Featured Tales of the SCP Foundation (Vol.1)

1. Epitaph by Dr Gears - Iceberg and Gears share some quality conversation



The price for insight is the burden of knowledge.

-

Dr. Iceberg wove his way down the hall on a makeshift I.V. crutch, with Dr. Gears limping alongside. Most of the security teams and cleaning crews had already passed, so they had the hall to themselves, which was probably for the best as neither was too stable. Iceberg had his hand clamped over his chest, and wheezed every few steps, flecks of blood dotting his tattered clothes. Gears stood straighter, but tipped hard to the right with each step, a slow, steady stream of blood leaking from a wound in his thigh on his tattered, scorched left side. They walked, two scorched, broken, bleeding men in an empty hallway, stumbling and weaving to the Infirmary and leaving small patches of blood and burnt material behind. The officer on the security cameras for that area took almost no notice, logging only “Doctors passed, injured.”

The request form read “Application testing for possible military/decommissioning via thermal and H.E. materials”. It should have read “Dr. Iceberg throws bombs at things”. Being as explosives, triplicate oversight reports, and chocolate bars were his three major passions, this shouldn't have been as bad an idea as it was. Things were going well while the conventional explosives were still being used, but when Dr. Iceberg started using his “home brew” devices, things rapidly started to go less well. Several explosions were forceful enough to receive complaints from Site Security, while the second-to-last device caused some major damage to the outside walls of the test chamber.



However, much like throwing a football in the house next to a breakable vase, “blow things up” is a game that is fun right until the last time it's played. The last toss was an item labeled on the test manifest as a “Slowbomb”. It seemed to be a dud at first, the wire-wrapped cube sliding harmlessly to a stop at the far end of the chamber. As the two men watched from what they felt was a point of safety, the device slowly started to distort, then rip apart, showing a white-hot mass of roiling plasma inside its structure. It expanded like a flower opening in a dream, moving an inch every ten or twenty seconds, a slow-motion explosion. It was as the rapidly swelling wall of flame started to march past the “safe beyond this point” line that Iceberg's manic grin started to fade.



The next slice of time was hazy to both men. Dr. Gears was able to recall slightly more details, but most of it boiled down to flames, alarms, men in containment suits, and the strong smell of frying pork. Both were funneled out to triage, made capable of walking, then sent down to the infirmary under their own power. The Walk of Shame is a very different thing inside The Foundation, and Iceberg was especially glad that the hall was empty. Gears, as always, was impassive, and except for the bodily damage and limp, appeared basically unchanged from when he entered the testing room. As they approached the infirmary Iceberg wondered, for the thousandth time, if he really was some kind of robot.



The infirmary admitted them with a minimum of notice, as they were dealing with the after-effects of a light bulb that, when powered up, emitted light that caused most bones to start to liquefy and extrude through the sweat glands. Neither of the two doctors were overly injured (by Foundation standards), so they quickly found themselves in hospital beds and nearly forgotten as the team rushed to deal with newer and stranger injuries.



As Iceberg fingered at the cool gel patch covering a nasty burn on his right arm, he looked over at Dr. Gears. Impassive as always, his leg was wrapped in a soft cast and elevated, with several small gauze patches on his face, neck, and arms in varying shades of red, pink, and black.



Iceberg winced a bit, feeling something mildly fractured shift in his chest, and nodded to Dr. Gears. “Ahh…sorry about that, again. I…really didn't expect it to get that out of hand, honestly.”



Gears nodded slightly, still facing the ceiling. “There is no need. Accidents happen.”



Iceberg leaned back, sighing as the pain killers started to pull him down in to deep, dreamless rest.



He woke with a groan to the sound of tapping. Gingerly shaking his head to clear it, he turned to see Dr. Gears tapping with a stylus at the screen of a tablet laptop. He seemed ignorant of Iceberg, or at least uncaring, so Iceberg decided to try and see how sitting up would go. The first flex of his abdomen brought a lancing comet of pain arcing through his chest, so he rapidly decided to postpone any testing and fell back with a groan.



Gears finished, carefully placing the computer on a side table and nodding to Iceberg. “You were asleep when they changed your wrappings. You won't be able to move in any serious way for two days. I will be unable to walk for four days, and have had to reassign our schedules to others.”



Iceberg sighed, closing his eyes as he eased back on the pillow. Two days of hospital food and company with a man who's been accused of being a robot multiple times, rarely in jest. Lovely. He passed some time daydreaming, mentally working out the kinks on the Slowbomb until he started feeling restless again. He turned again to Gears, watching him stare at the ceiling, arms crossed, breathing regularly. “Hey Gears…are you awake?” he asked, hoping he wasn't sleeping with his eyes open again. He knew it was just a trick you could learn, but with Gears, it was just creepy.



The tall, thin man turned his head slowly to look at Iceberg, face nearly immobile but for his mouth. “Yes, Dr. Iceberg, I am. What is it?”



Faced now with the older man's full attention, Iceberg suddenly felt oddly uncomfortable and unprepared, as if he'd suddenly been called on to answer a question while he'd been daydreaming. “Uh…well, I was wondering…why do Kain, Agent Fritz and that one tubby janitor always call you Cog?”



Dr. Gears stared a few moments, blinking slowly. “Your last name is not Dr. Iceberg, correct?”



Iceberg blinked, taken off-guard, before stammering, “Y-yeah…I mean no…or, I mean, yes, that's not my last name.”



Gears nodded, making a small gesture with his hand. “It is an alternate identification designation assigned by Site Security. Policy on this topic has been in a near-constant state of flux, both due to alterations in administrative staff, and planned security cycling. Most of the identification designations are picked at random, with some following a set assigning protocol. Some also appear to have been chosen as a form of 'gag' or 'inside joke'. However, this was not always the case.”



He paused, taking a breath, and Iceberg kept totally silent. This was the longest non-work or survival related conversation Gears had ever engaged in with Iceberg, and he didn't want to break the spell.



“During my intake, the security protocols were still being derived from old military designations and acronyms. My initial designation was 'C.O.G.', derived from the initials of my name. Later, when a determination was made that this was too much of a security weakness, my designation was altered to 'Gears', most likely due to my extensive work on SCP-882 and the similarity to my previous designation.”



Iceberg sat, processing a moment before speaking. “Wait…so…Cog is your initials? So what is your actual name?”



Gears blinked several times slowly, still watching Iceberg, and the young man knew that no answer was forthcoming. He changed tactics, hoping to probe for more information, the exercise taking his mind off the pulsing pain in his side.



“Alright, so…Gears, honestly, are you a robot? Or like…a Vulcan or something? You have to admit you're not really…ah…normal.”



Dr. Gears laid back, resting his hands on his chest. Iceberg was expecting silence, or his methodical, mechanical “I am not a robot.” reply that really did nothing to help. Instead, Gears drew in a breath slowly, and explained. “My mental peculiarities are somewhat sedate when compared to the various emergent coping mechanisms developed by other staff members. However, I can understand how mine are particularly noticeable. No, I am not a 'robot' or any other form of altered human, or non-human.” He paused, blinking several times, before continuing. “I simply…adapted too well.”



