What You See is (Not) What You Get - SCP Foundation

Krona Midaeus cast her gaze around the fluid reality surrounding her, brief ideas forming and dissipating before taking shape fully. She was no stranger to lucid dreams, but the experience always took a few moments to get used to. Krona decided that, even if this wasn't her physical body, she needed to sit down for a second. A bench manifested behind her, and she took a seat.

Her eyes were closed when she realised that she wasn't alone any more. A strange experience that, knowing that you're not the only conscious being inside your head. Nevertheless, when she opened her dreaming self's eyes once again and looked to the right, she observed a suited man lighting a cigar.

"You know, it's rude to appear in a girl's head without buying her dinner first."

"Apologies, you understand how that might be difficult to achieve when one doesn't exist physically." The suited man turned to look at her, his face obscured by the fuzziness of a dream. "You know who I am, I take it?"

"I know what you are, nobody knows who you are."

"Good answer."

The suited man turned back to observe the dream space, as a large bird or possibly plane appeared over the horizon. "Call me Richard."

"Alright then. What have you come to portend, Richard?" Krona tried to keep herself composed, but it's not every day that a Keter class comes to visit.

"Someone in your little facility has made a critical error. If you do not address it in the next two days, you will be killed, alongside everyone in Site-34, the state of California, and the veil will be irrevocably breached for a hundred years to come."

Richard took a long drag on his cigar.

Krona took a moment to take in all of the information, wishing she had a better memory so that she could record all of this information later. Unfortunately for her, the suited man was not done.

"I don't even believe you've given the offending object any special containment procedures? Simply another curiosity to be put in a standard locker alongside all of the rest. That little curiosity is an anchor… Actually no, more accurately it's a parasite, latched on to your reality like a leech. If it is allowed to persist, will consume your reality at an exponential rate until it is finally destroyed with a stolen eiganweapon by the Global Occult Coalition."

Krona shook her head as she tried to contain all of the information she was being given. She sighed and prepared to ask the question that so many before had asked.

"What can I do?"

"You have two options, destroy the anomaly, or revise its containment procedures in such a way that it can't drain everything. Regardless of what you choose, it's time to wake up."

Two days had passed since her encounter with SCP-990, and Krona was now stood in the anomalous objects storage vault. In spite of her best efforts, she couldn't find any way to contain the object that didn't require massive human sacrifice, not without knowing more about how it worked. D-class may not be treated like people at times, but that doesn't mean they didn't deserve to live.

So instead she opened the unlocked safe, and picked up the object in her free hand. It floated a good half inch above her palm, as if contained in by an invisible sphere, and placed in on the floor. What she was about to do would save millions, but nobody except for her and Richard would know of it. Instead, she would probably get reprimanded for destroying an anomalous object without proper reason. She took her sledge in both hands, and with a grunt of exertion struck the object on its invisible edge.

Reality flexed under the pressure of the hammer blow, and for a moment Krona was transported back into the dream. A galleon sailed on an invisible sea of bones, with herself tied to its mast. She strained against the ropes holding her there until they stretched like chewing gum, and she was once more free to swing the weapon of mundane destruction at the orb on the deck in front of her. The air shifted again, and Krona found herself ensnared in the thick undergrowth of a jungle. Unidentifiable creatures crawled all around her. She closed her eyes for a moment, and in her mind saw the sphere's unseen but clearly damaged exterior. The metal 'surface' inside burned red in anger and rage that she would dare to try and bring harm to it. Krona did not care, and she tore through the thick vines that ensnared her, and once more struck the sphere.

Finally she was returned to the storage room, wearily holding her bending sledgehammer above the nearly broken object. The cracks spread like a spider's web across its invisible surface, in fact slightly beyond it, almost fading out of the air as though the lines of the crack were seeping deeper into the universe.

Krona threw her broken tool to the side, and stepped up to the object with a determined look upon her face.

"Get stuffed." She said, stamping the object into non-anomalous shrapnel.