SCP Sandbox Wiki I

SCP-AAAA-248, most recent object affected by SCP-AAAA

Item #: SCP-AAAA

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Currently, containment of instances of SCP-AAAA is not a possibility. Objects affected by SCP-AAAA are to be logged and contained if possible. If containment is not a viable option, objects may be destroyed with permission of a Level 3 staff or higher. All witnesses of anomalous events are to be treated with Class A amnesics and cover stories are to be disseminated to local media outlets. Any observed instance of SCP-AAAA is to be reported immediately.

Description: SCP-AAAA are humanoid entities that manifest as Caucasian males, ranging from approximately 30-60 years of age, all dressed in a manner that corresponds to clothing stereotypical of an American mid-nineteenth century repairman or factory worker. All instances carry gray, metal tool boxes, approximately _x_x_cm, containing tools appropriate for that era. Eighteen (18) separate instances of SCP-AAAA have been recorded, with recurring instances appearing in multiple events. The first confirmed sighting of SCP-AAAA occurred on █/█/19██, and instances have not appeared to age since this time. SCP-AAAA seems to be exclusive to the United States.

Between one to four instances of SCP-AAAA will spontaneously materialize in urban areas in the vicinity of mechanical or electronic devices, typically focusing on objects utilized by the public, i.e. elevators, street lights, vending machines, etc. Entities will partially dismantle and alter the object of their focus, a process taking anywhere from four (4) to seventeen (17) minutes. When the alterations are complete, instances will walk away and dematerialize once unobserved. Attempts to interact with instances of SCP-AAAA have always resulted in spontaneous dematerialization of the entities.

Affected objects will immediately begin demonstrating anomalous properties, often posing a significant safety risk to civilians in the vicinity. Examination of altered objects has shown them to be structurally identical to non-anomalous versions. If possible, objects are to confiscated, contained under the designation SCP-AAAA-x, and replaced with non-anomalous equivalents. Objects that pose too great a threat to personnel or are immobile are to be destroyed.

The appearance of SCP-AAAA is not precipitated by any event, and as such actual instances are seldom observed by personnel. Due to the inability to anticipate the materialization of instances or to ascertain how long long SCP-AAAA has been in existence, it is theorized that SCP-AAAA could be responsible for the creation of several anomalous objects currently in Foundation custody.

Any researchers encountering objects found to be altered by instances of SCP-AAAA are to log their findings in Log-AAAA-b.

Item #: SCP-BBBB

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures:

Description:

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING FILE IS OFF-LIMITS TO PERSONNEL MEETING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:
- ANY PERSONNEL ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS THIS FILE FROM A SITE LOCATED WITHIN 100 KM OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA.

- ANY PERSONNEL WHO HAS ANY TYPE PERSONAL INVESTMENT (FAMILIAL, EMOTIONAL, LEGAL, FINANCIAL, POLITICAL) IN INDIVIDUALS VISITING OR LIVING WITHIN 100 KM OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK USA.

- ANY PERSONNEL WITH ANY ASSETS (FINANCIAL, LEGAL, COMMERCIAL, RESIDENTIAL) WITHIN 100 KM OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK USA.

BE AWARE THAT ONCE THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT HAS BEEN VIEWED, TRAVEL TO WITHIN 100 KM OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA WILL BE EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN. ATTEMPTS TO APPROACH SCP-AAAA AND NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA WILL BE MET WITH FORCEFUL DETAINMENT, UP TO AND INCLUDING TERMINATION

BY OPENING THIS FILE, I ATTEST THAT I DO NOT MEET ANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED CRITERIA. I FURTHER ATTEST THAT IF IT IS DETERMINED THAT MY KNOWLEDGE OF SCP-AAAA WOULD PUT THE PUBLIC OR FOUNDATION ASSETS AT RISK, I WILL SUBMIT TO THE LEVEL OF AMNESTICS DEEMED NECESSARY BY SCP-AAAA RESEARCHERS TO ENSURE SUCCESSFUL CONTAINMENT OF SCP-AAAA. THIS DETERMINATION MAY BE MADE O-5 COMMAND OR A CONSENSUS OF THREE OR MORE LEVEL 4 RESEARCHERS. I ALSO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT FAILURE TO ADHERE THIS AGREEMENT MAY LEAD TO DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS INCLUDING FORCED AMNESTICS, DETAINMENT, AND TERMINATION.

Item #: SCP-AAAA

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Initial containment of SCP-AAAA was executed at time of discovery and is considered successful. Due to the nature of SCP-AAAA, containment consists of periodic disinformation campaigns in response to any serious inquiry into the events occurring on SCP-AAAA. Agents are to monitor news networks, internet, and social media for references to SCP-AAAA that are of an interrogative nature. Should public questioning of SCP-AAAA begin to increase, Agents are to follow Protocol Forget Me Not, as outlined in Document AAAA-C61. Agents are authorized to target individuals demonstrating curiousity about SCP-AAAA with amnestics should Protocol Forget Me Not be unsuccessful.

Containment of SCP-AAAA has consisted of three waves of Foundation response. Waves 1 and 2 are complete and have been deemed successful. They can be viewed in Addendum AAAA-1.

Containment of SCP-AAAA has consisted of three waves of Foundation response.
Wave 1: COMPLETE
Wave 2: COMPLETE
Wave 3: Due to the nature of SCP-AAAA, containment consists of periodic disinformation campaigns in response to any serious inquiry into the events occurring on SCP-AAAA. Agents are to monitor news networks, internet, and social media for references to SCP-AAAA that are of an interrogative nature. Should public questioning of SCP-AAAA begin to increase, Agents are to follow Protocol Forget Me Not, as outlined in Document AAAA-C61. Agents are authorized to target individuals demonstrating curiousity about SCP-AAAA with amnestics should Protocol Forget Me Not be unsuccessful.

Any persons disputing Foundation altered documentation pertaining to SCP-AAAA are to be treated with Class A amnestics and given Level 3 memory implantation.

Any declaratory statements in the media regarding the nature of SCP-AAAA are to reported to a Level 4 researcher immediately. Persons, groups, or entities making these statements are to be considered a high-threat person or group of interest and monitored until such time that actual knowledge of SCP-AAAA is either confirmed or refuted. Any person or group determined to potentially have information regarding SCP-AAAA is to be detained immediately. Use of any resources deemed necessary to accomplish detention of these individuals has been authorized unanimously by the O5 council.

Description: SCP-AAAA is the entirety of global events occurring between 0:00 hours and 23:59 hours GMT on 1/14/93. To date, no written, physical, digital, or anecdotal records exist for this date. No births or deaths have been recorded as occurring on 1/14/93. No evidence of any financial, legal, governmental, or cultural events are ascribed as occurring on this date.

Examination of continuous audio and/or video recording equipment

(((date skipped from 1/13 to 1/15)))
(((astrological data says the date is correct)))

Item #: SCP-EEEE

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Following the events of x/x/x, hereby referenced as the Incident-EEEE-1, SCP-EEEE has been temporarily contained in Corridor 63, Section III of Site 97. Until such time as a proper containment unit can be devised to house SCP-EEEE, all other SCP objects detained at Site 97 are to be relocated at alternative sites. The locations of these SCP objects are to been known only to the Head Researcher in charge of each item and the O5 Command and are not to be recorded via any electronic media. Research teams are to be transported to new sites in accordance with Protocol "Blindfold" (see Addendum EEEE-a51) and are to be amnesticized upon arrival of their new location to prevent accidental dissemination of new location of Site 97 objects to SCP-EEEE.

All power at Site 97 is hereby reallocated to the devices, henceforth referenced as SCP-EEEE-1 connecting SCP-EEEE and Dr. Zachariah Sloan, hence forth referenced as SCP-EEEE-2. In the event of failure of these devices, Site 97 shall undergo Protocol "Bottoms Up." (see Addendum EEEE-b7) Furthermore, personnel on-site during failure are to be considered lost and/or hostile targets. Any survivors of Protocol "Bottoms Up" are to be terminated on site.

Any vocalizations by either SCP-EEEE or SCP-EEEE-2 are to be recorded and logged by non-electronic means.

Description: SCP-EEEE is an entity with awareness of and extreme hostile intentions towards the Foundation. SCP-EEEE resembles a human brain, measuring approx some meters by some meters, with twelve metal articulated appendages capable of transforming shape to accomplish specific tasks. SCP-EEEE demonstrates the ability for extreme speed and strength, as well as the anomalous abilities of extreme durability and mental incursion. Due to its combination of organic and inorganic materials, it is theorized that SCP-EEEE was constructed for the purpose of infiltrating Site 97 and compromising the containment of the SCP objects held therein. (See Incident EEEE-1)

While highly active and extremely dangerous before its current state, SCP-EEEE, SCP-EEEE-1, and SCP-EEEE-2 remain motionless in Corridor 63, Section III, with two notable exceptions. (See Addendum EEEE-c11) It is theorized that this stasis is the direct result and intended purpose of SCP-EEEE-1.