Iceberg watched the older man reclining in the hospital bed, confused. He could almost swear that Gears seemed…conflicted, or even depressed. He was about to ask, when Dr. Gears started up again. “I am not an emotionless robot. I feel. I feel pain and sadness at the loss of a friend. I feel joy when achieving a positive goal, and regret when falling short. I feel fear, even horror, when faced with things capable of great harm, or worse. It is not that I can not feel. It is that I can not respond to it. Much like the feeling you have when on powerful narcotic pain killers, I am aware of my feelings, and what I am supposed to do with them, but they feel distant…disconnected. Like seeing someone crying, and feeling a slight empathy for their plight, but not being moved to tears yourself.”



Iceberg sat, slightly stunned. His damned imagination ran off almost instantly, trying to conceive of going through everything he had already been pushed through…but this time, unable to react. Feeling all the pain, and joy, and fear, but being locked away with it, like a lunatic in a rubber room. Observed, logged, then forgotten. Iceberg shuddered, unable to look directly at Gears for a time. When he finally looked back, Gears was still staring, and Iceberg had to repress another involuntary shudder. He was about to ask another question when a nurse came in and carted him off for some blood tests. He was also informed that an oversight committee would be looking in to his explosive research at the end of the month. By the time he made it back, Dr. Gears was already asleep.



The next day Iceberg woke up late, and to his great joy was able to move with a minimum of blinding pain. The bed next to him was empty, and Iceberg looked at it thoughtfully. Since being recruited by The Foundation (fresh from college, no less), he'd been paired up with Dr. Gears almost constantly. He'd been very scared at first. Many of the new recruits reacted with varying degrees of fear, awe, and pity when he told them his new assignment, which did nothing for his already limited confidence. What's more, it took months to realize that Gears didn't actually hate him, that it was just his default setting of total indifference. Even worse, they kept getting assigned to the worst jobs…he still shivered to think about his first run-in with an SCP-882 breach.



Still, after all this time, he knew next to nothing about Dr. Gears. Many of the other staff were pretty vocal about who they used to be, and some even were allowed a semi-normal life outside the site. Gears, however, was a black box. No idle conversation of the past, no hidden tokens or photos in the desk (he'd checked), no…anything, really. Never leaves the site except for Foundation business, never takes any time off, never engages in any non-work activity unless forced to. What was even stranger was that NOBODY knew anything about him. Even the classic busybodies around the site had no real clue who he was, and the database became a large, password-encrusted tower of doom when asked about Dr. Gears.



The sharp click of the door brought Iceberg back to reality quickly. Gears hobbled slightly as he worked his way to the bed, laying down and adjusting a bandage at his side. He spoke to the ceiling, not a gesture or look for the man he was addressing. “I am being released early. You will need to remain here for another day, but I expect you to be ready to resume your duties as soon as you are released.”



Iceberg sighed, shaking his head and looking away. Silence drew out for long moments before Iceberg turned, looked pointedly at Gears, and said “What the hell happened to you? I mean…what the love, man? You're goddamn Spock but without those little lapses of human feeling…did they experiment on you, did you have a breakdown, what the hell?”



As Gears stared at him, Iceberg became acutely aware of the fact that what he had just said may amount to insubordination or “unauthorized security probing” of a level where “large men with guns” is the most comforting portion of the disciplinary measure. The two men stared for what felt like a long time, Iceberg almost unwilling to blink, feeling a creeping measure of fear on par with reviewing security tapes of SCP-173.



After a time, Gears blinked, slowly, and nodded. “What happened. I have been asked that multiple times, and I know of many more theories to this effect. What happened…was nothing unique. Nothing that is impossible to repeat, or hasn't happened to others. It is easy to assume that there was a single 'defining moment' in the transition to my current state, but I do not believe this to be so. It is… gradual. Like a sickness. After a time, you simply wake up… different.”



Iceberg shook his head, processing this new tidbit. “Okay…so you just… declined, I guess? Jesus… I mean… how the hell does something like that happen? You still haven't said what actually happened, what started this…”



He trailed off as Gears turned to stare at the younger man again. “Are you loyal to The Foundation, Doctor Iceberg? I assume you will reply in the positive, but think before you respond. I am loyal, but not because of a sense of duty or empowerment. I believe, fully, in the work being done here. I believe that, without The Foundation, humanity as we know it would crumble in a very short time. I believe that we, the few with the resources and means to do so, have the direct obligation to insulate others from all that we are containing.”



The door to the room opened with a small, poorly-oiled and annoying squeal that went totally unnoticed by Iceberg. Even as a young-ish doctor entered and started reading off discharge information in the general direction of Dr. Gears, Iceberg still heard little. Unsettling ideas were bumping around, unpleasant recollections of tests ordered and observed… of instances where the “greater good” overwhelmed normal human decency. Moments where he knew, for a fact, that he should be repulsed… or frightened… or at least unsettled, but felt only mild interest, at best. He snapped back from the increasingly stormy seas of his mind when Gears started to leave the hospital bed, aided by an arm from the doctor. “…why are you telling me this?” he asked.



Doctor Gears turned slightly and spoke to Iceberg over his shoulder, his voice carrying that odd toneless quality again. “In regards to your request in relation to our future work, you may find the literature I mentioned enlightening. In addition, there is an epitaph in Tasmania, Australia that may prove useful as a motto or guide stone. I will expect you to report in for new assignments as soon as you are discharged.” The young-ish medical doctor looked between the two others, slightly confused and wary, but continued to help Gears from the room. Iceberg was left alone in seconds, both unsettled and deeply confused.



It wasn't until days later that Iceberg got the chance to try and investigate the rather cryptic message. Gears had mentioned nothing more about anything he had said in the hospital, and Iceberg had found himself deluged with paperwork and solo testing. He had barely spoken to or seen anyone for nearly two days, and finally decided a little investigation might break up the tedium. It took only a little prodding to find what he was looking for, but it took more time to process:



"As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, soon you shall be -

Prepare yourself to follow me."



Iceberg sat alone in the deepest bowels of the underground site, surrounded by mounds of neatly typed records of horrors and atrocities, and tried very hard not to feel cold.

-

2. Incident Mike Echo Seven Alpha by Gnosis - Why the Administrator doesn't show up any more.



Everyone copes differently with loss…

-

Richard Gnosis sat there at his desk, staring at his laptop screen in a mix of bewilderment, shock, and relief. Sure, he knew that there was a group of researchers that had been working for the Hand, spanning the gamut of clearances from Level 1 to Level 4. And yes, he did know that they were planning on escaping their Sites back to… to wherever the hell the Hand held Foundation traitors. But he didn't expect them to be so stupid as to post all their files on the Internet. And yet there it was, the green eyes of SCP-173 staring at him from the screen of his laptop. At least the people responsible had been caught; they didn't bother trying to disguise where the upload was from. But by the time the leak was discovered it was too late to stop it; they'd already managed to upload five entire reports (partially censored, thank God). He closed his laptop screen, unable to take that mocking pixelated glare any longer, leaned back in his chair, and thought.



In his head, he ran through the standard Information Control options, discarding all of them one by one; there was already a noticeable uptick in the amount of searches for Foundation-related keywords. Looking at the results, apparently some random paranormal community or another had found the report on 173 and decided it was interesting. He could use this. He loaded the files on some of the SCPs he was cleared to access for inspiration and got to work writing.



…gains energy from anything it ingests, organic or inorganic…



…reddish brown substance on the floor is a combination of…



…created in the aftermath of WWII, from the remnants of defecting….



