The One Thousand Deaths of Pastor Lewis Robinson: The Ethics of Repeatedly Drowning Baptists - SCP Foundation

Special thanks to KateMcTiriss for the tale's name. And all of the feedback from 19.

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F.A.Q.

The following letter was among several similar unsent letters, the initial recovery of which is credited to Dr. Jacobs. Following their recovery, and at Dr. Jacobs' request, a psychological review was ordered.

Hey asshole,

To Whom it May Concern,

Dear Doctor Jacobs,

I've been working for you for 10 years. You've sent me on so many assignments I've lost count. And each one was shittier worse than the last. This site is quite possibly the worst I've ever had to review. You know sometimes I think you forget that I'm a human being with emotions and feelings. Is it possible that while sitting up in your ivory fucking tower you forgot that?

Whatever. I went to Site-88 like you said. I talked to them about 2557. Here's the report: The containment procedures are necessary and appropriate. They are also the worst I've ever seen. 2557 is a baptismal pool. Yeah. I know what you're thinking, you've got the SCP Report in front of you. I don't care. You need to read it again jackass.

So this guy in the pool, Lewis Robinson (SCP-2557-1 in the report), was a pastor at this church in South Alabama. He made a mistake one day and accidentally drowned a kid in the pool. Whatever else happened, we know this for certain, that night the pool brought the kid back to life.

They called it a miracle. He woke up in the morgue and that was supposed to be it. The pastor though, they found him in the pool the next morning. Just standing there and staring. Someone Something in that church decided to take the term "born again" literally. It uses the pastor to kill and resurrect anyone else who gets into the pool. And just like the report says, it doesn't work on dead bodies (that would just be too convenient right?).

For a while the Foundation provided it with new D-Class to keep it busy and to test the effect. But eventually we ran out of things to test, and we still hadn't figured out how to neutralize it. So we tried a new test, we gave it no one. We waited.

Turns out the thing was fine with that too. Every day at 12:45 PM Lewis Robinson gets control of his body back. Just enough control to cry out for help before something pulls him under. He drowns. He comes back every night, and just stands there staring again. This has happened once a day for the last 3 and a half years.

Great right? A simple solution, we don't have to expose any more people to the anomaly, and it contains itself. This is perfect for us, right?

I had to observe several of these incidents among the other shit stashed at Site-88. So when I got the email yesterday congratulating me on being made a permanent liaison to Site-88, I wanted to put my fist through the computer screen. Fuck you. No thank you.

In fact, let me be clear here: I don't want to work for you anymore. I'm done with you, I'm done with the Committee, and I'm done with the Foundation.

Go fuck yourself.

I quit.

Dr. Melissa White, Ethics Committee Liaison.

Dr. Jacobs' psychological evaluation determined no apparent issues which would contribute to the creation of these letters, and he has been returned to service.

However, the complete absence of Dr. Melissa White from our personnel database triggered an investigation of previously unknown secondary effects relating to objects currently under containment at Site-88 (where Dr. Jacobs serves as permanent liaison).

It has been determined through extensive follow up testing that a secondary effect related to SCP-2557 occurs in the absence of provided victims and results in minor reality shifts.

This secondary effect was neutralized by the provision of a single D-Class personnel for repeated use during 2557 events. Except to prevent this D-Class from escaping the containment chamber, no further interaction with 2557 is necessary.

Continued monitoring of reality levels at Site-88 is considered mandatory. Any serious deviation from baseline levels (less than .8 humes) is to be reported immediately to the Site Director.

Given the significant period of time 2557 was without victims, and the current total of catalogued reality shifts being far below the number of expected incidents, this investigation is ongoing.

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