SCP-EEEE-1 is an anomalous device, wielded by SCP-EEEE-2, and inserted into the anterior surface of the organic portion of SCP-EEEE. SCP-EEEE-1 is constructed of various computer components somehow linking, combining, and interfacing with SCP-XXXX, SCP-XXXX, and SCP-XXXX. During initial containment, the device required no external power source. However, on x/x/x, the light emminating from SCP-EEEE-1 began to flicker. SCP-EEEE began to advance forward while SCP-EEEE-2 began to fall back. Both exhibited an anomalous time dilation, moving only a few centimeters in 24 seconds. During this interval, both said some shit. woo.

Item #: SCP-FFFF

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-FFFF is to be kept at Site 43 in a Maximum Security Containment Vault, under guard by a minimum of of two (2) armed personnel. SCP-FFFF is to be stored in a blast proof container with 15g of (explosive name) wired to a remote detonator. In the case of a Site incursion by an outside or a significant containment breach, it is the first priority of all SCP-FFFF team research members to activate the detonation switch so as to completely destroy SCP-FFFF.

All testing with SCP-FFFF is to be done under the supervision of a Level 4 Researcher. Each of the three (3) Level 4 Researchers assigned to SCP-FFFF shall only be informed of one of the subroutines of SCP-FFFF.

As a failsafe to accidental or intention compiling of the entirety of SCP-FFFF, all Site 43 computers have been fitted with a debilitating aerosol toxin to incapacitate the user attempting to run SCP-FFFF until such time that they can be apprehended, contained, and interrogated.

Description: SCP-FFFF is a ||stone|| tablet that predates all known writing civilizations (carbon dating has found SCP-FFFF to be between x and x years old.) The inscription on SCP-FFFF is a combination of a language very similar to Latin and Sanskrit. Translation show it to be a computer program written in Q-BASIC. The program is presented in four parts: Body, Subroutine SEA, Subroutine SKY, and Subroutine EARTH. According to the accompanying text, the program run in its entirety will bring about a XK-Class Scenario. However, each subroutine is independent of the others and can be compiled with the Body without the expected "Illegal Function Call" error. Each compiling of SCP-FFFF causes anomalous events within the vicinity of the computer running it. Site 43 Administrator must be notified before testing on SCP-FFFF

Item #: SCP-DDDD

Object Class: Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-DDDD was neutralized during a tactical invasion of Site 346, hereby designated Incident DDDD-31, by Mobile Task Force Units. Agents were authorized to destroy all aspects of SCP-DDDD to ensure containment of other SCP artifacts at Site 346 and to prevent Foundation assets from being captured by hostile forces.

Description: The scope of SCP-DDDD has been broadened to include all objects and individuals involved in Incident SCP-DDDD-31. While the events leading up to this reclassification stem from a single anomalous artifact, hereby referred to as SCP-DDDD-Alpha the resultant containment breach included significant additional anomalies that thus far remain unexplained. Due to the heavy damage to Site 346 in its recapture from hostile entities, it is doubtful the full scope of the events leading up to the neutralization of SCP-DDDD will ever fully be understood.

SCP-DDDD is the location formerly known as Site 346. During the events of Incident DDDD-31, the following anomalous entities and objects were reported by incursion crews.

203 instances of SCP-DDDD-1a
8 instances of SCP-DDDD-1b
14 instances of SCP-DDDD-2
28 instances of SCP-DDDD-3

SCP-DDDD-1a are humanoid entities created by SCP-DDDD-Alpha. All instances were approximately 1.2 meters tall. Twenty variations of SCP-DDDD-1a exist, each variation possessing a strong resemblance to an individual instance of SCP-DDDD-2. Entities were extremely hostile and operated with coordination against infiltrating Mobile Task Force Units without apparent communication. Entities could sustain an anomalous level of damage before expiring. All instances of SCP-DDDD-1a were terminated during Incident DDDD-31.

SCP-DDDD-1b are humanoid entities created by SCP-DDDD-Alpha. Each instance is 1.2 meters tall and bears a strong resemblance to Dr. Alan Loftfield, expert in Memetic Anomalies and Amnestic Therapy at Site 346 and consultant to SCP-DDDD Head Researcher Dr. Robert Haughton. All instances of SCP-DDDD-1b were focused on interaction with SCP-DDDD-2 and did not engage with Foundation forces. All instances of SCP-DDDD-1b were terminated during Incident DDDD-31.

SCP-DDDD-2 are organic objects bearing to a visual similarity to malus domestica¹. However, objects are only one meter in height, flesh colored, and possess human fingers growing in place of standard fruit. At time of discovery, SCP-DDDD-1b were collecting fingers and loading them into object transport carts. All SCP-DDDD-2 objects were incinerated during Incident-DDDD-31.

SCP-DDDD-3 are Foundation personnel that, through apparently anomalous means, have been altered by Dr. Alan Loftfield for the purposes of testing with SCP-DDDD-Alpha. At time of discovery, most SCP-DDDD-3 were missing several, if not all, of their fingers. Those which did had digits that did not match their skin tone. When Foundation Agents managed to breach Site 346 Safe Item Research Bay 12, entities were massed around artifact SCP-DDDD-Alpha, attempting to activate the device. Agents opened fire. All instances of SCP-DDDD-3 were terminated during Incident DDDD-31. Entities were identified as twelve D-Class Personnel, ten Custodial staff, and six Level 2 Researchers. (See Document DDDD-72 for a full list of the deceased)

SCP-DDDD-Alpha was unintentionally destroyed during the events of Incident DDDD-31. Remaining debris of object displayed no anomalous properties and have been incinerated. For full description of the object, see initial report.

Notes

Agents were able to rescue 63 staff from Site 346. Individuals have been quarantined in a Maximum Facility Humanoid Containment Unit to await debriefing and medical treatment. Discovery of personnel presenting L-Class tendencies or missing fingers is to be reported immediately.

Traces of unknown amnestic and memetic compounds were found in Site 346 main ventilation systems. Identical chemical agents were discovered in Dr. Alan Loftfield’s personal lab.
Testing of the residue shows it to induce an apathetic and unfocused mental state for up to three weeks. Researchers theorize that Loftfield intentionally released these chemicals to prevent Site 346 staff from reporting containment breach or anomalous activity.

108 Foundation employees were found deceased. Investigation concludes most perished in an attempt to recapture the Site from SCP-DDDD forces.

Dr. Robert Haughton was found dead of apparent strangulation. Forensic studies determine he expired several weeks prior discovery.

Dr. Alan Loftfield’s whereabouts are unknown. His apprehension for interrogation is of the highest priority.

Memorandum to SCP-DDDD Staff from Head Researcher Robert Haughton

It saddens me to announce that O5-Command has temporarily suspended our work on SCP-DDDD. I, like many of you, was very excited to work on this fascinating artifact. However, the safety of the Site must come before the joy of scientific discovery. I know some of you are frustrated by this outcome, but we have a month to brainstorm. I, for one, may already have come up with a way around this little hiccup.
Any ideas, you know where to find me,

Haughton

Memorandum to SCP-DDDD Staff from Head Researcher Robert Haughton

I'd like to announce the addition of Dr. Alan Loftfield to our team! Alan is an expert in all things memetic and amnestic. I had more nice things to say about him, but I somehow forgot! All joking aside, I have a feeling he's going to get us right back on track with something he's cooking up. I've gotten O5 approval to run a few tests on this potential solution as soon as his project is complete.
I will keep you informed.

Haughton

Memorandum to Dr. Robert Haughton from Dr. Alan Loftfield, expert in Memetic Anomalies and Amnestic Therapy

It is with great excitement that I announce the success of Project Loyalty. As my reports will show, Loyalty Class, or L-Class, workers possess a level of dedication to the Foundation unprecedented in even our most decorated employees, without the docility and disorientation present in sedated D-Class individuals. L-Class workers not only follow all orders given to them by Foundation personnel, but have shown time and time again to put the safety of researchers and the security of the Foundation ahead of their own lives! Furthermore, they are exceptional at taking observational notes and reporting on their experiences in scenarios in which D-Class would be too preoccupied with the accompanying sensations to report.