A few of the entries were completely unedited versions of real files on SCPs; some of them were copies of false data that had been given to people suspected of being spies. Different fake SCPs for different people would let him figure out who was a traitor leaking data and who just looked guilty. He didn't want to delete the real ones, it might draw suspicion, except… he stopped. His eyes fell on three digits, and his mouse moved over the delete button. He looked at the portrait on his desk, then back. He clicked, and got back to work; he had ideas for characters, so many ideas, and they all had to be written.



He worked hard into the night, his fingers dancing over the keys in an irregular rhythm, pausing for a few minutes to wait for a burst of inspiration, then tapping like raindrops on a windowpane. After a few hours, the words started swimming in front of his eyes, but he pressed on like a man possessed by a Muse until he could write no more. He closed the lid of his laptop, the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes a group portrait of sixteen people. And even when he let sleep him, his characters appeared to him in his dreams, whispering ideas and plot hooks to his subconscious.



When he woke up the next day, he found himself watching his phone walk across his desk. He grabbed it and sat up, rubbing where his cheek had been resting against the metal imprint on his laptop for the past few hours, and read the screen with red eyes. He had a meeting in… an hour. poopnugget. And it was in room 307 with three people. poopnugget. He knew exactly what that meant. He splashed some cold water on his face, slapped his cheeks a few times, and read over his files on the security breach.



Meeting with Senior Staff was never enjoyable. They always showed up in threes; It was the smallest number that could both prevent deadlock and allow debate on both sides of an issue, and they preferred to meet together as little as possible. So when Gnosis showed up to the meeting the next day regarding Incident Mike Echo Seven Alpha, he knew roughly what to expect. Three faces, none of whom he was familiar with, stared at him without a single hint of emotion as he entered the door. There was a smell of sterility and rubbing alcohol, and his eyes watered just a little. He took a seat.



"What made you think that the best approach to the worst leak since you started working Information Control was to publicize it?" Dr. Myers, a serious-looking scientist whose balding hair contrasted with his younger features; he couldn't have been older than 40



"Sir, it was my professional judgment that shutting down the site posted by the defectors would only draw more attention, especially given that it would require purging it from search engine caches."



"How does that make a difference? I'm not an expert, but I know we've purged data from engines before. And surely any publicity we might've drawn from the shutdown would be better than… than… this." That was Dr. Hefner, a thin woman who looked to be in her 50s.



"Yes sir, but it's… difficult. My contacts are no longer in positions that allow them access, and remote entry would require more computational power than I can access."



"So you're telling us you're not good enough to do it." The third man was named Gregor; he was the youngest of the three, maybe in his late thirties. He'd obviously never worked in the field; a body shape like that never could have passed the field agent regimen.



"I do not believe, sir, that anybody else could have done any better. Breaking into the systems of an entity such as Google is a highly non-trivial task."



"Your reports indicate that you've developed alternate Senior Staff for the fictional Foundation. Surely you don't intend on maintaining them yourself." Hefner again.



"I… I do, sir." He shifted about uncomfortably in his chair; he knew that this would be the part that would be the hardest for them to swallow. But he had to keep this story going, for his own sake. He could have sworn Myers was writing something down on a notepad just out of his vision.



"So the containment for this leak is going to cause a drain on your resources for the forseeable future?" Gregor looked amused, a grin spreading across his slightly overweight face.



"Unfortunately, yes."



"So why shouldn't we just have the information scrubbed the hard way, then reassign you to Secondary duty?" The grin spread further; he looked about ready to bite his head off.



"With all due respect, sir, part of working in Information Control is the ability to react without explicit authorization from one's superiors. If necessary, I can curb the number of personas required. However, I believe the job can be completed in my spare time."



"I certainly hope so; we don't pay you to sit around and write stories all day." Hefner's pencil-thin lips betrayed the barest hint of a smirk.



"Stories are what I deal in, sir. This is just a different form of disinformation, one that will cloak the truth in a sea of lies."



"I certainly hope you're right, Doctor. Dismissed." Myers stood and left, followed by the other two.



"Thank you, sirs." He quickly rose and exited, then returned to his quarters, trying to lose himself in the crowd of researchers, agents, and Secondary personnel that always flowed through the halls of the Sites. The gravity of what he'd done was catching up to him, and he needed sleep; he was starting to twitch and have thoughts that he thought he had suppressed. So he collapsed in his bed, not bothering to change out of his work clothes, and let sleep claim him. And in his dreams, the characters he had written came back to him, taunting him with his recollections.



And for the next few days, in between other assignments, he worked on the project. Writing stories of love and loss, of happiness and sadness and the entire spectrum in between, of triumph and failure. He didn't publish them all right away; no, he published them over time, trying to build up an audience for his stories. At first, his performance didn't suffer; he contained information breaches well enough, and his supervisors let it slide. But he withdrew more and more into the fantasy of his own creation. Leaks grew in frequency, went unnoticed for longer, and contained more damaging information. And when his door was unlocked from the outside and forced open, he didn't make a sound, save the soft clicking of keypresses.



Final Report on Incident Mike Echo Seven Alpha.



Doctor Gnosis's plan to hide the leaked documents in plain sight has worked; there have been no signs of elevated suspicion regarding the leaked Foundation documents, and further leaks can be brought under the aegis of this one as an 'alternate reality game'. It is quite fortunate that many of the leaked documents are also fake; this gives us the opportunity to detect investigation via standard query-tagging procedure.



However, one aspect of the created fiction is troubling. Two weeks before the Incident, a containment breach in Site ██ led to the death of several Foundation personnel that were good friends with Dr. Gnosis. Many of the invented personalities seem to resemble those of the deceased, and the fictional Foundation possesses the technology to selectively erase memories; it is therefore suggested that Dr. Gnosis be removed from the Incident team as soon as is reasonably possible to avoid escapism or other mental problems.



Addendum: On ██/██/████, five days after the incident, Dr. Gnosis's access to the Mike Echo Seven Alpha project was stripped, and he was forced into psychiatric leave with mandatory counseling regarding the death of his friends. Initial attempts are promising in part due to the threat of mandatory retirement, but efforts must be made in order to prevent a relapse. The password to his account, codename 'T██ A████████████', is unknown and cannot be reset without alerting the host of the information; however, the password for the accounts of the 'characters' have been recovered. Their personas have proven to be too popular to discontinue, and therefore have been assigned to [REDACTED], with stories to be written in their spare time as necessary.

-

3. That Goddamn Thing by Sorts - Resistance is futile.



"Memetics is bullpoopnugget!…I hate the very word. 'Mmmmeeeeeeem.' I pronounce it 'maim' every time I can because I hate it so much."

-

The seat that was provided was a harsh gunmetal black edifice, warped enough that it was effectively impossible to place all four legs on the floor at once. It made an obnoxious clacking sound when Dr. Johannes Sorts shifted his weight, the noise echoing through the unnecessarily large concrete room. Row upon row of harsh florescent lights buzzed overhead, the sound only momentarily drowned out when Dr. Sorts shifted his weight back again. Clack.



Agent Schaffer cast an irritated glance over the top of a manila folder. He closed it and clasped his hands atop the blank cover, leaning forward across the scarred and pitted old cafeteria table between himself and the doctor. Apart from the comfortable padded folding chair he occupied, the doctor and the table were the only other things in the stadium sized chamber.



"You do, of course, know where we are and why we are here?" Schaffer asked, the first he had spoken since security had escorted the twitchy little doctor into the room.



