Losing the Plot - SCP Foundation

Nina Angelica Weiss is sixty years old. Most days, she moves like she's at least ten years younger due to a strict regimen of physical fitness— one that she scarcely needs, now.

She walks through the corridors of Site-87, under armed guard; technically a prisoner now, due to what I did to her. I walk beside her, a gnawing dread on the back of her neck. She swipes at me as if I were a common mosquito, and I make an appropriate buzzing sound.

A containment alarm goes off. I am there, too, making a grown woman have a panic attack. Dr. Margaret Reese has a degenerative condition, one unknown to her colleagues, one whose scent can be masked by the aromatherapy machine she has with her at all times. That machine has just failed, and those in the laboratory with her are choking on the rot coming from her body, screaming that she has poisoned them, all while I keep my finger on the power button, making sure it cannot be turned back on.

I have to experiment more with Dr. Marshall Grant, an entomologist. Arthropods are feared by most, but for things like him, I have to improvise— he values the insects and spiders he keeps, so I take the form of an insectovore. He brandishes a butterfly net of all things against my amphibian body— though I feel a shock against my tongue. Electric nets, what will they think of next?

In his office, Tristan Bailey, the interim director, watches this and more on monitors behind the desk. I permeate this town, from the failing wi-fi network ensuring that the remote learning service fails, to the pile-up I have caused on League Street, where nobody can see those in the other cars.

Sinclair, somehow, survived. But this does not concern me— I was too rash, trying to kill her. Better to let her live in pain and grief and fear. But for now, my attention is turned back to Nina Weiss.

Nina is thirty years younger than she was two weeks ago. She's healed up nicely, can walk without assistance. But there is one thing she fears— one thing all people fear, I understand now— that will consume her. The fear of losing control.

She enters the restroom, the one female guard accompanying her. It is cleaner and more sterile than the rest of Site-87, and there are no cameras. So when she exits the stall and checks herself in the mirror while washing her hands, Nina Weiss is the only one to see herself recoil in horror from the array of gray hairs that have appeared in her scalp.

You are my linchpin, Nina Weiss. Your fear will consume this town.

Baker Books had closed down over six months previously, due to concerns regarding the limited amount of space within and the need to quarantine. It was still technically in operation, in that the owner sold books through the internet, but the physical storefront was largely vacated, with the door boarded over.

Robert Tofflemire sipped at a can of Coke as he waited for Alison to appear. She had told him to meet here at noon, and it was 11:55. Had this been a decoy, a way for her to avoid him? He had almost shot his partner in the face yesterday, for Christ's sake. She probably didn't even want to see his face—

"You'll rot your teeth with that." Alison appeared next to him, looking at the front of the bookstore. "I have no idea why she insists on meeting around books. None whatsoever."

Robert quickly pulled up his mask and discarded the can in a nearby trash bin. "Who is 'she', exactly?"

"You'll see in a moment. For now… we need a way in." She signaled for Robert to follow, making her way to the end of the block. Main Street didn't really have individual buildings on it; rather, they were all fused together in a giant block, with maybe an alleyway or two between them. It was impossible to tell where one building ended and another began, unless you looked at the fire escapes.

There was one behind Baker Books. Alison climbed on top of a dumpster and pulled down the retractable staircase, extending her hand to Robert. "Stay close to me."

"Not sure that that can support the both of us…" Robert climbed onto the dumpster, and took her hand. "But okay."

Alison started up the staircase. Robert followed, and within two steps, reality… wobbled. He had to catch himself on a wall that suddenly appeared; what had once been a metal staircase leading upwards was now a wooden one they were descending. He clutched his head; dizziness overtook him. "What just… what just happened?"

"Basically? We teleported using a staircase." Alison led him downwards, onto the ground floor of Baker Books. It smelled of paper and dust and leather in the way only proper bookstores can, despite it having been closed for six months. There were some books on the shelves, still, and the sound of someone turning pages came from an area of the stacks not visible to either of them. "Come on. That's her."

"Who is 'her'—" Robert rounded the corner, still dragged along by Alison. A woman stood there, tall, wearing a cloche hat and a purple scarf, her grey business suit blending into the background. She was leafing through a sci-fi novel he didn't recognize. "Who… who is that?"

"My new boss, in a sense." Allison sighed. "She's Nobody, really."

"…as in Capital-N Nobody?" Robert's head twisted between the Nobody and Alison. "Aren't they supposed to wear a fedora? And be a guy?"

"Anyone can be a Nobody." The Nobody turned towards Robert, snapping the book shut. "She calls me Sunshine, but I am also known as The Sister. There are a multitude of us; The Narrator here makes thirty-six."

"Alice… you're… a Nobody?" Tofflemire turned to Allison. "I'm seriously confused."

"Not yet I'm not." Allison clenched her hand. "But… if I try to do what I did to Sinclair again, I will be."

Nobody nodded. "Both you and her are… aberrant to reality." She turned to Robert. "You should have stayed dead, but instead she managed to resurrect you by essentially looking God in the face and telling him to write a better story. Local reality has been degrading since."

"I don't follow."

"You haven't noticed how… hardly anything has happened in town lately?" Allison rubbed the back of her head. "How all of the anomalies are fairly minor or routine or otherwise don't bear mentioning? How the Black Autumn last year was a bunch of scattered nonsense that everyone seems to have forgotten about?"

Robert looked between Allison and Nobody. "Okay, I have noticed. What's up with that?"