Thus far, the twelve L-Class personnel created have only expressed a desire to secure containment and maintain the facility. I've had them gardening and repainting some of the dingier testing bays to observe their behavior and I've never seen such commitment to getting a job done right Testing SCP-DDDD with these personnel is not only entirely safe, but could very well put us out of a job!

Alan

Addendum DDDD-06/13/17
Communique to Site 346 from Resource Management

It would seem that Site 346 resource consumption in the last few months at is at eight times the previous average. Please explain this discrepancy. The Resource Department would remind Site 346 staff that the hoarding or waste of Foundation assets will result in disciplinary action.

Incident DDDD-28
CONTAINMENT FAILURE DISTRESS CALL SITE 346
DATE: 06/17/17
TIME: 14:51
METHOD: MANUAL ALARM ACTIVATION
STATUS: UNKNOWN. MTF ENROUTE.

Item #: SCP-DDDD

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-DDDD is to be kept at Site 346 in a standard Safe Item research bay. Access to SCP-DDDD is restricted to Level 3 and 4 Researchers with a Foundation Loyalty score of 9 or higher.

As of Incident DDDD-14, testing is to be carried out with L-Class Personnel only. Use of Standard D-Class Personnel in SCP-DDDD experiments is forbidden.

Instances of SCP-DDDD-1 are to be contained individually in a Maximum Security Humanoid Containment Cell. As of Incident DDDD-14, use of lethal force is approved for non-compliant or uncontained SCP-DDDD-1 entities. In the event of a containment breach of an SCP-DDDD-1 instance, a minimum of four (4) security personnel are to report to SCP-DDDD research bay to initiate facility lockdown procedures and prevent further use of SCP-DDDD.

Description: SCP-DDDD is a rectilinear device, measuring 1.8 m high , 2 m wide, and 0.8 m deep. The device is comprised of iron, brass, walnut, and oak components. The front, right of the device features an arched, oak door, 127 cm high and 60 cm wide., On the left is a circular opening with a diameter of 6 cm, encircled by a brass casting of two, bent human fingers. The perimeter of the top and bottom of the device is adorned with 15 cm high relief carvings of depictions of small humanoids assembling shoes while a larger humanoid sleeps in a bed. Centered on the device’s front is the inscription, “Liebste Schuhmacher².”

SCP-DDDD is activated when a living human, hereby referred to as the subject, places its finger in the circular opening. Upon insertion, the digit will dematerialize; however, there is no trauma at the site of excision. Skin is unbroken and muscle tissue is reorganized over the metacarpal knuckle. The process is reportedly painless. Approximately ten seconds following finger amputation, the device's door will open and an instance of SCP-DDDD-1 will emerge.

SCP-DDDD-1 is a miniaturized copy of the subject. Instances are 1.2 meter tall, and are practically identical to subject, though all have black sclera, white irises, possess additional facial hair, and often have one enlarged or distorted facial feature. SCP-DDDD-1 entities do not speak, but understand languages spoken by the subject and will communicate with nods and hand gestures.

All SCP-DDDD-1 entities are primarily focused on accomplishing whatever task is of the utmost importance to the subject. Though they will follow instructions from the subject, instances require no communication with the subject to know the nature of the subject's objectives and will attempt to accomplish said objectives immediately upon exiting SCP-DDDD. If the subject has inserted multiple fingers into the device, all SCP-DDDD-1 instances will operate with coordination that implies an anomalous form of interaction between entities. Entities show no outward distress when experiencing physical trauma and will attempt completion of their primary goals regardless of injury.

Test 001

Date: 04/22/17
Subject: D-33901
Procedure: D-33901 was instructed by researchers to complete a 1000 piece puzzle, then asked to insert her left pinky into the opening on SCP-DDDD.
Results: Emerging instance of DDDD-1 immediately attempted a containment breach by repeatedly propelling its body at the testing chamber's reinforced glass observation window. The entity incurred multiple injuries, eventually rendering its legs useless. Regardless, the instance still attempted to drag itself in the direction of the observation window. Entity was terminated via small arms fire.
Notes: Upon interrogation, D-33901 confessed that her highest priority was to see her children again. It is theorized that the instance of DDDD-1 was attempting to facilitate that. D-33901 was terminated as a precaution to containment breach.

Test 002

Date: 04/29/17
Subject: D-66391
Procedure: D-66391 was instructed by researchers to complete a 1000 piece puzzle, then asked to insert his left pinky into the opening on SCP-DDDD.
Results: Instance of DDDD-1 emerged from SCP-DDDD and attacked D-66391, knocking him to the floor and strangling him. Agents opened fire on entity, which eventually succumbed to its injuries. D-66391's larynx was crushed in the attack and he expired shortly after.
Notes: Interrogation of D-Class personnel housed with D-66391 indicate that he had been making comments that alluded to a desire to commit suicide. It is recommended that psychological screening be a element in selecting D-Class for testing with SCP-DDDD.

Test 003

Date: 05/13/17
Subject: D-49921
Procedure: D-49921 was instructed by researchers to complete a 1000 piece puzzle, then asked to insert his left pinky into the opening on SCP-DDDD.
Results: Incident DDDD-14. (See Report below)

Incident DDDD-14

The emerging SCP-DDDD-1 entity was immediately hostile with Foundation staff. While security personnel responded to the instance, D-49921 was able to dematerialize his remaining nine fingers, creating nine more instances. Site-346 was placed into Level 3 lockdown and defense forces were reallocated from non-essential posts to secure SCP-DDDD. SCP-DDDD-1 entities acquired various firearms and makeshift striking weapons and attempted to reach the nearest egress. (How SCP-DDDD-1 instances had knowledge of Site-346 layout is unknown.) Foundation forces were successful in terminating D-49921 and SCP-DDDD-1 instances before they succeeded in breaching Site-346. Foundation suffered 12 fatalities and 36 injuries in the course of the incident.

Addendum DDDD-05/14/17a:
Communique to Dr. Robert Haughton, Head Researcher of SCP-DDDD from O5-Command

Dr. Haughton:
As many D-Class personnel are likely to prioritize escape from Site 346 above all other tasks, they are unsuitable for experimentation with SCP-DDDD. Until you can find a way around this problem, D-Class testing on SCP-DDDD is suspended.
- O5-4

Addendum DDDD-05/14/17b:
Communique to O5-Command from Dr. Robert Haughton

Understood. Not to worry. I'm sure we'll come up with something.

Item #: SCP-WWWW

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: Instances of SCP-WWWW found in low population areas are to be monitored until Stage IV of event manifestation, at which point residence location is to be destroyed used

Description:

The second he opened his eyes, his heart sank.

His mouth was slick with a thin film that tasted like peppermint and batteries. His sinuses felt greasy and his eyes felt cold and small.

Amnestics.

Something had clearly gone wrong, but the fact that he even knew what amnestics were was a sign that everything hadn’t gone completely sideways. With eyes that felt brittle, he surveyed his surroundings: Foundation dormitory, not a Quarantine Unit. Good. Not a room he recognized, but in this situation that didn’t mean much. No other personnel. No obvious danger. No apparent injuries. The only sound the lazy buzz of an air filtration unit in the ceiling.

He sat up and the taste briefly intensified. Images flitted through his head like frightened birds, the sound of alarms and a panicked babble of voices, but nothing he could hold onto. Whoever had mixed his dose had done so carelessly.

“Or in a damned hurry,” he muttered. He ran a hand down his face. “Well, let’s see the damage. Not much happening here. All right, J… “

A sharp ribbon of pain arced from his jaw to his temple, but it was peripheral to the panic that suddenly bloomed in his chest. In times of stress, he knew it was his habit to talk to himself in the third person, to give himself playful orders out loud to lessen the tension. Not this time, though. Oh no. The anxiety of the situation had just gone sailing merrily into the stratosphere.

He could not remember his name.

From a great distance, he heard the tight hiss of his breath as terror coiled itself around his heart. A very tempting idea unfolded in his mind. He should just get up and run. It didn’t matter where. It was time to flee. It was time to dig a den, put his back to a wall, bare his teeth, and hide forever. His temples throbbed the word: Hide. Hide. Hide.

Mercifully, training kicked in. BACE: Breathe. Assess. Calculate. Execute. He clamped his eyes shut and inhaled as deeply as he could, exhaled till it hurt. Again, his lungs swelled in his chest. His body began to belong to him again. Exhale, the rabbit hammer of his pulse dulled. He sat and breathed for what felt like a very long time, and then he made himself breathe some more. He pushed down the desire for empty action. After what felt like an hour but was truly only four minutes, he let his eyelids, now soft and relaxed, slowly slide open.