Dr. Sorts rolled his eyes in open contempt but cast his gaze towards the unfinished floor and mumbled, "I'm not stupid. I also know you stuck me in this chair to make me feel uncomfortable. I know what this room was used for before it was re-purposed to contain th—that… goddamn thing."



Schaffer watched the doctor very carefully, noting the difficulty with which the other man spoke. He opened the folder again, noting that the enclosed psychological profile had indicated a marked increase in the subject's paranoia in the past months. "Doctor, that was the only other chair in the room. We did not bring it in here to torment you. It's not like we entertain guests here."



"Yeah, t-two chairs in the room, and you got the good one. Call it what you will," Sorts grumbled, shifting his weight again to send a clacking sound to bounce about the distant walls. "The floors in here are rough and dirty, only worn smooth in tracks where the forklifts moved the pallets around. How much manpower did it take to yank up all the old shelves that used to be in this storage room just so it could be a glorified lobby for you… I mean that… that fu—goddamn thing…"



"Would you like to trade seats?" the agent offered calmly.



"I think I'm fine where I am, annoying you with this unbalanced chair." Sorts squirmed back and forth until his chair made a squealing noise on the concrete.



"Doctor Sorts, you are a level 2 researcher. Given that you lack the clearance, could you explain exactly how you learned about me?"



Sorts gripped the edge of the table with pudgy hands and finally met the Agent's eyes with a contemptuous glare. "Don't talk like that. You and I both know wh-what…" The doctor licked his dry lips and swallowed before continuing. "You and I both know what we're talking about. But I'm the only person who can speak honestly here. You lack the capability."



"You didn't answer my question. This is a grave security breach. Given your own specialized research into memetics, you understand the severity of this leak and how your very knowledge of me is a dangerous liability."



"So what, you're going to terminate me?" Sorts screeched. "The only person who can deal with… that goddamn thing?"



"Your open discussion of…" Agent Schaffer paused to consider his words carefully. "…this matter caused a memetic containment breach that infected the entire breakroom at site 19."



"Memetics is bullpoopnugget!" Sorts interjected. "A meme is when I say 'Knock, knock' and you say 'Who's there?' It's not a virus, it's not a weapon. It's not a compulsion. The other researchers in the breakroom are not sick—any more than they already were, anyway."



"Doctor…"



Sorts laughed. "Meme is a loveing stupid word to fancy up the concept of a running joke, one of the more irritating concepts that mouth-breathing crap-flinger Richard Dawkins has inflicted upon an undeserving world. I hate the very word. 'Mmmmeeeeeeem.' I pronounce it 'maim' every time I can because I hate it so much."



"I thought it was pronounced that way." Schaffer frowned.



"You thought, you thought, you thought eight things tonight!" Sorts laughed, then rubbed his forehead. "Oh god. There I go. That's an obscure one, I don't expect you'd know the reference. But see? A meme is only as good as the amount of people that understand its context. Context is the key to unlocking these things. I learned about that goddamn thing by paying attention to the context. I talked to the people who were rotated out of working containment in here. I noticed the peculiar pattern in their speech. I deduced the rest."



Schaffer raised his eyebrows. "You'd never seen me before now?"



Sorts just narrowed his eyes. "I know enough about that goddamn thing to know this is a ridiculous waste of resources. Where is it right now? That old supply closet over there? The one that has a fancy electric lock and the old faded 'fertilizer' sign that was obviously recently added? All the other doors in this room are either sealed off or specifically go somewhere. Seriously pathetic misdirection there."



Schaffer had heard enough, he stood up from his seat and gestured to the aforementioned door. "Yes, that's where they keep me. Would you like a look at the room? Perhaps, since you have learned so much about me, you can offer some insight into future containment procedures."



The two men strode towards the old closet, which Schaffer opened with a wave of his unique key card. Schaffer picked up a clipboard from the reverse side of the door and read the introductory language that had been carefully prepared to make otherwise straightforward containment procedures sensible.



Schaffer cleared his throat and recited the lines he had spoken only a few times before, when he was first assigned to security for this containment chamber and during scheduled testing:



"Hello, I am SCP-426. I must be introduced this way in order to prevent ambiguity. I am an ordinary toaster, able to toast bread when supplied with electricity. However, when any human being mentions me, they inadvertently refer to me in the first person. Despite all attempts, there is yet to be a way to speak or write about me in the third person."



Sorts made a derisive sound and waved towards the object sitting on the middle of a shelf in the otherwise empty closet. "That goddamn thing. That goddamn thing is a goddamn toaster."



"No one else has ever been able to refer to me in that way before, Doctor Sorts. How did you do it? Your file said you had a talent for defusing memetic effects."



"That goddamn toaster is not a meme! It's a goddamn toaster!" Sorts snatched the containment papers from Schaffer's hands and read through them with a scowl. "We have no cultural references to that goddamn toaster. People who never heard about that goddamn toaster refer to… to it as if it was themselves. Memetics has absolutely no application here. Maybe I'm the normal one and you are all just goddamn idiots."



"I notice that you have great difficulty referring to me. When you do, you only do so to damn me… to speak of me derisively. Do you suppose that it is your intense dislike of me that allows you to avoid my effect?"



"I didn't say that goddamn toaster had no effect on me. Sure, it's hard for me - that's me, as in Johannes, I can use that word properly - to talk about that goddamn toaster any way I want. Clearly the mere concept of that goddamn toaster has the property of defining itself in the psyche of the individual who thinks of it. It's a glitch in logic. Where you can only refer to that goddamn toaster as yourself, I choose to refer to it as th—"



"Yes, I get the picture, Doctor Sorts. Are you aware of my secondary properties?"



"I don't care about your goddamn properties! Secondary, tertiary or otherwise!" Sorts flipped through the attached test logs. "You're doing a **** poor job of containing that goddamn toaster though, I tell you what. I could keep this goddamn thing in a box under my desk and do a better job. I sure wouldn't start thinking of myself as a goddamn toaster. I'm not replacing my concept of self with it."



Schaffer hadn't thought much of the pudgy doctor before he started ranting, and he had to fight to keep his voice level when he replied. "Doctor, please calm down, you're becoming very agitated. This presents a unique opportunity for us to work together, to do some tests regarding our interactions and your ability to to avoid my effect."



"I don't want to work with a goddamn toaster!" Sorts hung the clipboard back up on the door and reached for the handle.



Schaffer put a hand on the Doctor's arm. "I meant me. I want you to work with me."



Sorts whirled upon the agent with a furious grunt, shoving the larger man square in the chest with all his might. "That goddamn toaster should just stay locked up! I'm clearly not immune to the influence of that goddamn toaster. I don't want to have anything to do with … with that goddamn…"



Schaffer stumbled backwards for a moment but regained control of the situation as his training took over. He redirected the smaller man's momentum and whirled the doctor face first into one of the closet's bare walls with a metallic clack. "That's quite enough, Doctor Sorts. You don't really have a choice in the matter." The agent leaned in and growled with a sharp twist of the doctor's arm, "Do you really want to do this?"



Sorts rolled his eyes back up at Schaffer over his shoulder. "Alright, alright." His words were slurred by the way his lips were rammed against the dirty wall. "I'm sorry. I get the picture."



"Okay. I'm going to let you go now and you're going to deal with me like a rational adult." Schaffer released the doctor and took a step back, running his hands down the front of his black uniform. Something tickled the back of his mind, perhaps it was the way Sorts' eyes cleared of panic too quickly, or perhaps it was the absence of a familiar weight at his hip.



