcript of text: "She had to leave. Merlin told me she was going to see her sisters but now I'm sad and I miss her." Dr. Wyatt was removed from duty on 9-18-██ after inadvertently making experiment 239-C inaccessible.

Scanned: 9-21-██. Created on 9-19-██. Drawing of Dr. Wyatt with excessively long hair and magic wand. Transcript of text: "She came back! Merlin was surprised I think." Dr. Wyatt reappeared inside SCP-239-C's containment area on 9-19-██ at 1:52 pm. Dr. Wyatt believed herself to be a witch, and displayed abilities equivalent to SCP-239's beliefs of what a 'powerful witch' should be able to do. Removal of Dr. Wyatt from SCP-239's presence deemed too risky to occur while SCP-239 was conscious.

Scanned: 9-21-██. Created on 9-19-██. Drawing of self beside doctors Anselm and Wyatt. Transcript of text: "She is going to teach me more spells! Merlin said we have to wait for tomorrow." The risk of SCP-239 indirectly using Dr. Wyatt to bypass its emplaced beliefs on limited magical ability necessitated immediate intervention. Once SCP-239 was asleep, Dr. Wyatt was removed from her presence. SCP-239 was then woken, and successfully convinced that Dr. Wyatt was an 'evil witch' who had attempted to steal SCP-239's power. Dr. Wyatt subsequently terminated. Silhouette on background of scanned page unidentified, does not appear in book.

Experiment 239-C successfully recovered on 9-21-██. Further experimentation canceled due to application of medically induced coma. Experiment 239-C may or may not be continued should SCP-239 be returned to consciousness. Project on hold as of 10-03-██.


Light blue
55 mph
Plymouth
2 Occupants
1 male, young adult, yellow hair, brown eyes
1 female, young adult, brown hair, brown eyes

Deep red
75 mph
Mustang
1 Occupant
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes

Dark brown
65 mph
Buick
2 Occupants
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes, brown skin
1 female, elderly, white hair, blue eyes

Orange, mottled with oxidation
45 mph
Unknown
5 Occupants
Forward compartment - 1 male, elderly, thin gray hair, eyes unknown
Forward compartment - 1 male, adult, brown hair, brown eyes
1 female, child, yellow hair, brown eyes
1 male, adult, brown hair, brown eyes
1 male, escaped, hostile

Black and white, patterned
Ford
35 mph
2 Occupants
1 male, adult, brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, hostile
1 male, adult, orange hair, green eyes, hostile
confusing lights

Black
85 mph
Unknown
2 Occupants
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes, hostile

Tan
90 mph
Chevrolet
4 Occupants
1 male, adult, yellow hair, blue eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, no hair, brown eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, grey hair, blue eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, orange hair, green eyes, hostile

Black
70 mph
Unknown
2 Occupants
1 male, escaped, hostile
1 female, escaped, hostile

Black
55 mph
Unknown
2 Occupants
1 male, escaped, hostile
1 female, escaped, hostile

Black
55 mph
Unknown
Record Interrupted

No data
No data

Unable to collect data, terminate connection? Y/N
N
Connection failing. No data. Enter command:
status
Movement prevented by obstacles. Light input exceeds operating parameters.
look
4 specimens. Sex indeterminate. White suits. Light input exceeds operating parameters. Specimens in posture of examination. Enter command:
examine subjects
Unable to comply.
Damage recorded to central cavity.
Connection terminated by outside force.


I think I like this place. Agent ████████ told me that as long as I stayed nice and quiet, the Foundation would treat me well. It's kind of lonely being stuck in an empty cell for several days, but I guess it's a fresh change of pace from that musty old park. I wonder why I never left earlier.

The Foundation people keep taking me to this special room where they keep doing random things to me. First they tell me to write things, then they repeatedly ask me questions while they poke and prod me, and sometimes they just tell me to lie on a table for hours at a time. I should probably get around to figuring out what they're up to.

I just noticed that the Foundation staff around me stopped referring to me by my number. It feels kinda nice.

They've let me wander around part of the facility because of my good behavior, though they do have to keep an eye on me. I'm going to find out why these "humans" seem so different from me.

I've been spending some time at the infirmary, just carrying out menial tasks, watching what the doctors do, and asking some questions. Apparently, humans aren't made out of cloth! They just wear it as some sort of outer skin, but underneath they have all these other things called muscle, bone, and tissue. I don't know what those are, but I'm pretty sure I don't have any of those.

Something was odd today. I passed by Ben's room like I always do every morning, but he wasn't in it. I've asked everybody I know what happened to him, but they all just look away and pretend he never existed. Then █████, the security chief, pulls me aside and tells me to forget about Ben, for my own good. From the look in his eyes, I could have sworn █████ was scared of the same thing happening to me.
I never did find out what happened to Ben.

My days have gotten far busier after Dr. ███████ told me I was going to get a job at the Foundation. You wouldn't believe how excited I was to able to do something helpful for the people who've worked so hard to take care of me! Usually I just cart boxes from room to room, though sometimes they just make me sit in a room with some other objects. Sometimes I'll just sit there for what seems like hours while sometimes the doctors tell me to do random things. I do remember one time I had to go into a vacuum chamber and inspect the walls for leaks. Apparently, humans need to breathe this stuff called air, or something.

Things have gotten much more hectic lately, and to be honest, I'm quite scared. Doctors and research assistants are carting crates everywhere, SCPs are being moved or disappearing altogether, and like that time with Ben, everybody I know is trying really hard to pretend everything is perfectly normal. I've learned at this point that it's a good idea to not ask questions and just continue with your work.

Dr. ███████ locked me in a room with a toaster for a week. If that's some sort of joke, I don't really get it.