Assess. He stood up, his movements intentionally slow, measured. He walked to the far end of the room and pressed his back against the wall. Assess. Starting at the left of the room, he drew his gaze rightward, forcing his eyes to halt on each object and truly see it, to receive the information each individual datum could offer him about his current situation. He fought the instinct to scan, and discussed with himself each thing he saw. He assessed.

- White wall. Blank. No photos. No personality. Not a personal dorm. Clearly general purpose.
- End table. Wooden. No drawer. Purple inhaler on top. Aerosol amnestics delivery system. Trigger warning on the front showing black. Already been used.

“Self administered,” he muttered, unaware he’d spoken out loud.

Rightward.
- The bed. Standard Foundation gray. Still made. He’d been lying on top of the blanket. His indentation was still visible. Red smudges. Still tacky judging from the shine. Blood.

His discipline broke and he looked down at himself. He was dressed in a black button up shirt and gray slacks. His clothes were stiff with drying blood. His hands were tainted with traces of red. He must have washed his hands in too much of a hurry to worry about fingernails and creases. He checked himself for scratches, cuts, any sort of injury. Nothing. Whoever had done the bleeding, it hadn’t been him, but they had been close enough to share.

On the far right wall was a mirror and a sink. He shot over to it. Water drops in the white basin offered a hint of pink. He looked in the mirror. The face was familiar, thank God, but the maroon
smears from his hands still made him look a crazed stranger. He stared into his own eyes, searching for an answer he knew he didn’t possess.

“I really hope you didn’t hurt anyone,” he said to his reflection, holding the eye contact. The face looking back at him was harried. Exhausted. He’d always grown facial hair slowly, but his stubble had grown long enough to go from prickly to the beginnings of a beard.

“Assessment,” he said. “You, my friend, have a had a shitty couple of days.” He held his own gaze a bit longer, but the blood stained face didn’t seem to have anything further to add to the matter. He turned his back to the mirror and leaned against the sink.

“Calculate,” he said to the empty room, addressing the four beds as a professor to a class. “It is my calculation that I have been affected by some type of anomalous bullshit and gone and injured someone. I also calculate that since I am not in a cell or restrained, that I am in for several less than ideal surprises on the other side of that door.” He turned and looked in the direction of the room’s only exit and saw the note.

don’t read the report
don’t look around
dangerous
go straight to red phone call MTF

He immediately recognized his own handwriting.

He had taken amnestics once before. He had volunteered apparently. When it’s your decision to forget something, they let you record a message for yourself for when you wake up. That time he had woken to a medic who calmly explained his situation and had left him in the company of his recorded self. It had been weird to watch. His pre-amnestic self had looked like some essential element been ripped from his spirit. He had been sitting in a chair, but his whole demeanor felt hunched. His affect was as flat as a steel plate, but somehow his calm words felt like sobs, his unblinking stare, a wince. He had said that the amnestics were necessary. His post-amnestics self believed him one hundred percent and had never been too curious about what had broken that other version of himself so deeply. He had moved on easily.

This was different. This felt like theft. He was still in the middle of whatever needed to be forgotten. Whatever trauma he had suffered before, he’d shed like a jacket on a warm day. Just let it drop to the sidewalk and walked away from it. This was more like a tangle, a maze he didn’t know why he’d wandered into. Every time he encountered something that had happened in the hole in his memory, he felt like a stranger inhabiting his own body. The inconsistency of his knowledge inspired a dread that was a low hum all around him. How could he know his face and his handwriting, but not his name? How could he be certain what else he had forgotten? How could he ever know what he’d forgotten to know he’d forgotten.

“And why in God’s name was I cryptic with myself? Jesus Chri…”

His hand shot to his temple as a lightning bolt of blinding agony screamed from his right shoulder to the top of his head. His legs surrendered and he fell bonelessly to the floor, shrieking. The pain was terrifying, but also infuriating. Is this what he needed?! Some sort of insane skull cramp on top of all this confusion and fear. As fast as he’d fallen he leapt up, grabbing the sink and pulling himself in front of the mirror, and locked eyes with himself. The mirror shattered, his fist pounding it four times before he even realized he’d moved his arm.

Glass had found purchase in his knuckles, and rather than enrage him further, he suddenly found himself numb, stunned at what just happened. A single jagged blade of the mirror had survived his assault and hung like an icicle in its metal frame. He met his own eyes in it.

His voice was gray, toneless, like the voice he had heard on that recording all those years ago. “Assess. There is something very wrong with me.”

He spent the next few minutes pulling slivers of glass from his knuckles. His numbness had given way to morosity and dread. He knew his self-maintenance was procrastination. He knew that whatever that outburst had been, it was what put him here. He could remember enough about his life to know that he wasn’t prone to rage. Something had happened to him.

He pulled the last splinter of glass from his hand with a hiss. He wrapped his hand as best he could with one of the gray pillow cases and surveyed the room one last time, his unwounded hand on the door knob. His tantrum had sent glass, twinkling and red, well across the room. He considered it a moment, and then collected the largest shard he could find.

"Execute," he muttered. He wrapped the pillow case around the duller end of the shard and, so armed, left the room.

The hallway was chaos.

The emergency lights were flashing, but someone must have disabled the klaxon. Several storage lockers had been flung to the ground and lay on their faces like fallen soldiers. Scattered papers littered the corridor, the occasional drop or smear of red punctuating them under the strobing lights. He stood in the doorway, listening for the sounds of destruction or violence that one would expect to accompany such a scene, but all he could hear was the air system and the rush of his own blood.

He did not recognize this place.

Nor could he remember the last project of which he was a member. The last thing he could recall was lunch with… a man. Some man. No name for him either, it seemed. He sighed and stepped out into hall. His room was at the corner of an L-junction. He turned right, heading away from the lockers, papers, and hectic lighting. This way was marked with a red line on the wall labeled, “Command.” This would be his best bet was to avoid any breached Containment Units and other personnel. He would follow his own advice and call in a Mobile Task Force. The fact that they required calling and weren’t already on his way meant someone had tampered with the automated system.

“Wouldn’t be so hard,” he muttered. “ All you’d have to do is reroute power from communication to the perimeter defense grid and no one would…” His jaw tightened. It wasn’t exactly a good sign that he was so well informed on the matter.

The red line lead him through several turns. Sites were typically designed to be confusing to those without training, especially if it housed human Skips. Breaches were easier to deal with if escapees were lost and confused. He, however, moved with the confidence of someone who knew where he was. Whatever his information his mind might be missing, his muscles remembered. He barely noticed the red line as he moved towards Command. As he walked, he was met by silence. The place felt deserted. There were no papers or objects strewn about, but every emergency light had been smashed. The fluorescents above had been safe in their steel cages, but halos of yellow glass twinkled every twenty meters below each warning unit, the crunch of glass marking a slow beat as he walked.

He turned another corner and the ghost taste of amnestics whispered up his throat. The murmur of voices drifted through his head, this time with a woman’s voice in front, panicked, saying, “That’s impossible. I thought it was only with a K.” His vision doubled and he swayed, the heel of his bloody hand pressed against his forehead. When he steadied, he looked around with a deeper deja vu than he knew could exist. He knew this place. He must have been here a hundred times. A thousand. He knew this place was his as sure -

“As sure as I know my own name,” he chuckled.

The door was labeled Room 2841 and was the first he’d encountered so far that was open, even if only slightly. A dented folding chair was partially jammed under the it, giving him only a narrow view to the interior of this his room, but it was brightly lit. Inviting. In the terrible tangle that his life had become since waking, this was the first familiar thing that didn’t fill him with dread. A thought of the note that his former self had written flickered through his mind before he dismissed it with an unconscious frown. Danger or no, this was safe territory. He would briefly investigate, arm and bandage himself properly, and find a phone to call a MTF to come save him from this nightmare. At that moment, he knew for certain that there was a red phone right next to the stapler on his desk. With a minute nod, he stepped over the chair and forced open the door.

There was a lot of blood. Most of it was pooled around the head of the man lying on his side in the corner. The white lab coat was pristine where it wasn’t sprinkled with blood so red that it all but glowed. Beside his head, facedown, was small sculpture of a sphere on an oak base. He didn’t have to turn it over to know there was a plaque on the front, engraved with the phrase “The Worst Ones Are Spheres,” a gift from this dead man on the ground in front of him. He had died surprised, a look of confused alarm frozen forever on his face, slightly distorted his newly concave forehead. He slowly approached the body and crouched down in front of it. He was certain of two things: This man was his friend and he had killed him.