Sorts whirled around, revealing the pistol he had yanked out of the agent's belt on his short trip to kiss the wall. Schaffer stepped forward and put out his hands but the doctor slid away, keeping himself out of reach. Sorts held the pistol low, aiming at the agent's unprotected groin and legs.



"Doctor Sorts, that is my sidearm."



"Listen to you! It can't have a sidearm. It's a goddamn toaster!" Beads of sweat were thick on the doctor's brow. "You're talking crazy because you can't tell the difference between you and a stupid inanimate object. That goddamn toaster needs to stay in here and it would be better if everyone forgot about it."



"If you do not stand down and return my sidearm immediately-"



The toaster hit the ground after two shots, and the doctor kicked it into the corner of the closet for good measure. After using Schaffer's key card to lock the door to the goddamn toaster's containment chamber behind him, Sorts dropped the pistol into the pocket of his coat and wiped his brow.



Taking a deep breath, he strode out of the empty storehouse, past the ever-present security cameras, and returned to his office to file a report on the incident.

-

4. Stratagem by Djoric - In which contingency plans are discussed, over lunch.







What do you do when things go wrong?

-

“Tater tots? That’s what they give us for lunch? Tater tots?” Dr. Harold Breaker looked down at the brownish nuggets on his plate, alongside the chicken patty sandwich with its flimsy pickles and watery ketchup, next to the rubbery macaroni and cheese. The pudding, however, was unblemished by the evils of cafeteria cost-cutting. For now at least.







“Since when is the Foundation an elementary school?”







Taking his tray with him, Dr. Breaker set off aimlessly into the sea of cafeteria tables and hungry researchers.







Breaker was black, in his mid fifties, with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and an unobtrusive mustache. He was a reasonably large man in both height and width, though his college football days were long behind him and a gym membership forced upon him by his wife was in his discernable future.







Breaker sat down at the end of one of the long, metal tables at the less-occupied corner of the cafeteria. He wasn’t in the mood for socializing with large numbers of people. The researcher took a bite of patchily-cooked chicken sandwich.







“Hey there, Breaker.”







Breaker looked up to see Dr. Ryan Melbourne standing on the opposite side of the table, holding a tray of similar low-grade foodstuffs. Melbourne was tall and lanky, around thirty years of age, with a bushy head of sandy hair, a scar on his chin, and a good tan from his recent Caribbean vacation. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing the tattoo of Chinese lettering on the inside of his right arm. The phrase translated into English as “Were you expecting something profound?”







“Hey,” Breaker said flatly as the younger doctor sat down. “Haven’t seen you around recently.”







“Yeah, the department’s been a in a fuss all week. The supervisor’s worried about a memetic hazard outbreak, so she’s been having us checked four times a day.”







“What happened? And why did I not hear about this?”







“Three researchers all acted exactly the same during the monthly psychological review. Started singing a bastardized version of “The Immigrant Song” with a very interesting use of the word ‘defenestrate’, among other things.”







“And who were the researchers?” Breaker could see where this story was going.







“Drs. Jameson, Ulrich, and Ferrier.”







Breaker slapped the table and laughed.







“I knew it! I saw that one coming a mile away.”







“It’s a miracle they haven’t been demoted to D-class by now. They can’t go a week without getting Supervisor Bricket’s panties in a bunch.”







“In more ways than one.”







“True that.” Melbourne swallowed a forkful of macaroni. “Moving to a completely different subject, I have fifty bucks riding on a bet and I need an answer from you.”







Breaker sighed. Melbourne’s gambling habit was the bane of everyone who knew him, as he would inevitably ask them for a bailout. Unfortunately, the doctor could see no applicable escape routes from the cafeteria.







“Go ahead,” he said, dreading what came next.







“Okay, let’s say, hypothetically, that 008 broke containment. Widespread infection, no chance of containment. What do you do?”







Breaker didn’t expect something so… serious.







“Lock down the facility, switch to backup generators. Use drones to recon the situation outside. If it’s truly an XC or XK-class scenario, we fall back to basics: our facilities can be easily defended; we have food, weapons, water, and medical supplies already. If we’re in for the long haul, we’ll ration and improvise as necessary. If there are any SCPs that would cause a danger to us or a drain on limited resources, we destroy them. All the others we use to our advantage.”







Melbourne smiled.







“By the book, but I’ll count that as a zombie plan. And they said you didn’t have one. That’s fifty bucks in my pocket right there.”







“A zombie plan? That’s what you call it?”







“Or SCP-008 contingency plan, if you want.”







“I really don’t care, actually.” Breaker went back to his sandwich.







“Aw, come on. Ask me.”







“Fine.” He glared at the other researcher. “What’s your zombie plan?”







“You’re doing it wrong! Ask me something different.”







Breaker stroked his chin.







“Okay…you’re stuck in a room with 173.”







“I believe not blinking is the first order of business. So long as I can keep one eye open, I’ll run backwards out the emergency exit and do it fast.”







“Fair enough. That’s really the only thing to do.”







“My turn. 705 takes over the break room.”







“Are you kidding? They wouldn’t stand a chance against my five-year-old nephew.”







“Send him in; it would be hilarious. Maybe we can introduce them to 387 afterwards.”







“Don’t let the administration hear that one. 239 wakes up and decides she’s not too fond of us.”







“Flee to Canada.”







Breaker gave Melbourne a “you’re not taking this seriously, I take it?” look.







“What? You’re the serious one, not me. 055 breaks containment.”







“What?”







“Exactly.”







“Whatever. We don’t even have a fifty-five, I don’t think. Mass outbreak of 217.”







Melbourne crossed his arms and put on an irked face.







“You’re expecting me to say something stupid like “Wait for Rights to have another kid”, right? Well, you’re wrong, and your idea is stupid. Pick something that we haven’t already dealt with.”







“Fine. How do you like this one? Video of 597 gets on the internet.”







“Oh my God.” Melbourne’s eyes went wide. “Do you even know what you suggest?”







“You’re probably going to tell me.”







“Damn straight I am! Look, most hormone-crazed guys only know the philosophy of “moar boobs”. The revelation that there is such a thing as “too much boobs” would send the ‘net into spiraling anarchy followed by implosion.”







“That’s… You know what, I’m not going to say anything."







“It’s for the best.”







There was an awkward pause.







“804 starts spinning out of control,” Breaker said.







“Try to remember my Boy Scout training? Either that or smash it with a rock, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be having fun with this and you are definitely not having fun with this. Look, here’s how you do it: 231-7 gives birth, coinciding with 682 breaking containment, 076-2 turning against the Foundation, and something super-bad coming out of 354. The combined sum of these causes a containment breach on almost every other Keter-level item we have.”







With Melbourne’s trump card played, Breaker was quiet. Nearly half a minute passed, the researcher not moving more than a twitch. Then, a smug smile spread across his face.







“You’re smiling like that again, Breaker.” Melbourne pointed his fork at him. “Good things do not happen when you have that smile.”







“That’s the easiest one yet.”







“How so? Suicide’s against the rules.”







“Still easy. First, I activate the emergency termination protocol for the D-class barracks, then I run in there and apply 447 on each and every dead body in there.”







Melbourne’s expression was priceless.







“What the love is that supposed to do?”