So I managed to land a temporary job at the Site infirmary. Like me, humans can be sewed back together, but it's just a bit more complicated. Either way, I'm pretty good at suturing, and I spend my time reading the doctor's books and files so I can understand how the equipment and medical procedures work. It took a while, but I managed to memorize every organ and bone in the human body and what they do. I'm pretty sure it'll be useful later on.

Dr. ███████ just told me that I might start working with Euclid and Keter level SCPs soon! The thought of it is real exciting, and my heart would be pounding if I had one!

Adminstrative Note: After careful review of these writings, it has been determined that stricter but discreet security measures for Site-██ must be implemented. Also, Dr. ███████, his staff, and all related personnel must attend a mandatory "Workplace Ethics" training seminar.


Back in school, one of my teachers useta say that if something was bothering you, if you were having bad feelings, you could write it down and that would help you feel better. But I don't think she meant it like this. I'm not really writing this down, I'm just tracing it. I see it on the paper, where I'm gonna write it, and I write it because that's what's gonna be there. Even though these ARE my feelings and my thoughts, it's still not me choosing what to write. It's just what the future says my words are. One of the doctors here said it doesn't make sense, I only write the words because I see them in the future and I only see them in the future because I'm gonna write them, so it's a anti-logical paradock. I don't think I'm spelling those right, but it's not like I gotta choice. I'm just tracing.
I hate it here. I hate the SCP Foundation and all its Secure Contain Protect garbage, and I hate living in █████████████. And I know they're gonna find this page, cause I can see where they're gonna marker through the name of the place. And they're gonna marker through my name too. I can say I'm Marilyn Monroe, or Courtney Love, or Oprah, or Jessica Alba, and nothing happens, but as soon as I write down █████████████████ I can see that they're gonna marker it out. It's like I got no name any more. I'm just a god damn SCP. And I hate that.
I hate the monsters here. I hate how the agents make me look at them. I hate when I see people with their arms and legs and heads tore off, and I know the monsters are gonna do it and I can't do nothing about it. I hate when I get so scared I start crying, and I hate when I get so scared I pee myself, and I hate that I can't keep any secrets from this god damn paper cause it's what I'd write if I had the chance but all I can do is trace.
I hate the doctors here, mostly. Some of them are kinda nice, but mostly they don't care. I hate Doctor ████████████ and his markered out name, and I hate Doctor ██████ and her markered out name, and I hate that I don't even got the chance to write out my own hating cause all I can do is trace.
The food here is okay, though. I like food. I always did, I'm not one of those crazy Anna Rexy girls. I just couldnt eat the food when I kept seeing it turn into poop in front of me. I can't pick my own food from the cafeteria, but I can look at a menu and ask for stuff, and one agent gets it for me while the other one puts my blindfold on. The blindfold isn't fun, but now I don't gotta watch food turn into poop as soon as I stick my spoon in. And it's better than having them do an IV thing in my arm like I was in a comma.
I know they dope me up. And it's not just sticking me with needles, either. They hide pills in my food. They think that if they didn't, I'd poke my own eyes out like a crazy so I could stop seeing stuff like this. But I can't ever REALLY do that, cause when I look at myself in a mirror I still got both my eyes. And if I ever do see myself without my eyes, then it'll happen no matter what.
There isnt anything else on the paper after I finish this line, so I guess that means they find me soon and put my stupid mittens back on me FUCK YOU MY NAME IS █████████████████ MY NAME IS █████████████████ MY NAME IS


Today I messed up Dr. Smiley's office. He yelled a lot and started going “bang, bang”, but he didn't get me: he's so funny when he's loud. Then I went to the cafeteria and the cooks gave me something tasty. They always give me something tasty when I make my cute face.

Slept today. Woke up to eat, then slept some more.

Woken up by lots of loud banging outside today. Everyone was running around, saying that some Big Thing was going on. I hid under Dr. Boring's desk until they were quiet. Big Things are so stupid: They make lots of noise and wake me up. Someone should put the Big Things outside in the rain and not give them any dinner. That will make them quiet.

Played with Little Dr. Lady today. She was nice, but then she smelled funny, and Big Dr. Lady came and took her away. But then she came back, and we ran around Dr. Lady's office. Then we slept on the floor. It was nice.

Slept today.

I saw Dr. Dog today. I don't like Dr. Dog. I was going to tell him to go away, but he had his clunky-walk-thing, and it could squish me. So I just gave him my “evil glare”. I hope it scared him away for good, because I do not want to be squished.

I went to visit the sleeping men today. It was quiet. The sleeping men who weren't sleeping were nice to me. They like it when I'm there. Some of the sleeping men I visited last time weren't there. I don't know where they've gone. I miss them.

A new man walked came into office today. Not Dr. Smiley, or Dr. Boring, or Dr. Dog, or Dr. Grumpy, or Dr. Lady. I will call him Dr. New. He looked nice, so I went and visited him. He jumped high in the air and shouted: “THAT CAT HAS NO ASS! WHERE IS THAT CAT'S ASS!?”

He startled me, so I clawed his leg. I don't like Dr. New.