But he didn’t know his name.

There was nothing left to do. He stood up and walked to the red phone. He reached for it, but as his eyes lit on the open amnestics cabinet, his hand drifted to a halt. The deja vu was back. She had opened it. She… She had said that he was infected and she had run for the cabinet… and… and she…

Like a man asleep, he walked towards the purple, metal container. Purple was the color of all amnestics related equipment, but the color of the stuff was actually clear. All the worst ones are clear, his mind babbled as he opened the cabinet all the way and looked inside. Two of the holders were empty: one self admin, one weaponized. He had used the inhaler in the dorm. Who had used the other? He stood, staring into the shelves, not seeing them, groping in the darkness of his mind.

Though he stood like this for minutes, staring, unmoving, eyes wide, he gained nothing from it. His daze cleared and he turned back to the phone. He stepped towards it and something snapped under his shoe. He lifted his foot. Glasses. Her glasses. Not far off, the weaponized amnestic. The voices murmured, hers as loud as if she were right next to him, yelling, “Containment breach!! It’s not just K’s anymore!! It’s jumped! ” He could picture her lurching towards the cabinet. He had seen her over his shoulder.

The images were rapid. He had run at her and she had shot him. Sprayed him in the face, but he had hit her arm and half the dose had misted uselessly to his left. He remembered the taste, peppermint and batteries and the way the world swung sickeningly in front of him as the drug sunk into his nervous system. He remembered her panicked face. Her shouting. “My husband is named J…” She had flinched then, cringing away from him. “I can’t stay and help you. Take this,” jamming the inhaler in his hand. “It’s your only hope.” And he remembered wanting to choke her and telling her to run. Reaching for her and only getting her glasses as she fled.

Ok. All set. He’d had enough. Investigation over. Whatever had happened, it had happened to him and he needed help. Send in the calvary. He picked up the red phone and an operator answered immediately.

“Yes.”

“I need help. There’s been a breach. There’s something wrong with… people are dead. Need assistance.”

“Verify.”

Fuck. Why hadn’t this occurred to him? He’d need his clearance code, followed by his name, if he expected to be interviewed instead of simply terminated.

“Ok. Listen. I’ve been amnesticized. I don’t know my name. I need some goddamned help. My code is easter, seven, griffin, wind chime, but i can’t remember my name.”

“Verify.” Cold. Emotionless. By the numbers. Goddamn it.

His eyes searched frantically. Something in this place must have his name on it. A report was spread on his desk. He was about to move on when he saw the phrase, “violent outbursts.”

“Await authorities,” said the voice, gray and hard as slate. “Do not resist.” The line went dead.

He barely heard. He put the phone back in its cradle and read the report.

Description: SCP-3145 is an anomalous infection affecting people whose first or last names begin with the letter K. Vector for transmission of infection seems to be an airborne virus, though testing for the presence of a physical viral agent has been inconclusive. Early symptoms of infection are irritability, paranoia, and irrational emotional responses. Full onset of SCP-3145 symptoms manifest approximately eight hours after exposure, at which point infected individuals will become violent, especially at hearing a name beginning with the letter K. To date, the only treatment for SCP-3145 with any success has been amnestics specialized for name recollection.

Off to the side, there was a hurriedly scrawled note.

newly infected
Jennifer Bevan
Michael Jones
Robert Jandrue

mutation????

His skull was a cauldron of agony. His teeth clenched until they would break. He dropped the report. He blinked, reptilian, shaking with rage. The shard of glass exploded in his clenching fist. His eyes moved to another sheet of paper. His handwriting.

“It is my recommendation that until we know how this disease works, no one with any K’s in their name should be allowed to be part of SCP-3145 Research.”

And he’d signed his name.

Dr. Jacob Jespen

This time when the pain came, it was greeted with a laugh.

Special Containment Procedures: <s>SCP-LLLL is to be housed in somewhere crappy.</s> Once a day, three D-Class personnel who have never been subject to the object's effect are to observe SCP-LLLL and describe to researchers the status of the object and SCP-LLLL-1.

REVISION: To ensure Foundation personnel morale, SCP-LLLL will be housed

Item #: SCP-RRRR

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Police and emergency frequencies are to be monitored for SCP-RRRR events. Mobile Task Force Unit Epsilon 8 ("Road Flares") is to infiltrate the location of the occurrence posing as emergency first responders.

Active instances of SCP-RRRR are evidenced by flashing headlights and taillights. Do not approach within 10m of an active instance of SCP-RRRR.

SCP-RRRR-Alpha is to be contained at Site 913 for study.

If MTF-Episilon 8 arrives while an SCP-RRRR vehicle is in its active state, agents are to create a perimeter of a thirty meter radius. At no point should any Foundation staff approach or communicate with an instance of SCP-RRRR-1. Once a perimeter has been established, instance of SCP-RRRR is to be incinerated using US M9A1-7 flamethrowers. Instances may only be extinguished once structural integrity of SCP-RRRR vehicle fails and all SCP-RRRR-1 entities cease vocalizations. Media outlets are to be supplied with Disinformation Package RRRR-a and witnesses are to be administered Class B amnestics.

If MTF-Episilon 8 is unable to contain the instance of SCP-RRRR before contact is made with emergency responders or civilians, casualties are to be logged in File SCP-RRRR-35. Deceased are to be collected for analysis. If an instance of SCP-RRRR is active in a highly populated area in which the neutralization protocol (see above) would compromise suppression of public knowledge of Foundation activities, agents shall not intervene in civilians or emergency personnel interacting with SCP-RRRR. (For more information, consult Ethics Committee Protocol Document "For the Greater Good") Media outlets are to be supplied with Disinformation Package RRRR-b. Next of kin and witnesses are to be administered Class A amnestics.

Attempts to neutralize an instance of SCP-RRRR will result in it entering its active state.

Description: SCP-RRRR is the collective designation of an unknown number of anomalous 2003 Honda Civic automobiles. Instances of SCP-RRRR are matte gray, four door, and all possess Connecticut license plates. The license plate number is invariably a four letter improper noun followed a prime two digit number. (Ex: WALL17) Until activation, vehicles exhibit no anomalous characteristics or behaviors.

An instance of SCP-RRRR becomes active when it initiates an automobile accident. All evidence suggests that these accidents are intentionally caused by SCP-RRRR vehicles. Instances will typically veer off of roadways and impact stationary objects, but have been observed colliding with other vehicles. Accidents caused by SCP-RRRR vehicles are always severe in nature, leading to extensive damage to surrounding objects and themselves. Once SCP-RRRR vehicles have come to rest after impact, headlights and taillights will begin to flash at a rate of 108 times a minute. At this point, an instance of SCP-RRRR enters its active state.

SCP-RRRR-1 are the passengers of SCP-RRRR instances. Observation of SCP-RRRR-1 entities in instances of SCP-RRRR vehicles prior to activation has found them to appear as nonanomalous humans of varying age and gender. However, independent movement has not been observed in any SCP-RRRR-1 entity, with all passengers facing forward. Drivers of vehicles always have both hands on the steering wheel but do not move in correspondence with the movement of the vehicle. Photographic and video records of SCP-RRRR vehicles show them to be devoid of passengers.

During collisions, SCP-RRRR-1 instances are often ejected from the vehicle and universally suffer grievous injuries. SCP-RRRR-1 entites will remain at their location at the conclusion of the accident and have never been observed displaying an ability for independent motion. Entities have been observed bleeding and seem to possess the internal organs of nonanomalous humans. Following the collision, SCP-RRRR-1 entities will call out for assistance and medical attention.

When SCP-RRRR is in its active state, any person who comes within 10m of an SCP-RRRR-1 entity will instantly replace that entity at its location and incur all injuries that said entity has suffered. This effect will occur until all entities have been replaced this way, at which point the vehicles lights will cease flashing and the instance will be considered inactive.

Addendum

On ██/██/██, an instance of SCP-RRRR was reported by embedded agents in the ████████ County Police department in rural ██████, Maine on RT-██. The instance had collided with a tree and become active. Three SCP-RRRR-1 entities were at the scene, two contained within the vehicle and one 8m from the crash. Due to the remote location, MTF Unit Beta 11 ("Toxic Avengers") was dispatched to close the highway under the guise of a the clean up of a hazardous waste spill and secure containment of the instance. Containtment was successful and Site 913 was established at the location. RT-██ was diverted 3km west.

Entities present bore the appearances of an adult male, an adult female, (both inside the SCP-RRRR-Alpha) and a female child (8m from the vehicle), designated SCP-RRRR-1A, SCP-RRRR-1B, and SCP-RRRR-1C, respectively. Vehicle, license plate BOOK31, has been designated SCP-RRRR-Alpha.