“Well, since things really couldn’t get any worse, the normally catastrophic effect of letting 447 near so many dead bodies will cancel everything else out.” Breaker stood up, taking his empty tray with him. “Or it’d just destroy the universe. Either way it’d be an improvement, and I believe that is game over, my friend.”

-

5. MS. Found in a Beach House by pooryoric







A Short, Five Part Series. Check it out.

-

"…tellin' me I live inna world where silly loves don't let their own children recieve medication because some asshat on a talk show told them not to, and you wanna know how my day is goin'? lemme tell ya, bea- no, thanks, I can't drink anymore, heart condition- lemme tell ya…"







The guy on my left keeps talking to the woman across from me as I order a can of ginger ale from a flight attendant with an enormous nose. It's the third hour of a seven hour flight, and I already want to just jump. The attendant gives me a can and cup of ice and moves on before I can ask for a napkin, which I suppose is just par for the course.







My name is Stephen, and I am a commercial writer bound for Shanghai from San Deigo. I'm writing all this down to keep myself amused on my journey- if it comes out entertaining, I may pass it on as a travelogue to some magazine and make a few bucks. So far, though, it looks like the chances of anything interesting happening ar







Adrift at sea on an airline life raft. This is the sort of poopnugget you see in movies. I never expected it to happen to me. While it's fresh in my mind, I'll write out what happened.







I'd just gotten my drink when the front half of the plane disappeared. I know that sounds crazy. It is crazy. But that's what happened, I loveing saw it. I was in seat 23B. Everything beyond two rows ahead of me just vanished with a rush of exploding pressurized air, leaving a yawning view of empty blue sky that tilted all too fast into approaching clouds and the howling rush of free fall. From the looks of the spray of blood I glimpsed before I passed out, the whole row's legs went with it, like they'd been cut by God's own invisible scalpel. I instinctively rammed my notebook back into my briefcase and like a moron started to raise the tray table when the lack of oxygen and adrenalin put me to sleep.







I woke to impact, as what remained of the plane hit the water and threw me hard into the seat in front of me. I had just enough time to gulp for air before the water rushed over me to fill the cabin.







I dunno who thought to pull the raft and toss it out of the plane, but I hope that crazy bastard got a hero's welcome in heaven. It was floating there waiting when I surfaced, briefcase deathgripped in my hand. I flipped it right side up and clambered into it. That's when I blacked out for the second time.







Eventually, one of the other survivors woke me up. There are seven of us. The one who's at the front of the raft says there's a small island ahead and we're moving toward it, but it's going twilight now and we may miss it in the dark. I hope we don't miss it.







We've reached the island. There's a house here.



-

the one above is like a 5 part series so go here www.scp-wiki.net/prelude-the-sensation-of-falling and read the rest.

-

7. And It Starts With a Song by Nioki - The end of life as we know it. The beginning of life as we don't know it. SCP-407.







From what I've tasted of desire…

-

The end of the world starts with a song.







You wake up, still hopped up on the pain pills they pass out like candy here. Someone changed the radio station while you were out, instead of sports scores there's singing. Your head is clearing quickly, not leaving the usual headache behind it, for once. You reach to change the radio station, and stop.



It doesn't hurt.







You look at your arm, at the tubes stabbing into it, and see the sagging skin pull back, tighten, heal. You sit up, and the song grows louder, and you realize that you're sitting up for the first time in months. You wonder if you're dead, if you're dreaming.







You aren't.







One minute has passed since the song started playing.







You try to get up just to see if you can, and you can, and it doesn't hurt. You walk awkwardly, legs still stiff, steps still unsure after so long without use. Your bare feet tingle as they touch the carpet. There is a small cactus perched on the windowsill, and you could swear that it twitches slightly, thorns growing imperceptibly.



Well, you decide, it's a dream. Might as well enjoy it. You step outside into the hallway, and hear the song being broadcast from every speaker in the building







Other doors are opening, all down the cancer ward, and pale people in sky blue hospital shifts are stumbling slightly as they remember what walking is like. You see that some of them still have tumors, those for whom you can tell, and you run a hand over your neck. There's still that small lump. You aren't cured? You feel cured, though…







The small potted trees, placed to give some feeling of life, are rustling as if in a light breeze. You pinch yourself suddenly, automatically, perhaps even unwillingly… it is, after all, a very nice dream. It hurts, but it stops hurting quickly. You walk for the main desk of this, the top floor, the hospital's hospice. The receptionist is standing and staring, and you laugh when you think of how she's been put out of a job. Is this real? Probably not. It seems real, though, and feels real, and by now that's enough. You stroke the lump on your neck again, and it somehow feels bigger.







Two minutes in, and the song plays on.







You need to see the sky.







Three minutes.







You stand on the roof, and hear the song being played from every direction. The grass is green, and trees that had lost their leaves to the sinking heat of autumn are growing new ones, bigger and thicker. People are there, too, just standing and listening. You laugh, loud and without care, and try to sing along, but the song is in words that you do not recognize. It seems as if everything that can play the song is piping it to the heavens, a song of genesis, of life.







Life responds.







A dull ache is there in your neck, you realize. It feels heavier, too, as if padding were being placed on the tumor. You reach your hand up, and feel a mass of flesh twice the size that it used to be. And all the trees put forth flowers at once.



And everything begins to go wrong.







Four minutes have passed since it started.







You see someone down below keel over, suddenly. She vomits, and a sapling shoots up out of the mess. Others begin to clutch at their stomachs, some fall over, many throw up or suddenly vent their bowels. Small plants grow from the waste. You feel nothing but the steadily growing tumor.



You stand, transfixed, until







Five minutes have passed since you first heard the radio sing.







Things are moving faster, now. The grass seems to double in height in a matter of seconds, though from the roof it's hard to tell. New branches are sprouting forth from every tree you can see. Most of the people down below have stopped moving, and you watch as they bleed green that rises towards the sun. It's life, you realize, feeling detached. The hospital was sanitary. You've been fed through tubes for months, but there's bound to be something inside you waiting to grow. You don't care. You've been dying for too long now to care.



You sit down, legs dangling over a rising forest.







Six minutes.







You feel something slip down your side and hit the roof. You feel when it hits the roof. The tumor is spreading, and you watch it bubble outwards, putting forth a tendril here and there, feeling its way. It spreads like living molasses, but full of veins and prickling as it slips over bumps in the surface.







There's something gray in the distance, but coming closer. It's covering the trees, releasing smoke-like clouds as it does.







Seven minutes.







You must be the only one left. The tumor is spreading outwards still, coating the whole roof. It's almost like a gigantic cape. You wonder why you're still alive. The gray has solidified into a mountain of fungus, and you wonder if it will reach the clouds. It's stopped coming closer, though- the trees in front of it have become covered by what look like spider webs, connecting them all together, catching the gray spores and keeping the trees safe. Below you, the roads are no longer visible. The grass has taken over, with an occasional tree poking up from the tangle. The grass , as far as you can tell, is sprouting out and growing connections to nearby stalks.







How can the song still be playing? There can't be electricity, the speakers have surely been in most cases overgrown. It still seems to be coming from everywhere, though not like before. Before, it came from electronics. Now you can feel the voices as if the choir were standing right behind you.







Eight minutes, and you wonder how long the song can be.