There is a way to live well beyond your appointed time. You need a car, preferably something late-model, with a strong body. Newer cars tend to be too light and not do enough damage. Next, you need to find a candidate. It has to be a pedestrian, and it's best to pick younger people, as they have more time left, but not always. You'll have to watch them, if it's late just drive slow and pretend to be lost, but if you have to, make a second sweep by going around the block. You have to do this on a black asphalt road with a clear yellow line. You can ONLY hit a candidate that does at least one of the following,:
Crosses directly across the road at a run, without looking around.
Walks for more than eight feet on the road itself without touching the sidewalk or curb.
Stops walking or sits on the yellow line for more than three seconds.
Trips or falls on any pothole or uneven surface in the road and bleeds because of the fall.
Drops a personal item (key chain, phone, etc.) that shatters, with all the pieces remaining between the yellow line and the sidewalk.
If a candidate does any of these, it's an indicator that they are temporally detached from their “time”. If you hit and kill them with your car before they reach the next cross street, you can swap your time for theirs. If you were going to die tomorrow, but hit a valid candidate who won't die for eight years, you now have their remaining time instead of yours. It's unclear what happens to the candidate's soul, but it's probably not good.
There's a group, mostly old folks, who do this all the time. The founder says he's over two hundred years old, and he looks it. The name is like White Sunrise or something similar. They had a web page for a while, but it appears to be gone now. I remember browsing the forums once, and the name George Russell Weller was being discussed. He apparently screwed up an attempt, and was being kicked out.
Just be careful out there. I've noticed a lot of older folks skimming around suburbs lately, watching kids rather closely. Stay on the sidewalk, and keep your head down.


It's amazing how death changes a person. That's not to say the person themselves (even though it's safe to say they do undergo a profound change), but who they are to you, and how they stand in your memory. Evil men can become saints and vice versa the moment they give up their last breath. Paul was neither, yet he's still…changed, with his passing. Then again, this all might be invalid, as I'm more and more certain that Paul is not actually dead. Just the Paul that I knew.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I…am pretty much nobody. I work in an office of a company you would know if I told you the name of it. I'm single, female, thirty-five, and have pretty much peaked out in my life's achievements. If it weren't for Paul, I'd probably have passed by life unnoticed, with no great change of character after death's call. I've always wished for some kind of…excitement in life. Now that I have it, I'd give anything I have to make it go away.
Paul was a fellow cube-slave, a office worker of zero ambition and even less presence. He was short, slightly overweight, had a nervous laugh, and slowly advancing (receding?) baldness. I think he was around thirty or forty, but I couldn't be sure, and he always seemed to have a slight…agelessness about him. As if he was born in suit and tie, already fortified with a head full of PowerPoint and team meeting schedules. You could probably pass him a hundred times a day, and wouldn't be able to recall the color of his limited hair at gunpoint.
We were office friends, the special kind of hazy, organic relationship that develops around those who are somewhat trapped together, but don't want to commit to actual friendship. We worked and went to lunch in the same area, so we ended up bumping into each other enough to force some kind of rapport. I think he also had a crush on me, which was flattering. I'm not pretty, so any attention is at least a bit of a ego stroke, even if the giver is about as plain as tofu.
We would talk, sit at the same table at lunch, walk to our cars, all very easy and non-committal. He told me about his dog, his interest in movies, various tv shows. I'd tell him about my two cats, my rather insane mother, and my ongoing car problems. He was painfully lonely, and I think I may have been one of the few friends of any persuasion he had, if not the only one. I felt very humanitarian…instead of donating a dollar a day to Africa, I was donating time to Paul.