Phil glanced at the clock. 6:13. Seven hours, forty three minutes. He took a deep breath, trying not to notice anything about what that felt like, and returned to his work.

Unfortunately, work was moving even slower than the time. They had brought him everything he had requested, but he found that the stamina it took to focus on the concept only, to move past physical experience was lacking. Maybe if meditation had been his thing in life he could have found some safe corner in his mind, but he'd never had the attention span for that sort of shit.

He absent-mindedly touched his face. His bulbous, greasy fingers, soft and somehow boneless like plastic bags bursting with wet deli meat slopped across a face as cold and hard and rigged as the plaster cast of a corpse that had been mutilated, inflated out of proportion of anything human, angular and horrible, the temperature of curdled milk left in a dank sewer under a festering-

He gagged. The sound of his gag, bestial and thick with tangled clots of slippery flesh, made him retch. And that, that fun little symphony of horrors, made him mercifully drift away from himself for a bit. These interludes were never long enough. No matter how badly he might wish to live up in the breezy shadows of his mind, he always came back, trapped, a prisoner in this unyielding hell. His body.

He opened his eyes, one huge, wet, and devoid of intelligence, the other squinting, reptilian, caked with dried ichor, and looked at the clock. 6:15. What the fuck.

With a nod of his thick, asymmetrical head on the spindly, tentacle root of his neck, he grit his jagged, slimy teeth together and began to mash his soft, fat, wet fingers on the keyboard.

Angela,
I thought I saw you walk past me. I thought maybe you'd changed your mind and didn't get on the plane. I called out to you and it felt like you heard me. They say it wasn't you and I believe them, but I'm still glad I got to see you one last time, even if I really didn't.

I'm not allowed to say where I'm going, but I'm leaving in seven hours and thirty nine minutes. Some things have happened that I can't explain, and even though we probably wouldn't have ever seen each other again anyway, it still sort of shocks me that now I know we won't. This is goodbye. I don't even really know if

He grabbed the laptop by its screen, registering dimly how long and white and horrible his fingers were, and launched it at the wall. What a load of shit. What a piss poor excuse of a love letter. Love? She was gone and there was nothing to say and fuck it. The laptop sailed across the room into the corner. But rather than explode as he felt it should, it clattered to the floor with a sound that was as disappointing as it was plastic. Jesus. It wasn't even broken. The clock above it read 6:23.

His gnarled shoulders slumped. Fuck it. He filled his putrid lungs with breath and screamed.

"I want it NOW!" His voice was high and reedy, insectile, yet also an idiot bellow. A yak caught in a trap. He could smell his breath pouring up from the depths of his shit soaked center. It was everything he could do not to stop that horrible sound, but this message was too important. "I WANT IT NOW!! FUCK YOUR WAITING PERIOD, YOU FUCKING HEAR ME!!?? NOOOWWW!!!"

Maybe they had been watching. The door hissed opened. A man stepped carefully through the door, his pistol as white as his haz-mat suit. Phil new the suit wasn't necessary, but he also didn't blame him.

"Thank god. Please, just…" he garbled at him, and the man visibly winced. Phil's eyebrows went up and his bony claws dropped to his jagged, twisted hips.

"Oh yeah well fuck you t…"

The gun went off six times.

Howard knew he should be afraid.

He knew any place where they insisted on calling you by a number was a place you didn’t want to be. He knew that a lab coat gave a man the idea that he could do things to people that he normally wouldn’t do. He had heard the whispers. He knew that sometimes the men, clad in disposable looking orange jumpsuits, that they took away from the dormitory were sometimes never seen again.

He knew he should have the same hollow, terrified look he saw in the eyes of all the other D-Class. But each time he searched his heart for fear, he never found it. Perhaps it was there somewhere, but it was buried beneath a much stronger feeling.

He was excited.

The world before his incarceration at Site-48 had been one of banal certainties. Up was up. People were people, just greedy animals pushing and shoving to reach the tops of their sad little hills. Money governed the world. The secrets kept were gray: who killed who, who bought who, which politicians were puppets, which corporations were the puppeteers. There was nothing hiding in the dark. There was no veil to be pierced. Death was not a door, just a fade to endless black.

On his first day here, he was escorted to a room that had seemed like any other, but when he entered it he had found himself in a vast darkness, reaching back and up into an eternity. The only light came from a circle of red candles, flickering madly without source of wind. In the center was a little girl in a white dress, wearing pigtails held by ribbons the same murky red as the candles around her. She was staring at him with a fuming gaze and a malevolent expression on her face.

She hovered three feet off the ground. Her eyes were red.

He had been given a line to deliver to her, but it wasn’t until prompted by the voice in his earpiece that he remembered to do anything but meet that crimson gaze with gaping awe.

Howard cleared his throat and spoke his line. “We await your prophecy.”

She spoke to him in his father’s voice. Not his rich, laughing cadence, but his deathbed voice. Choked with cancer and dread, in those terrible days when the sickness had found its way up his spine and into his brain.

The words didn’t matter. He was sure they had recorded them because they never asked. He wouldn’t have remembered anyway. Listening had been a migraine, drawing whimpers from his lips and a torrent of blood from his nose. And there had been pictures forced into his head, the fingers of her words driving into the soft of his mind like a boot into mud. Buildings falling. The sky burning. A hundred thousand souls afflicted with boils and plagues. The end. The end of everything.

He shuffled back to the dormitory led by two guards with hands loosely clasped around his biceps. They knew he was beyond running. What they didn’t know was that beneath his physical distress, the seed of the excitement he would come to know had found purchase in the soil of his heart.

A demon, he thought, I just met an honest to god motherfucking demon.

Perhaps that wasn’t accurate. Maybe she was just some megalomaniac, psychic eight year old with a serious grudge to bear on the human race. It didn’t really matter, did it? Whatever she was, he was certain she was real. The veil he never believed was there had been lifted.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Howard thought, and if he hadn’t been so drained by the encounter, he probably would have let out a little giggle.

He lay on his bunk feeling as if he had run ten miles, his body limp, but his mind raced. Surely they didn’t need this massive facility for just one evil little girl. When they brought him here, they had ushered him through endless gray corridors, down countless floors in a freight elevator, and then through another maze until they reached Dormitory 64. It housed about fifty of his orange clad brethren. Even if this was the last of the dorms, which he doubted very much, that was at least 300 inmates just like him. Far too many to use on one little demon. What else did they keep here? How many other monsters were there? How many other Sites like this existed.

His stomach suddenly cramped and he rushed to the latrine in his cell just in time. As his body released its sick, he still knew was luckier than some of the others. If the rumors were to be believed, and at this point why not, diarrhea and a nosebleed was a birthday party compared to the other options available.

The days passed. They had taken him to his new acquaintance twice more and each time had been the same. The line was spoken, his body and mind was assailed, his weakened form escorted back to his cell to lay limply until the sickness came. The miraculous might have become monotony if not for the growing excitement. He had been tempted to break the script, to ask the little prophetess his own questions, but for all his excitement and curiosity, he was no fool. Disobedience was not tolerated by men who named you a number.

And so Howard sat, watching his fellow D-Class over a meal that was as institutional as the aluminum tin it came in, waiting for his next visit with what he had come to think of as his Little Demon. There was never much conversation in the cafeteria, and if there was it was always in a conspiratorial whisper. Most of the men, like himself, had come from prison and were well accustomed to the culture between inmate and guard. You did your best to let the screws know as little about you as possible. Any information was a weakness to be turned against you. They find out you like fresh air? Expect solitary. They find out you like to jog to pass the time in the yard? Expect the next blow to the knee. The find out you’ve made a friend or two? Watch how long they let that last.

He found the guards here were different, though. They didn’t look to take advantage of your humanity. Rather, they seemed to disregard it entirely. They all looked on you with flat gray eyes, the way someone might regard a piece of furniture: invisible until it had a use. It wasn’t like they had to worry about escape attempts or violence. The place defined the word fortress: clearly underground, everything made of concrete and steel, cameras roosting in every possible corner like sleeping bats. And the guards had armor out of some sci-fi war movie, sometimes wearing helmets that obscured their faces behind black, reflective glass. Not quite Stormtroopers, but the comparison could be made, though he doubted there was anything amiss with how they aimed the rifles they carried. His uncle had been a sergeant in the Marines, and every one of these guys made him look a soft as taffy.