The grass below has cut down the trees, joined together and lacerated the trunks, absorbed them and grown taller. The spider webs in the distance begin to cover the mountain of fungus, which fights back with irregular bulges and stick-like protrusions. You have covered the entire roof, and are working your way down the walls, entering windows as you reach them. The people inside have disappeared as far as you can tell. You can tell because the tumor can tell, not with eyes, but you can feel every minute difference in warmth that reaches it, every vibration that passes through the air and the building.







Nine minutes have passed, and you return to your room, slipping in through the window.







Something stabs you when you do. A spike rips through the leathery folds of flesh that were once a tumor. The cactus.



Your skin contracts around the spines, but more keep growing. They impale you, sent into a frenzy of growth by the touch. Spikes erupt from the top floor of the hospital, too fast to be stopped, too fast to be believed. It's odd. You realize, still detached, that you can see it happen. You can see every side of the building at once. The cactus throws quickly growing green balls of itself outward, seeming to double or triple in size before they hit the ground and tear into the grass. It hurts, of course, but that's nothing new.







You try to laugh as you think of a cactus growing here , in autumn no less, but you have no mouth anymore. It's grown over.







The cactus spreads furiously, each mine-like spike ball exploding into maturity in a matter of seconds. They begin to throw their own children outwards as well, and the grass acts as a single being, flowing like water to ice to solidify beneath the baby cacti, not letting them touch the ground. It doesn't matter. The spikes go down and somehow take root. They come up, as well.







Ten minutes, and it's time to die.







Twenty minutes later, and the song abruptly stops. Not that you're there to hear it. Not really. Something survived, though your brain was impaled by a thousand miniature barbs, your body torn from the tumor and used for its nutrients. Some of the flesh survived, carpeting the roof. It may live forever.







It's not a wasteland that you left behind. When the song stopped, so did the changes. At least, so did the speed of the changes. They'll always be happening. They always have been, really. Where the hospital once stood is a world of spikes and thorns, the grass grown together with your cactus to give a clear message to whatever animals may come. Whatever animals there are. You would not recognize them, anyway.







The fungus still stands like a mountain, and will continue to do so, forever. The spider webs grow thick, but no insects will ever be caught. There are no humans left. In some strange spots there are things that were once human. A tower of bone, with eyes peeking out. A hair-covered family of four-armed and legless things, who will continue to etch meaningless inscriptions on crumbling masonry until they at last die out. A cloth-like, almost fluid mass of flesh that wisps through the miles of cacti, parting and reforming around each individual spear.







And the world began with a song.

-

8. Decency by Gargus - Found in a note left by an agent, a short tale of simple human kindness.







"Don't overestimate the decency of the human race." - H.L. Mencken

-

Let all of those who read this know that I have not failed my duties to the SCP Foundation. I have not broken under stress, nor have I gone crazy. What has happened is that I cannot allow the events around me to continue any longer.







I am going to die. After hours in solitary confinement, and the time in-between being almost unbearable, I've come to conclude that my actions after this writing will unquestionably lead to my demise. If you find this before I die, do not try to stop me. I've made my peace with God, and decided that what I am going to do is the right thing.







What I am about to do is break every single Special Personnel Requirement for the project I am assigned to. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but I just can't let her suffer any longer. Even though I will die trying, she will know that somebody cares for her.







It will only be for a moment, maybe less. I don't care. Just as long as she's out of her torment for one second, it will be enough for me. It will be enough knowing that for that brief instant, she will know that she is not a prisoner, that she is not a monster, that somebody cares enough about her to do something about it. For that brief instant, she'll be free.







I have passed all the psychological examinations. I have not broken down. I don't love her. I don't want an XK. All I want is for her to know, for the briefest instant, that somebody cares for her as a human being.







And I will make sure she knows.







-Agent Shields







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

-

9. Badges And Scorecards by Waxx - Through the eyes of a Foundation marksman.







"There are no monsters. They are all dead."

-

Leningrad, December 1979:







The flicker of your nightlight casts an unsettling glow throughout your small bedroom and the wind rattles your window, keeping you from finding sleep. Your young mind runs wild with imagination, only heightening your fear of the night and that which you can’t see. Fortunately your father senses that all isn’t well in your world and steps quietly inside the room. He sits on the edge of your bed and asks why you’re still awake, in an awkward combination of stern and gentle that is so characteristic of him.







“There is a monster under my bed, papa,” you whisper quietly, so as not to disturb or otherwise make it aware of your presence above. Your father smiles and gives a quiet laugh.







“Do you want me to look underneath the bed?” he asks with a grin. You nod, and his next words surprise you. “No, Pasha. There are no monsters. They are all dead.” Incredulous, you sit up slightly and ask, “How do you know?” Still smiling, he pats your head and says, “Pasha, your grandfather killed them all in the Great Patriotic War. Go to sleep.”







You believe him, and sleep finally takes you.







A Russian Federation army base, February 1995:







Snow billows and swirls around your face, obstructing your view of the man-shaped bullseye target hundreds of meters away. In your white-knuckled hands rests an almost ancient Mosin Nagant 91/30 sniper’s rifle, a relic left over from the Second World War, relegated to use as a training instrument for new potential marksmen. The metal is frozen and has lost much of its bluing, exposing the roughly milled receiver to the harsh elements you are now subjected to. The trigger group rattles and one of the lenses is cracked, sometimes making it difficult to concentrate. The wood is rotting away due to the dank storage arsenals it has resided in for so many years, but also displays a number of crude carved markings on one side of the stock-a previous owner’s morbid scorecard.







When your instructors distributed the weapons to you and your fellow marksmen candidates, the rest of them clucked their tongues and mocked the pitiful appearance of the weapons. Their jokes and spiteful comments escaped your ears at the time.







It is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen, and is everything a weapon of war should be: old, battle worn, and victorious, with scars to prove it. You sense prophetically that years from now you will wish you had this weapon to call your own, but sadly you too will return it to the armorers to be given a cursory cleaning and then a dip in storage oils, until the next recruit comes along. It seems an unfair existence for something with so much history behind it, but you suspect it is more fitting than hanging on a collector’s wall as a showpiece, never to be used again.







Your eye peers through the scope, ignoring the cracked lens and seeking out the target through the mire of snow and fog ahead of you. You wait, wait for a chance, wait for God to clear the skies for you. A sudden break in the squall rewards you with a few fleeting moments of clear sight, exactly what you need.







You pull the trigger without hesitation, causing your instructor to turn from the spotting scope next to you and smile for what you think is the first time in his life.







Chechnya, May 1995:







Your senior sergeant glares at you. He is covered in an unspeakable and inescapable filth that infests this place, and eyes with scorn your clean (relatively speaking) uniform. Especially that marksman’s badge that you only just earned little under a month ago.







“You, boy!” he barks, and you stand at rigid attention. “Give me that loveing badge. Once you’ve killed something like the rest of us, you can have it back.” Obediently you surrender it to him, understanding your place in this war all too well, having to prove and reprove yourself to these men who have known nothing but misery and death for the past year.







You are attached to your first patrol the next day, in what on the map is labeled Grozny but in reality exists only as a smoldering cemetery of skeletal buildings, charred vehicles and mostly unburied corpses. Though the battle is officially over, it remains a place of wholesale slaughter and devastation, and you wonder why anyone would deem such a godforsaken place to be of any importance. Your squad picks its way through mountains of rubble and around mass graves, sweeping up a few stragglers here and there.