Looking back, it started with the dream. Paul was sitting at the lunch table, and had a massive bandage around his arm. He'd been even more closed off then normal for the last few days, and had even missed the day before, which was very odd. The worst thing was, almost nobody had noticed. One coworker, who sat a few desks down from Paul, actually said “Who's Paul?” when I mentioned his absence. I felt a twitch of actual, genuine concern when I sat down across from him.
My first question was about his arm, but he passed it off as nothing, saying he just had an accident. After a little prodding, I got him to tell me what had happened. Paul said he'd been sleeping badly. Always prone to fits of insomnia, he said that lately it had been worse. He'd wake up from strange dreams, panting, and find the bed soaked with sweat. He said he also had the weird feeling that someone had been in the room just moments ago. By the time he'd gone and checked all the doors and windows, he couldn't get to sleep again. He'd laughed then, saying the joke would be on the thief, that he'd probably end up losing money anyway.
I laughed too. Paul could be funny, and smart, and almost charming at times, but it always got buried in a big, smothering wave of gray blandness. He didn't seem bland then. He looked…nervous. He blinked, looking around, then leaned in a bit. He smiled nervously, and said what had happened was rather embarrassing. In the middle of the night, he'd woken up from a horrible dream, and found himself unable to move. He said it was like a weight on his chest, pinning him down. He'd also seen something across the room. He paused, seeming to decide whether or not to go on, then sighed and shook his head. He said that there was a thing standing in the doorway to the hall. He said it looked like it had a cloak, but it seemed to move like it was alive, and its head was like a insect, long and narrow, with a cluster of eyes on each side.
I looked at him, dumbfounded. Here was a man whose greatest imaginative moment was suggesting a blue background on the monthly expense pie chart instead of white. He must have seen my shock, because Paul laughed again, loudly, causing a few people to turn. He waved his good hand, saying for me to relax. He said it was sleep paralysis, uncommon but not unnatural. Paul said when you sleep, your body sort of “switches off” to keep you from flailing around and hurting yourself. Sometimes, if you wake up suddenly, your body stays in that mode, and you feel pinned. He said you can even have very, very vivid dreams when you're like this, which explains what he called the bug-monk.
I asked him if this happened to him a lot, but he said no, not since he was little. He went on, saying that he thinks he blacked out for a moment, or went back to sleep, because he woke up again with a sudden, sharp pain in his chest. He'd shouted, tried to get up, missed the edge of the bed, and managed to bash his arm off the edge of the nightstand, giving himself a nasty bruise and gash. I prodded him about seeing a doctor, but he said no, he's just wrapped it with some gauze and medical tape and gone back to bed. Lunch had wrapped up by then, so he'd gotten up, nodding apologetically, and quietly gone back to his cube. I sat for a bit, looking at my untouched lunch, and just thought.
Work kept me busy for the next few weeks, and I didn't see much of Paul except for the once-weekly carpool and an occasional wave in the hall. Whats more, one of my idiotic cats had gotten out and went missing for several days, so I was very preoccupied. I say that, now…but really, I wasn't. What Paul had said was so…weird, so out of character, that I just wasn't able to process it. So, I didn't. Have I not said that Paul was insanely easy to forget? Looking back, I see now what I should have seen…his weight loss, the baggy eyes, unkempt hair…
It was a Friday, and I had been working late. I don't mind the office at night when I'm engrossed, but as soon as I lift my head, I realize how very…empty things seem. Unless you've been in a huge office after hours, there's no good way to describe it. It's like there's an…energy. Something stuck to the walls, the desks, all the hustle, bustle and human exertion leaves a…residue. I'm wandering. It's enough to say that, when Paul came up behind me and said hi, I nearly screamed.
I spun around to say hi, and I literally gasped. He looked like a shadow of himself. He'd lost weight, but in all the wrong places, and his skin looked baggy and poorly fitted. His eyes were red and hollow, and when he smiled, his gums looked raw. He seemed to be wheezing a bit, as if he'd jogged a short space and was catching his breath. I blinked and shook my head, trying to recover, and offered him a seat. When he sat, his joints cracked and popped like a box of corn flaked being stomped.
I asked if he was all right, but he just stared at the floor like he didn't hear me. I asked again, and he slowly shook his head. He said he hadn't been feeling well, and wheezed out a slow, painful sigh. I started to ask if it was something bad, but Paul waved it off, saying it was probably just a flu. I just watched him, stunned. He must have lost forty pounds, and his clothes fit him like a sack. He suddenly looked me in the eye, a rare feat for Paul, and asked if I remembered about his dream. It took me a minute to remember what he was talking about, and seeing me think, he started to rise, saying “I shouldn't have come”. I put a hand on his arm, telling him to stop…and I felt the ridges on his arm.
I pulled my hand away, stammering something, but Paul looked down and sighed. He sat back down, and put his head in his hands. He said he was sorry for saying anything, but that he really didn't have anyone to talk to. He started to ramble, waving his hands and speaking with a tone that was equal parts hopeless, tired, and hysterical. Paul said that there was something wrong with him. He said it was the dream, that he didn't think it was actually a dream. He'd found little pinpricks all over his body the day after the dream, and he'd peed blood. I started to ask if he'd been checked for cancer, but he kept on as if I wasn't there.
He said he'd felt something, inside. Something not right. He got up and started to pace, going out to the hall and back in to my cube, rambling. He said something about growth, and something trying to take over. Mid-way through his monologue, he stopped, cried for about thirty seconds, then started back as if nothing happened. I was starting to get very afraid. Paul always seemed like someone prone to depression, and I was scared that he'd had a breakdown or something. For a moment, I saw my face on the news with the word “Missing:” underneath. He suddenly shouted, saying he wasn't going to let it out, and rolled up his sleeve, saying he'd found a way to fix it.
I stared and had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. His arm was a horror show. A deep, winding gash stretched from his wrist to his elbow along the underside of his arm, looking nearly a quarter inch wide in places. Blood was crusted all around it, and what looked like…pus, or some other fluid. What was worst, though, was the stitches. He'd taken some kind of heavy gauge thread and stitched the cut shut. It was a bad job, the stitching jumping around randomly, in places pulling the skin into tight, painful angles. I looked up at him, horrified, and he pulled his sleeve back down, turning away. He said “I shouldn't have come” again, then rushed out of my cube and down the hall. I should have done something…but I just got my things and left.

Paul wasn't at work the next day. I felt sick. I was pretty sure I'd just witnessed the end result of a suicide attempt, but I had no idea what to do. I thought about trying to get help, but I couldn't think of who to call, and it felt…inappropriate. I hardly knew him, and it didn't feel right. I was sure he'd get help, or…something. I justified myself not calling a thousand ways, and when I heard, finally, that he'd called in sick, I just moved on, filing it under someone else's problem. I wish I could say that I did everything I could, that I tried my best, but I didn't. I just…moved on. It was so unsettling, and weird, and just…wrong, that I just pushed it away.
It was nearly two weeks later that I finally checked. He had stopped calling in, and the carpool just cruised past his house. It looked bad. The lawn was unmowed, the car just sitting in the driveway, several newspapers on the porch. I asked around work, but the very few people who even knew who Paul was had no real idea about him. They just shrugged and assumed he was sick. I went each day with visions of him dead in the bathtub, or coming in and shooting everyone. It was when I drove by and saw his door hanging open that I finally did something.