If the guards had more interest in the inmates, they may have noticed that he was different than those around him. He didn’t hunch over his meal, his posture bent by terror, like a rabbit expecting a hawk to swoop in a flash of talons and feathers. He surveyed the dorm like a man on a lunch break, sitting on a park bench and enjoying the breeze. He had been in prison long enough to know you didn’t sit around smiling unless you wanted someone’s fist to change the shape of your mouth, but if the guards had looked closer, they might have seen something in his eyes or the corners of his mouth to betray him. And so, relaxed as he was, on the verge of lounging in his seat waiting to visit his Little Demon, he was the first inmate to notice when things suddenly went wrong.

Howard saw when the guards simultaneously stiffen, a few raising their gloved hands to their ear, listening intently as some transmission came over their radio. He saw when half the contingent guarding them moved hurriedly towards the door, the first urgently punching the keypad. When the door hissed upward, he heard a popping sound he knew well from what he thought of, affectionately, as the Bank Caper that ultimately ended with his residence at Site-48. Of course, on that occasion it had been far more intimate, not distant pops but loud bangs and the whine of bullets meant for him, missing their mark. He had sent his own in return, and with better aim. He had no illusions that he was not where he belonged.

The door closed behind the troop and for a few minutes, all was quiet again. A few of the other inmates also looked towards the door, roused from the daze of their imprisonment by the activity. It seemed that would be the extent of the excitement and Howard relaxed a little.

Then the door exploded, showering the nearest two tables with chunks of concrete the size of volley balls.

The hallway was awash in red light and now gunfire hammered the air in the cafeteria. A guard went pelting past the door from the right, followed by a tendril of scarlet brilliance. It winked out a moment later, finding its target past Howard's view. Following it close behind was his Little Demon, glowing feverishly. She drifted past the hole that was once a door. She never spared the inmates a glance, but several of the ribbons of red light flowing from her flew into the room and struck some of the survivors of the initial blast. They were replaced with gleaming skeletons that stood, held by some invisible force. When she had passed, they collapsed in a clatter of bones. The remaining guards in the cafeteria pursued, opening fire that crashed around them like thunder. And then they, too, were gone.

The silence that followed was a physical thing. No one moved. Then an alarm began to bray and their hypnotism was broken. One of the prisoners suddenly leapt from their collective paralysis and fled through the door. He was momentarily followed by a torrent of the rest.

All this Howard watched from his seat, now tense and upright, but unmoving. He waited until but a few stragglers remained and rose from the bench. The fleeing inmates had their choice of left, towards the murderous thing that had floated past them, and right, from which the thing had come. There was no consensus, and so they split into twin orange rivers. The handful that remained busied themselves by cowering beneath tables and in corners. The alarm continued its shrill cries.

He rose and cautiously approached the opening. He should have been afraid. Or gleeful at the prospect of escape. At the very least, some engine of self preservation should have roared to life and made its demands. He felt none of these things.

What he felt was excitement. And purpose.

Maybe none of the others had seen the world remade in his Little Demon’s image. The seas of bile. The sky choked with ash. The twisted, festering corpse of a world destroyed. Maybe they hadn’t seen what he’d seen, or maybe they didn’t care, but he had and he did. When he reached the door, he turned right, towards where the men in white coats had imprisoned his Little Demon.

The hallway was littered with bones. Most of the many doors had suffered the same fate as the one he had passed through, and their gaping holes revealed some workstations, but mostly more endless corridors. This place was even bigger than he had thought. Hopefully his Little Monster hadn’t blown the doors off the cells of some of her fellow inhabitants. Occasionally he would see a man in an orange jumpsuit darting down one of these revealed passageways, but his corridor was clear of people. The bones scattered about were probably a strong deterrent. He proceeded onward, doing his best not to disturb the gruesome little piles and trying not to be too hard on himself when he did. The bones' previous owners were well beyond caring.

The hallway was awkward and angular, he assumed by design. It made traveling quickly difficult, surely an extra measure against escape attempts of any kind. His Little Demon had been unhindered, though, sometimes leaving a smoldering hole where a jutting corner had been. Even still, his view forward was often obscured, but he was good with direction, and knew he was going the right way.

But with his line of sight obscured and the endless howl of the alarms, he had no awareness that he was no longer alone until the D-Class crashed into him, hard, running in the other direction. He didn’t know the guy’s name, but he knew him just the same. It’s hard not to remember the tallest, biggest, meanest looking bastard you’d ever seen in your life. 6'6" at least, probably over three hundred pounds, the epitome of criminal muscle. Howard rebounded off him, and then was instantly pulled close as the big moose grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him. He made no demands. His face was blank with idiot, animal terror, barely seeing the man he was throttling. Howard weighed in at a modest 170, and flopped like a doll in the giant's grip. Even still, Howard prided himself as a man who knew how to handle himself and stay cool when things went sideways. Had his head not been whipping back and forth, he might have rolled his eyes.

Some people simply cannot handle themselves in a crisis, he thought, and punched the man square in the throat. He left him gasping on the floor and moved on.

He arrived at his Little Monster’s cell without further incident. The wall and the door were rubble. Without her malign presence, the place was no longer a vast, dark cave, but a holding cell not much larger than his. The candles remained in their circle save for one, lying on its side, and all were extinguished. The room adjacent was also blown apart. It was clearly an observation room for keeping an eye on her and avoiding her terrible stare. Flames flickered here and there, and while he assumed a facility such as this would have some sort of fire suppression system, it clearly hadn’t shown up to the party. In the center of the room was a desk ringed by three piles of bones. It had avoided most of the damage, though a chunk of concrete sat in its middle like the world’s most excessive paperweight. He pushed it aside and scanned the papers scattered over the desk's surface.

Howard believed himself fairly intelligent, but most of what he saw was completely beyond him. Finally, he came upon a document labeled, “Restricted to Level 3 Access Only.” Promising. He broke the seal of the document and flipped through the pages.

Once, long before the Bank Caper, he had purchased a book shelf from Ikea. After reading the assembly instructions three times, he had unceremoniously dumped the fifty or so pieces in his basement for his future self to contend with. For all he knew, it was still there. This document was three times as long and five times more confusing. What the hell is a Keter? He leafed through Testing Logs and Addendum with a growing sense of frustration. He took a breath and started over. Finally, he found what he was looking for.

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3108-1 is to be housed in a standard Humanoid Containment Unit. At all times, SCP-3108-1 must be encircled by ten lit instances of SCP-3108-2. If at any time an instance of SCP-3108-2 is removed or extinguished, failsafe protocol Epsilon-48a must immediately be enacted.

Failsafe, my ass, Howard thought.

He gathered up an armful of loose papers and rolled them into a makeshift torch. In the far corner of the room, a table that once held testing supplies of some kind had gone from smoldering to merrily burning, letting out an increasingly problematic plume of acrid smoke. He hurried over, lit his torch and dashed into his Little Demon’s private quarters.

In his hurry, he almost went ass over tea kettle when he stepped on a femur. He skidded along and managed to keep his balance. The pile of bones was beside the fallen candle. Perhaps she had convinced someone to knock it over. Or maybe the poor bastard had flubbed his one line. He righted the candle and lit it.

The response was immediate. An inhuman screech filled the room, drowning out the constant alarm completely. He felt her racing towards him. He scrambled around the circle and had all but one lit when she flew into the doorway.

She was almost to bright too look at, but he met her red gaze regardless. Had he thought it fuming? Now it was blazing, two twin suns straight from hell burning into the core of him. His head flooded with obsenities, flesh and flame and disease and death. A red tendril ripped out from her, filling his vision. He dropped to his belly and watched it fly over his shoulder and bend back to wrap him in its killing light. He thrust his sputtering torch towards the last candle and knew he was dead.

He lay there a moment before he realized death hadn’t come. The candle was lit. His Little Demon floated again in the center of the circle, her usually dead face a snarl of hate. She hammered at him with images. His mother ravaged by unspeakable creatures. His father a mass of tumors yet still somehow alive, writhing in agony. His own corpse squirming with maggots the size of severed fingers. Death. Rot. Despair.

Mewling like a wounded animal, he fled from her on all fours. Once he rounded the corner, free from her otherworldly sight, the pictures stopped, but his mind felt like it had been wrung by clawed hands and soaked in pus. His nose was a river of blood and the sobs that wrenched out of him were harsh and painful. When the weeping subsided, he leaned back against the wall, exhausted. He sat there for what felt like a very long time.

Perhaps he dozed. Maybe his mind just let him escape for a bit. Either way, the three guards, armed with guns that looked like they might destroy a building with a single shot, scared a little scream out of him when they suddenly appeared standing over him, their faces hidden behind the black glass of their helmets. One looked in the room, and gave a little nod. He stepped a distance away and began talking quickly into the headset in his helmet.