Out of the corner of your eye you spot a teen aged boy, his face covered in a few dirty rags and carrying a soldier’s rucksack over one shoulder. The sergeant screams at him to halt but instead the boy breaks into a run, darting away from you. Your sergeant turns to you, pointing, and bellows, “Snaiper!” leaving little doubt in your mind as to what he is ordering you to do. Before you even realize it your SVD is nestled snugly upon your shoulder and the scope is at your eyes, the graduated sights already aligned on the fleeing figure. The rifle jumps violently in your hands and the boy drops to his knees, blood spilling from the exit wound in his chest as he gasps for air. Dust settles around him, and he is still.







Your sergeant jabs a fist in the air, ordering the rest of the squad to hold as the two of you fall out to examine what was in that bag. Approaching the corpse, your eyes notice something you had missed before: long strands of dark brown hair fall from the crude balaclava, now jarred out of place and showing the boy’s facial features more clearly. You are suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that “he” isn’t a boy at all, but actually a young girl- only about 17 or so by the looks of it. Her blood soaks the charred ground and her empty brown eyes stare lifelessly at the perpetually cloudy sky. Your hands begin to shake as you riffle through the bag and you pray, pray to god that there are grenades or something, anything to justify taking this girl’s life.







All you find are a few meager scraps of bread.







Nausea overtakes you and you fall to the ground and retch violently, your sergeant standing over you with his ever-present scowl. He grabs you with his giant’s hands and forces you to stand on your feet and look him in the eye. “Looks like you can shoot after all, boy,” he says as he pries open your clenched hands and returns the marksman’s badge.







The Mediterranean, present day:







Jimmy Durante’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” lilts through the air from a radio somewhere on the street below you, conveniently distracting passersby just finishing their antipasti at the streetside cafés. The beach is deserted save for a young girl sprawled across a tiny dock, her shapely legs kicking playfully in the warm Italian water, frilly pastel-yellow dress glowing in the soft luminescence of the setting sun. A smile plays across her face-she’s pretty, and you find it difficult to maintain your professional detachment whilst observing her through the rifle scope. You try to keep focus, but part of your mind keeps drifting, longing to be on the beach with her, holding her hand, telling her how beautiful she is and how happy she makes you feel by just looking at her.







“Delta One, in position.” Dr. Clef’s voice responds through the radio in a terse command, “Delta Six. Go.”







She turns to look at the older woman approaching her from the beach, affording you a perfect view of her face. You barely feel the weapon move as a .22 caliber bullet leaves your suppressed rifle and impacts her head squarely between the eyes. She doesn’t feel a thing, just crumples like a broken doll, still smiling, blood streaming from the tiny entry wound and glimmering in the sunlight.







“Delta One, target neutralized.”



“Delta Two, confirm.”



"Delta Three, engaging target."



"Delta One, moving to support."



"Negative, Delta One, Delta Three. Delta Six will handle this one personally."







The older woman stops in her tracks, dropping a basket of wine and cheese at her feet in disbelief and horror just as Dr. Clef clubs her across the face with his pistol. Your concentration lapses again and you ignore the ensuing brawl and flurry of radio activity. Instead you gaze at the young woman’s face, even now still smiling as her skin grows pale from blood loss. You manage to hold the bile down as your spotter takes a shot; SCP-784’s body collapses atop the girl and breaks your line of sight. Silently, you thank God for this small gift.







Later, you come across a folded note on your desk. It’s a commendation from your Mobile Team leader for assisting in the termination of SCP-784, a “dangerous and destructive entity that posed a grave threat to both the Foundation and mankind in general.” You fold the note and place it atop your gun rack, in which reside two rifles: an SVD Dragunov, and a suppressed .22 rifle of Czech design. Each has a single mark carved in the stock. Each has only been used once, now they both collect dust in your office.







You collapse onto the stiff bed and contemplate the day’s events, your mind returning to something you told yourself many years ago in a place far away from here.







The only thing worse than killing an innocent girl, is getting a medal for doing so.







The thought remains with you all night, keeping you awake. You wish your father was still alive, wish he could give you some advice, wish you could ask him what all of this was for. You remember what he told you when you were a little boy, and wonder now if you would have the fortitude to tell him that he was wrong. The monsters are still very much alive.

-

10. Critters by Dexanote - A monologue of a cruel godhood.







"I think they like to sing me to sleep."

-

I’ve gotten used to them. The feet. You never think about how many feet they have. How they grip at your skin and the hair on your body. How they hold onto you effortlessly. They almost tickle now. Almost.







The smell. It's barely noticeable anymore. At first, it was… It was pretty bad. I threw up a lot. And then they started crawling into my mouth when I was trying to eat… But then I realized they didn't mind when I ate them. I think that was when I started to come to terms with it. They didn't taste good at first. But then… The crunch. Insects have a texture all their own. Thick and sweet and full of… I don't know what. It was like the best thing I'd ever eaten. And they didn't even mind. There was so much I could just reach out and take…







I think they like to sing me to sleep. Hard to ignore it when they get in my ears. Well, everywhere else too. All kinds of things chirping and buzzing around all the time. Constant noise. I mean, it’s a lot louder in the summer. A LOT louder. I don’t think I mind, though, they just like to sing. It’s almost like music.







… I can see them watching me. Not the crawling things, no, the people. I know how you see me. Even in places where the strange people live, people who the world forget. Even they look away. I can see it in their eyes, they pity me. Or they’re just plain grossed out. Revolted. You too. I see you trying to look me in the eye. Not at the bits in my hair. Not at my teeth. I’ve seen that look before. You don’t want to, you can’t help but stare. I know you can’t. They never can.







It’s okay… no no, you can sit back. Yeah, it’s alright. Your eyes are watering. It’s better if you move away a bit. Take a drink of water or something. It’ll help your stomach.







I gave up trying to wash them off. Not in a shower or a bathtub, those aren’t big enough, not enough water to wash them away. Not that I didn’t try, it’s just a lost cause at that scale. I mean, I still have scars from scrubbing so hard. Then I started to go swimming to drown them. Like the story of the Pied Piper. You know, he took the rats away and drowned them in the river. I always loved swimming, even before it gave me that little breath of cleanness. Then… then the leeches found me.







Leeches aren’t… Ants are the worst. They’re so small. They get all over, in my hair, and nose, and ears, in my eyes… Thousands of them, it’s… It’s just… I can’t even… I can’t even describe it. Just imagine every inch of your body cov- never mind. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…







… I never even mentioned the rats. Always so, many… But I guess they’re not… At least they’re warm. There’s so many they keep me warm in the cold. Like a fuzzy blanket. A fuzzy, hungry blanket. People keep rats as pets, right? It’s no different. Everyone loves pets… I love my pets… I love them all…







… I’ll never be alone…

-

ok so you may have noticed that I missed the 6th tale, which isn't just one tale, but 10 tales...

-

6. The Lombardi Tales by DrEverettMann







The slowly growing archive of the life and experiences of Max Lombardi.

-

So, you wanna join the Foundation? Think you know what it's like after readin' the reports? Pal, you don't know the half of it. I seen poopnugget you wouldn't lovein' believe if your mama told you in Sunday School. Name's Max Lombardi, an' I been an Agent for ten goddamn years. You wanna know what it's like? Lemme tell you about it…

-

go here www.scp-wiki.net/the-lombardi-tales and read all the tales.



Read more: spookyspaghetti.boards.net/thread/8/featured-tales-scp-foundation-vol#ixzz3fKp07NoH