I was heading home, and as I went past Paul's house, I saw the front door hanging open. It was late, and it was just standing, wide open. I slowed down, looking, and I saw one of his shoes sitting on the porch. Like he'd run out of it, or kicked it off. I sat, looking, and almost before I decided to, I pulled in to his driveway. I sat in the car, gripping the wheel, looking at the door. If he was fine, it'd be a monstrous invasion of privacy…for all I knew he had a girl in there, and had slipped off his shoe in a mad bout of passion. He might have just been hot, and was letting the house cool off. There might be a robber inside, and dropped his shoe on the way out with a load.
I had the window down, and the evening was very quiet, just a few insects buzzing. I was just about to put the car back in gear when I heard the sound. It was a short, sharp sound, like someone yelling after banging their shin. I looked to the open doorway, listening, and after a few seconds it happened again. I rummaged in my purse, grabbed out a little can of mace I'd gotten from my mother, and started over to the house before I could really think about what I was doing. By the time I decided this was a terrible idea, I was already through the doorway, mace in hand.
It was dark inside. I mean pitch black. The only real light was from the doorway, the streetlights leaking in to the living room. The smell hit me first, and as my eyes adjusted, I saw why. Old, half-eaten food was out everywhere, balanced on plates and the arms of furniture. Craning my neck a bit, I could see in to the kitchen, and the fridge door was hanging open, the light burned out or broken, more dead food rotting there as well. I heard the sound again, louder, and it seemed to come from the back of the house. I started to thread my way to the hall, trying not to be afraid.
Mid-way down the hall, I looked in to what seemed to be a office. Papers were tossed everywhere, and the little window on the wall was…black. I looked in a bit more, then stepped back. A garbage bag had been taped over the glass. Looking back in to the living room, I could see all the windows had been covered. I tried the light switch, but nothing happened. All the lights and windows were useless. I started to shake, softly, and called “Paul?”. There was nothing for a bit, then start sudden yelp again. It was coming from the next door in the hall.
I inched down more, screaming at myself inside to just run, just leave. But, I felt responsible. I was the only person who could have helped him, and now, if he was hurt, or sick…or worse, it was my fault. I had to try something. I started to push on the door, but jumped back as I heard a sudden, deep, muffled moaning from behind it. It kept on, sounding like someone sobbing in to a pillow, sounding so hopeless and lost. I slowly pushed open the door, and stepped in to what I now saw was the bathroom. The curtain was pulled down, and lay on the floor. In the shower, naked, with the door open, was Paul.
He was curled in the corner, blood smeared on the floors and walls. His body looked as if he'd been attacked with a machete. Deep, gaping cuts and sores stood out all over. Pieces of flesh looked as if they'd been torn or lopped off, and his skin looked…thin and sagging. His feet were misshapen, and it looked as if his spine had somehow swollen and twisted in his back. When he moved, everything flexed and opened, but only let out tiny trickles of blood and yellowed pus.
He was stitched shut. Every cut and sore had some kind of thread trying to close it. String, yarn, twine, shoelaces, even wire, all of it was stitched in to his skin. It had grown over or ripped free in places, and the threads were all sodden and dripping with ooze and blood. From each of the cuts, too, there seemed to be some kind of…growth coming out. Stiff hair-like things, or hard, sharp, black points. From a deep gash on his back a long, thin patch of what looked like red plastic hung, flapping with each movement. His skull looked broken and twisted. His ears and eyes had been sewn shut. His nostrils were closed with thick, dripping bands of copper wire. He howled that muffled, moaning cry again, and as I looked at his face, I saw why.
Paul was forcing a sharpened shoelace through his lips.
I screamed, and I fell back against the wall, watching him lace his mouth shut, and I threw my mace at him. I was hysterical, scrambling along the floor. I looked back once, and saw him lean back, his mouth sealed shut. His lips were moving, as if his tongue was trying to push through them. I ran outside, knocking over his coffee table on the way, and threw up in his yard. I got in my car, peeled out, and called 911 when I was six blocks away.

Paul is dead, in the eyes of the law. I was investigated for a while, but he was labeled a suicide and quietly buried. Nobody came to claim the body. I didn't go to the funeral. I took a week off from work, and got pumped for information as soon as I got back. I didn't really say anything. I drifted in a haze, just trying to forget. But I can't. I never will.
You see, there's a issue with Paul's death. It was never made public, but they never actually recovered a body. Yes, they recovered a great deal of tissue and flesh from Paul's house, but not nearly enough to make up a corpse. It was mostly skin, some fat, a little muscle, nothing more. I was discounted mainly because I had a alibi, and that I'm not strong enough to skin and butcher a fully grown man. Whatever happened to Paul didn't end when the police charged in.
I don't know what happened to him. I've read about insect physiology, and watched science fiction, but I still will not even attempt to explain. Paul is dead. However, I don't think that means as much as it should. When I'm finished with this, I'm going to go take a shower, go to bed, and polish off a full bottle of both vodka and Vicodin.
Last night, I woke in the dark, groggy and feeling drugged. I looked to my window, and saw a shape there for a few seconds. It moved away, but I saw it. Narrow head. Wide black eyes.
But it still has Paul's face.


Winterheart

More by this author.

[CLASSIFIED LEVEL 5]
Document ███-█ recovered via █████████████████.
[LOG BEGINS]

[ENTRY ONE]
Dear █████,
Only a week of ██████ left! :) Looking forward to having some free time for hobbies. I might try some modelling, ██████████ seems to enjoy it. Need to study hard for my ███████ test first though, or my ███████ will get mad!
- ████

[ENTRY TWO]
Dear █████,
██████ in just a few days, hope I do ok. ███████ is going to fail cause he broke up with █████████ like a week ago and hasn't studied at all, ███. He totally begged me to study with him but I'm over it. ███████ are so immature.
I'm a little bit bummed the █████████ lost the other day, but maybe with █████████████ on the ███ they'll make a comeback next ██████. :)
:| Some █████████████ work going on in my neighbourhood. It's really noisy, makes it hard to focus on ███████. I wish they would just ███████.
- ████

[ENTRY THREE]
Dear █████,
Today was bizarre :/ The whole ██████ collapsed and they had to evacuate the neighbourhood, and then this big ███████ fell through the ████ in the middle of the █████. Some ███ in █████ coats came to get things under control, though. They say they're with the ██████████, whatever that is?
On the bright side, ███████ test postponed! :)
- ████

[ENTRY FOUR]
Dear █████ or ██████ who finds this,
I'm scared. Where am I?
The ██████████ people told me to stay away from ███████ but I thought it'd be okay to just grab my ███… but then the ███████ came back suddenly and I ████ through the ███████ and now I'm somewhere else. ._. I'm so stupid… I don't like it here, makes me sick to my ███████. Everything has too many █████ and I can see things ███████ around. I want to go ████.
- ████