“What happened?” demanded the nearest guard. His weapon wasn’t trained on Howard, but his posture was still of one in a combat situation. Howard weakly raised his hands and stood on legs that made no promise of holding him up for long.

“I…” he began, and then coughed a bit. The guard stood watching him, inscrutable behind his helmet. Howard took a deep breath and began again.

“I lit the candles. I went into that room and found that report. I’ll show you.”

They let him stumble into the observation room to the desk. He leaned against it for support. He picked up the document, and held it out to the guard. The guard glanced at it briefly before snapping it shut.

““You read the report?” The voice was distorted, digitally amplified, and cold.

“Yes,” he turned and glanced towards the wall between him and his Little Demon. It was mostly holes and through it he could see her. She was staring into his eyes, and for the first time since their first encounter, she was smiling. With lips that felt numb he said, “I had to figure…”

And that is when they shot him.

Location of SCP-WWWW on 3/24/19

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-WWWW is to be monitored by an onsite Observation Team posted at Site-WWWW-Beta, posing as a road construction team repairing Route-██. Agents are not to enter SCP-WWWW area or approach SCP-WWWW-1 unless civilians appear to be in imminent danger. The location of SCP-WWWW-1 is to be recorded in Log-WWWW on a daily basis.

SCP-WWWW-2 is to be contained in a Standard Humanoid Containment Unit. All living and interview areas shall bear the resemblance of a psychiatric ward in compliance with Standard Containment Protocols Document 12-C.

Addendum: As of Incident-WWWW-09, Observation Team members must be transferred offsite every thirty days. Researchers onsite are to make daily reports identifying the original position of SCP-WWWW-1. Researchers not involved with study of SCP-WWWW are to compare this information to Control Document SCP-WWWW-A. Any staff found making reports that are in conflict with Control Document SCP-WWWW-A are to be transferred from the project immediately and treated with Class B amnestics.

Description: SCP-WWWW is the phenomenon affecting ████████ High School and SCP-WWWW-1, the ███████ City Water Tower, both located in ███████, Massachusetts. Due to the cognitohazardous properties of SCP-WWWW, research into the phenomenon's history has proven difficult. Official documentation of the construction and use of SCP-WWWW-1 as a water source have either been removed from record or have never existed. Municipal workers have been determined to be under the influence of the phenomenon's cognitohazardous effect. However, Researchers estimate that anomalous activity began some time in the winter of 2018.

SCP-WWWW-1 is the ███████ City Water Tower. The structure is 44m high, with a diameter of 25m, and can hold approximately 450,000L of water. SCP-WWWW has no external points of entry and attempts to breach the structure have proven unsuccessful. At the time of first reporting, it is estimated that SCP-WWWW-1 is at approximately 60% capacity.³

The structure is capable of spontaneous relocation, with an estimated range of 40m. Water containment capabilities of SCP-WWWW-1 are unaffected by its relocation. SCP-WWWW-1 also imposes an cognitohazardous effect on all people with familiarity of the object⁴, such that they believe its current location to be where the object has always been, regardless of its unusual placement. Subjects challenged about the logic of the placement of SCP-WWWW-1 will express disinterest in discussing SCP-WWWW-1 and will exhibit frustration at continued questioning about the object. During all interviews about SCP-WWWW-1, subjects have invariably stated, "Well, everyone needs water."

SCP-WWWW-2 is Claudine ██████████, a former chemistry teacher at the school. SCP-WWWW-2 is unaffected by the cognitohazardous effect of SCP-WWWW-1. The reason for this immunity is not currently understood. On 4/14/18, SCP-WWWW-2 was arrested on for reckless endangerment, driving under the influence of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a explosive materials, and conspiracy to commit terrorism. She was remanded to ███████ Psychiatric Hospital after reporting the properties of SCP-WWWW to interviewing officers. SCP-WWWW-2 was identified as POI by Foundation agents embedded in ███████ Police Department. On 4/18/19, Claudine ██████████ was retrieved by agents and transferred to Site-177, which it believes is a mental health facility, and designated SCP-WWWW-2.

According to interviews conducted SCP-WWWW-2, at some point during March of 2018, SCP-WWWW-1 relocated approximately 30m towards the █████████ High School. SCP-WWWW-2 claims that it was originally unsure of this and believed that it was mistaken in this assessment. However, when SCP-WWWW-1 then relocated approximately 26m to a field adjacent to the school, SCP-WWWW-2 began to question others about the structure's location. When SCP-WWWW-1 relocated to the school's soccer field, SCP-WWWW-2 contacted law enforcement authorities, who deemed the reports unworthy of investigation. Claudine ██████████ then acquired explosive materials with the intention of destroying the object. While en route to SCP-WWWW-1, SCP-WWWW-2 was stopped by police for erratic driving and arrested.

Geographical and structural analysis of the area affected by SCP-WWWW have led researchers to believe the original location of SCP-WWWW-1 to be approximately 91m from its current position, though it is possible SCP-WWWW-1 spontaneously relocated to its suspected origin from another position. Research into this is ongoing.

Addendum: Incident WWWW-09

On 5/16/19, staff transferred to Site-WWWW-Beta discovered that SCP-WWWW-1 had relocated such that it was integrated with ████████ High School. SCP-WWWW Researchers voted unanimously to evacuate the school under the guise of a gas leak. Students and staff were transferred to ███████ Hospital to be treated for testing of toxic levels of gas inhalation, at which point loose containment of all individuals was established. Medical examination of individuals found them all to be suffering symptoms of hyperhydration and were treated accordingly. According to school records, 73 students and 6 staff were unaccounted for. Interviewed faculty and students professed no knowledge of missing individuals.

Observational staff posted at SCP-WWWW testified that SCP-WWWW-1 had always been part of the school structure. It was determined these researchers were under the cognitohazardous effect of SCP-WWWW. All individuals were treated with Class B amnestics and contained for observation.

During investigation of the school, multiple postings were discovered reminding students to attend "Water Classes." Drinking fountains, all operational, were found in hallways at 2m intervals, numbering 283 in total. Several classrooms were devoid of desks and chairs. These rooms all had functional fountains at their center. In the main office, schematics for the installation of swimming pools in the gymnasium, cafeteria, and basement were found hung on bulletin boards. On the third floor, investigation teams discovered a previously nonexistent door labeled "Water." This door lead to a a scaffold structure up to a door in the side of SCP-WWWW-1. The interior of SCP-WWWW-1 had the appearance of a nonanomalous water tower. All missing students and faculty were found drowned inside the structure. The water supply of SCP-WWWW-1 was discovered to be at 73% capacity at this time.

Foundation Agents embedded in Massachusetts state government had ████████ High School declared structurally unsafe and permanently closed. Students and were administered Class B amnestics and enrolled in adjacent districts. Faculty were administered Class A amnestics and provided with documentation consistent with permanent lay off. Agents were dispatched to inform families of the deceased that they had perished in the reported gas leak. However, families in question were discovered to be under the cognitohazardous effect of SCP-WWWW and had no memory of the individuals killed in the incident.

Addendum: Incident WWWW-11

On 6/5/19, Agents in observation of SCP-WWWW-1 reported its original location as being inconsistent with Control Document SCP-WWWW-A. Agents were deemed under the cognitohazardous effect of SCP-WWWW and were recalled from the field and amnesticized. Agents transferred to Site-WWWW-Beta reported that the object had spontaneously relocated 28m in the direction of the downtown commercial district of ███████. Neutralization of SCP-WWWW-1 is pending O5 approval.

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Item #: SCP-1032-J

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1032-J is self containing in a small room that is somehow humid and hot in the middle of goddamned November.

Description SCP-1032-J is a special education teacher's meeting with that clearly has no discernible end. All civilians within SCP-1032-J are never going to get out of there and should be considered lost. Foundation staff are not to enter the room in which SCP-1032-J is contained, as they will probably end up getting involved in a discussion about another IEP, and yes we want to help all of our students but Jesus Christ there is only so long I can sit still. One fifteen minute break over the course of four hours? Are you fucking kidding me.

Civilians trapped in SCP-1032-J will sometimes pretend to use the bathroom as a means of hiding for a few precious minutes, but will inevitably return to the meeting. Whether this is an anomalous effect or a pathological sense of devotion is yet to be determined.

Addendum 1032-000000001
Experimentation has determined that striking ones head on the table does not cause SCP-YYYY-J to end, but does illicit a sympathetic and understanding look from other poor bastards trapped in this eternal fucking thing.