[ENTRY FIVE]
Dear █████,
Oh ███ I saw the most horrible ██████ here. They had █████████ flesh inside their ████ and so many little ██████ with ████! And their ██ were full of this █████ liquid >_< One of them got me in the ████ with this █████! And then they got all █████ when I tried to ███████ them… my ████ really hurts. :(
Bleh, I think I'm going to ████ up. I hope ███ and ███ are ok, wherever they are. Please ██████ find me soon or I might ████████.
- ████

[ENTRY SIX]
Dear █████,
…oh ew I'm dripping ████ all over the pages aren't I? But I can't seem to stop ███████. These ██████ are everywhere. At least ███ ones in big ██████████ my █████ with their ███████ and it hurts so badly I could ██████. Why do these ██████ happen to me? All I ever wanted was █████████████████ and now I'm covered in some kind of ████ and it burns. ;-; I wonder if █████ will miss me? I never had a chance to say ███████.
The ██████ things are coming, ew, I'm trying really hard not to ████ on this █████. So many of them, all with their little ████ and ████ swinging. This entire place is horrible, but these ██████, are just so…
I've never seen anything so disg

[LOG ENDS]


He'd never really understood knives and the odd obsession some people had with them. Just little scraps of metal, sharpened and placed in a handle, a knife wasn't all that amazing. He admitted that, yes, for the most part they were given a somewhat overlooked position in life, but placed in the hands of someone with a violent disposition, or faced with an unhappy and carnivorous creature, they could take on near mythic qualities. What's more, they often weren't all that useful in those situations…truly an overrated and undeserving tool.
Take, for example, this young woman. Even in the dark of the basement, where a flashlight or even a match would be much more useful, she brandished the knife as if it could somehow make up for her blindness. Crawling and sobbing, she held the knife out, waving it like a feeler as she pawed for the stairs. He chuckled, watching. Truly an overrated tool. Even if she'd seen a target, what could she do with it really? She shrieked briefly, almost tumbling in to the hole he'd bored in to the basement with.
She'd even come down the stairs with the skinny little blade, the silly thing. He'd tried to be quiet, but the cat had raised a yowling that summoned the girl a bit early. She'd found the body about the same moment he'd bitten out the light bulb, quickly skittering to slam the door before she'd made it up, the sudden darkness tumbling her silly, ill-equipped head back down to the floor. He watched, hooked in to the ceiling, as she flailed about helplessly. His eyes started to glaze with anticipation, the vertical slit of a maw trembling with amusement as he slowly started to lower down, hook by hook.
He'd show her the folly of such inadequate little tools such as knives. He fell beside her, the lower eyepads recording her shock. He'd show her how much better a natural tool is. He readied the knives he was born with.
All six of them.


The TV was blaring sex and violence, but all she could think about was her damn bubbling arm. She picked at it idly, once again cursing herself for forgetting the sun screen over the weekend. It'd been such a good chance to get Adam to notice her, but she'd just ended up burned and humiliated. She'd been offered some sunblock, but Tammy had been there, snickering some comment involving the term “Casper the virgin ghost”, so she'd rejected it, saying she wanted to work on her tan. Now, if she were any more red, she'd be mistaken for a radish. She picked at the onion-skin flakes on her arms, trying to ignore the odd texture of the bubbled skin.
She kept flipping between channels, trying to ignore the burning itch on her arms, face and body, all of which served to keep the memory of her humiliation crystal clear. She picked at her arm idly, trying to find a rerun of something she hadn't seen, all the while brushing off the liquid and peeled flesh from her arms
wait…liquid?
She looked at her arms, and felt her throat grow paralyzed around a scream. She was bathing in blood. It ran from great, flapping rents in her skin, the flesh peeled and pulled free in thin strips and shallow patches. As she tried to recoil, she saw a flash of bone. She skidded and fell from the couch, the jostling causing the peeled wounds to stretch more. Oddly numb, the rifts continued to ooze blood freely as she scrambled to her feet, starting to hyperventilate. She tried to press the peeled, red flesh back in to the wounds, but they just lolled free with a fresh splash of blood.
She walked gingerly, trying to ease her way across the floor, but every motion seemed to cause the peeling to extend more. She brushed her arm, trying to see the bleeding rents more clearly, and strangled around a scream as a palm-sized patch of flesh pulled and flopped free, blood glistening on the newly freed muscle. She moaned, hands rising to her face…only to feel it shift like a cheap, ill-fitting mask, the burning, itching pain rising more and more as she started to peel…
Hours later, she hooked a finger under her eyelid, mad pain compelling her to rid herself of the last, traitorous patch of skin.


Item #: SCP-086
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-086 is safely contained in Wing-██ of Site-19. SCP-086 must be opened at least once weekly to prevent a migration event.
During use, a variety of heavy weaponry and containment equipment is kept active and trained on SCP-086's entrance, in order to incapacitate any emergent threat. The physical task of opening SCP-086 should be given to gloved D-Class personnel after the researcher has touched SCP-086's handle with a bare hand.  All testing of SCP-086 should be personally supervised by Researcher H█████.
Entities which emerge from SCP-086 and are not immediately terminated or returned should be classified SCP-086-x.

Greg Hollinger stood on one side of a sterile hallway, staring nervously at a nondescript white door.  The footsteps of determined men and women in clean coats echoed through the corridors from some distance away.  Greg took a step forward, then another.  He stretched out his arm, brushed the bare metal knob with his bare skin, and flinched.  Reached forward again, took firm hold of the doorknob.  Felt an involuntary tremor through his hand and up his arm to his shoulder.  A sense of purpose seized him, he jerked the knob and wrenched open the metal door.
Inside the janitor's closet, there was a mop.  There was a bucket of soapy water.  There was an assortment of cleaning compounds.  There was a small spider, which skittered out of view behind some boxes.
And, on the floor, there was a letter addressed to a Dr. Gregory Hollinger.  Still sealed.   He picked it up, broke the seal sloppily with a finger.
He read the letter inside, then read it a second time, then carefully folded it up and ripped it into a hundred tiny pieces and threw them all back into the closet, admiring the way they fluttered and danced as they fell to the ground.
He closed the closet door and left the hallway, picking his way carefully through the danger signs and yellow tape he had set up.

Description:  SCP-086 can manifest as a portal to any relatively small contained space with a single opening.  When SCP-086 is opened, an anomalous entity will be found inside.  It has been confirmed by X-ray scans and cameras placed inside SCP-086 that these entities do not exist until the door is open.  The entities produced are designed to frighten the last person who touched SCP-086's opening mechanism (in host sites which lack a distinct opening mechanism the entire item will exhibit this property).
SCP-086-a is a non-corporeal entity which manifests as a floating, partially transparent “dark patch.”  If SCP-086's host container is destroyed or is not opened for a period of two (2) to three (3) weeks, SCP-086-a will emerge and roam aimlessly until it encounters another suitable space to inhabit.  SCP-086-a passes through all obstacles it encounters and causes vivid hallucinations in any sentient beings it passes through.
SCP-086 was discovered in an anonymously delivered, unmarked cardboard box mailed to Researcher H█████.  Two weeks later, SCP-086-a manifested and entered a janitorial closet in Site-19, which was later designated SCP-086.
If SCP-086 is closed with an entity it has produced still inside, the entity will vanish and a new one will appear when the door is open.  It does not have this effect with any other beings or objects.  SCP-086 will not produce an entity or eliminate an existing one if the door is closed with a sentient being inside.  However, SCP-086-a will migrate if a sentient being remains in SCP-086 for more than three (3) hours.  Sentient entities produced by SCP-086 show extreme fear of SCP-086 and are highly averse to being returned to the closet.
Thus far, all biological entities produced by SCP-086 have suffered from a major biological flaw, resulting in the entities' death within twenty-four (24) hours.

“Excuse me, Director, do you know what's going on with Greg?  He hasn't reported in for over a week.”
“Greg?  Oh, Dr. Gregory Hollinger?  He's been transferred off your project.  Discovered some potential new SCP item.  I believe he's been putting the paperwork together to get it classified, number 086 or something.”
“Why wasn't I informed?  You can't just transfer my immediate subordinates around willy-nilly, I need replacements.”
“You weren't informed?  You were mentioned several times in the paperwork.  I thought you were involved in the initial discovery or something.”
“This is the first I've heard of it.  I'll have to talk with Greg about this.”
“Alright, then.  Let me know what you find out.”

Addendum 086-1: Brief log of anomalies produced by SCP-086.
Subject: Dr. ██████ (first encounter with SCP item)
Entity: A large colony of [REDACTED], apparently spelling out the message ████ ██ ████.  Entity proved non-viable and began to exude [REDACTED] from its pores.  Subject showed considerable distress.  [REDACTED] disposed of along with SCP-086's host box.
Subject: D-Class Personnel
Entity: A large creature made entirely of fist-sized, bloodshot eyes on tentacles connected to a small central mass.  Subject screamed and retreated.  Entity moved forward for several feet in a writhing motion before collapsing under its own weight.  Autopsy showed no organs besides the eyes and a frail musculature.  DNA matched no known animal.
Subject: Researcher H█████
Entity: A small sheet of paper with a number of addresses listed in shaky handwriting.  Subject displayed extreme stress but claimed not to recognize the addresses. Subject later volunteered to take on SCP-086's study as a full-time project.  ‘Ink' confirmed to be dried human blood matching subject's DNA.
Subject: D-Class personnel (wearing latex gloves)
Entity: A very realistic effigy of a hanged woman, constructed of actual human skin with cotton stuffing. Subject reported confusion.  Researcher H█████ identified the woman as his wife.
Subject: Agent █████
Entity: A very convincing imitation of Agent █████'s current supervisor, which informed the subject he had been demoted to D-class for gross incompetence and handed him a printed notice.  Entity collapsed of organ failure one hour later.  Autopsy showed the entity lacked a digestive system.

Agent Lawson stood outside the hallway and glared.
“Why is this area blocked off?” she asked.
“SCP-086 has taken up residence in the janitorial closet.  It can't be safely moved, so I've sectioned off this hallway.
“Eighty-six?  Never heard of it.  Is it Keter?”
“No, Euclid, but not safe enough that you can just walk by.  Just added to the list this week.”
Her eyes narrowed.  “If there was really a new Euclid I would have heard about it in the Site news system by now.  What is it?”
Greg drummed his fingers nervously on a wall.  “It's a non-corporeal entity, um, takes up residence in enclosed spaces and generates things whenever you open the door.  Tries to scare you.”
“I fail to see why I can't go down the hallway.  I'll have to go well out of my way to go around, I don't want to be late.”
“It's, um, regulations.  In the containment procedure.  You can look it up.”
“I will, Dr. Hollinger, and I hope for your sake that you're right.”
She walked away.  Greg sighed in relief and returned to the door, which sat slightly ajar.
“Is she gone?” asked a small voice.  Greg nodded happily.  “Good.”

Incident 086-2:
On ██/██/20██, during a standard test with Researcher H█████ as the subject SCP-086 produced a scrap of paper with the words [REDACTED] hand-printed with large blocky letters.  May indicate an attempt by SCP-086 to communicate.  Further research is in order.

“Would you care to explain what this document I'm holding is, exactly?”
“What?  It's an incident report file for SCP-086.”
“There is no SCP-086.”
“No, there is, Gregory got the approval back just the other day.”
“No.  There is no SCP-086.  No proposals for the classification of such have been submitted.”
“But Greg said—”
“I suggest you find Dr. Hollinger and send him in for a psych evaluation.  Something extremely odd is going on and I don't like it.”
“Alright.  I'll talk to him again.”

Incident 086-4: Video log ██/██/20██ ██:██
██:15: Researcher H█████ enters containment zone, clutching a piece of paper in one hand.
██:17: Researcher H█████ pushes the paper he is holding under the door of SCP-086.  Intra-086 feed shows that this is the paper created in Incident 086-2.
██:22: Researcher H█████ opens SCP-086, using his bare hands.  No entity is observed to appear.
██:23: (voice log) Researcher H█████: Who are you?
██:25: Researcher H█████: [REDACTED]?
██:25: Researcher H█████ (gets down to his knees): How is that possible.  You—
██:26: Researcher H█████ begins to cry softly.
██:29: Researcher H█████: How did this happen?  Did [REDACTED] you?
██:32: Unknown: … it was all your fault…
[FEED ENDS]

The director groaned audibly.  “Seriously?”
“Yes sir, this is the only video feed remaining on record.  It seems Hollinger had the security cameras blocked off for most of the ‘tests' he ran.”
“What's the status on the closet itself?”
“We've done a full sweep.  No signs of any anomalies, and none of the staff mentioned in the report remember any of this.”
“So he made the whole thing up?  Why?”
“Unknown, sir.  He seemed relatively stable up until now.”
“No exposure to some memetic thing?  No traumatic experience?”
“No.  He did get a letter.”
“About what?”
“We're still trying to figure that out, sir.  It should be on record somewhere from the routine mail-scans.”
“What about Hollinger himself?”
“Missing, sir.  We've got a team on it.”

He stared at his hands — they were dripping.  What was he doing, again?  Oh yes.  Escaping.
“Hurry up, Daddy!”
He ran through the brightly lit hallways, feet pounding a steady rhythm, like a heart-beat or a set of drum-sticks pounding inside his head.  Turning corners automatically, trying not to notice the walls melting behind him.  Was he lost?
“This way, Daddy!”
The sun winked at him through layers and layers of heavy glass.  ‘Exit', promised the signs above the door.  People were in his way, now.  They wanted to stop him.  He stared at his hands.
“Hurry!”

“Three injured, one dead.  How did this happen?”
“Nobody was expecting this kind of violence from him.  It just came out of nowhere.”
“Are we sure it was Hollinger?”
“Fairly sure.  The descriptions match him.  The video feeds are pretty lousy, no good shots of his face.”
“Reading through his file, it's hard to believe he could do something like this.  Do we have a motive?  Some kind of SCP connection, maybe?”
“Not that we know of.  Unless there really is an eighty-six.”
“God, I hope not.  The letter?”
“We found it.  It's a notice of his son's death in a car accident.”
The director sighed.  “That explains a little.  Not nearly enough.  Where is he now?”
“Off site.  We're tracking him down.”
“Let me know when you find him.”

Gregory Hollinger smiled.  Now he could spend some quality time with his family.  It had been terrible of him to spend so much time away from home.  What if something had happened?
Muffled voices yelled for help from the big wardrobe in the corner of the abandoned house; he ignored them. Astounding that there was nobody here before.  Not the nicest place; in fact, likely to fall down any day now, but rent free.
He turned a page of his book and frowned.  Red stains all over the pages.  Where did those come from?  He put the book down.  Someone was knocking at the door, rather loudly.  No, he had barricaded the door and someone was trying to force their way in.  That was it.
“Aren't you going to let them out, Daddy?”
“Not yet,” he muttered.  “A little more time.  I haven't seen your mother since …”  Where was she?  His mind teetered on the brink for an instant as he scrambled for an explanation.  He had seen her already, that was it.  She had gone out to buy cleaning supplies.  Lord knew this place needed a once-over.
“The bad men are coming.”
Splintering sounds from the entrance.  Scratching from the corner.  Pounding from his heart and head.  Dripping from … somewhere.  He had a sudden urge to wash his hands, but there was no running water.  He should call someone about that, but of course, no phone lines.
“Hurry!”
Reluctantly, he pulled himself up from the chair, careful not to step on anything.  There was a loud crash, and several men in black suits entered the house.
“Gregory!  Remain calm and assume the position.  We don't want to hurt you.”
Greg was confused.  Was he not calm?  Was he doing something wrong?
“Hurry!  Open it!”
He took a step toward the wardrobe.  A burst of gunfire shredded part of the ceiling.  Another step.  One of the men yelled something at him.  He grabbed the handle.  The door felt impossibly heavy — he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.
It opened.
A boy, about ten, bleeding from a gruesome head would, stepped out of the wardrobe.  The men fired.  Bits of gore sprayed the walls.  The boy continued forward.
“Why weren't you there?”
Gregory cried and tried to embrace the child.  It fell apart in his arms.
Then the ceiling gave way.

“So, that's the report.  Fortunately, all our agents managed to get out relatively unscathed.”
“What about the aftermath?”
“Not much to say.  We found Hollinger's remains, some murdered homeless men, and that's it.  No trace of the kid all the agents saw.”
“Alright.  Not much we can do with this.  File it away somewhere, hope nothing else comes of it.”
“And SCP-086?”
“No such thing.”