Nobody shook her head. "There's been a dearth of events in this Nexus in part because… reality itself is indecisive." She looked at Allison. "It doesn't know what to do with her, or you. You're both glitches in reality that never should have come about, and—"

"We're giving the universe writer's block, basically." Allison scratched the back of her head. "I know, I know. It sounds stupid, but—"

"Pataphysics is stupid." The three of them spoke at the same time.

"A crude metaphor, but it works well enough." Nobody looked through her book. "You both have too much power. Her especially— reality doesn't know what to do with her."

"They gave me an offer." Allison played with her hair. "I can either write away my abilities and yours. Or…"

"You can join them." Robert frowned. "Well, just… write them away, then. You made me immortal for, like, half an hour. You should be able to—"

"If I write them away, then I won't be able to save the town!" Allison tugged at her hair. "I'm stuck between a rock and a shithole and there's no way out, Bob."

"There always is." Robert shook his head. "We just— we have to find it."

Nobody held up her hand. "Talking of saving this town… I should let you get back to that. Best of luck."

"Wh—" Allison began, only to find herself walking out of the entrance to Baker's Books, the boarded-shut door slamming behind them. "Ugh!" Alison threw up her arms. "I hate it when she does that!"

Tofflemire was beside her, looking uncharacteristically done with the world. "Why don't we just find this damn thing and throw it into the Pit, let Sloth beat it to death with his stupid shovel?"

"I'm not sure it has a physical form to throw in. Plus, only way we can get to it now is using the First Footpath, and that only works on the full moon." She frowned. "Halloween's a full moon this year, isn't it?"

"Whatever." Robert rubbed his head. "Come on, the Bottomless Pit is serving cheesesticks for their special today, and I'm damn hungry. Plus, they don't judge you for day drinking."

"Hard to believe it's actually kinda classy now. Used to be a trucker bar back in the 80's. Don't they still have lot liz—" She paused, making her way to her car. "How good do you rate your flirting, Bob?"

"Don't tell me that you want me to pick up a lot lizard."

"I'm telling you that you're going to pick up a specific lot lizard."

The parking lot of the Bottomless Pit is scarcely occupied. Men and women sit in semi trailers, on their phones, waiting for food and beverage to be brought out to them. Some of them sleep in the compartments of their cabs, taking a mid-day nap as the amphetamines wear off.

True to the word of Sinclair, I have trouble affecting them— they are passing through. I am bound to this Nexus, where I have been drawn to since my escape in Arkansas earlier this year. Anyone that does not call this place home cannot truly be affected.

There is one woman on the lot— she lacks an eye, just as she has always lacked an eye. She is a construct, and though she blends in better with humanity than her colleagues, Sinning Jessie is still very much not human. She is a thoughtform, a Legend, born of the fear of sex and disease. Others avoid her (quite literally) like the plague— though COVID is not sexually transmitted, nobody wants to be in close contact with a lot lizard.

Nobody except Robert Tofflemire. His glasses reflect the Legend's face as she adjusts her fringed hair to cover up her missing eye. He attempts to proposition her, only to get immediately shot down. He persists, and I whisper in her ear— 'this man is strange, you do not know him, and he will hurt you and others like you'.

I contain my laughter, barely, as she pulls out a can of mace and douses him with it.

"Son of a bitch." Allison sprinted out of the car over to Robert. "Dammit, Bob, what did you say?"

Her partner was incoherent, laying on the ground, writhing and screaming from the millions of scovilles in his eyes. Allison dragged him away, pulling him to the restrooms outside the bar. The drinking fountain there hadn't been shut down, in flagrant defiance of state mandate. She put Robert's eyes up to the flow of water and pressed down on the switch, before glowering at Sinning Jessie. "What the hell?"

The Legend looked at the can of pepper spray in her hand, and then at Robert. "Y… you're Plastics People. I remember Jasper talking about you." She frowned. "I… I got so scared for a moment. I'm… I'm sorry."

"That's been going around a bit." Allison sighed. "We've exhausted all leads on our end. Whatever this is that's destroying the town… we're stumped. We need help."

"And… I kind of need yours." Jessie scratched the back of her head. "I… haven't seen Jasper— that is, the Goatman, since the start of the month. I'm kind of getting worried about him."

Allison frowned. "He… he was in Site-87 not even two weeks ago. But… I haven't seen him since." She frowned. "Is that normal?"

Robert grunted in pain, before adding, "H-he… fuck that stings. N-normally we g-get a few reports of-of him causing chaos at Halloween parties around this time. A-a few parties, but no sightings of him."

"You don't think he went rogue, do you?" Allison looked at Jessie. "Is… is that a thing you guys can do? Turn against the town?"

"…after the deaths at Camp Krakow, we swore to never harm the citizens of the town in any meaningful way. That includes you, unfortunately." Jessie played with her hair. "I don't really know where to begin looking for him, either. We've looked at his usual haunts— Koch's Hollow, Baby Bone Bridge, even the Bone Heath and Grave Bog."

"H-Haven't looked everywhere," Robert coughed. "Fuck, do you have shampoo or something? T-that can help flush eyes."

"I'll get some in a bit. What do you mean, 'haven't looked everywhere'? We know this town like the back of our hands."

"T-there's one place that you never go. Our greatest fuck-up of the 70's."

Jessie paused, and looked between him and Allison. "Ah, fuck."

Jasper Phineas Sloth, also known as the Goatman of Sloth's Pit, has been contained. This is a fear that is common among all things— being put in a cage or a room or even being locked in your own house, unable to leave. There's so much of that going around that it almost tastes stale.

Jasper thinks that he is in a Foundation facility— one I'm all too familiar with. Dr. Owings interrogates them, but it's not the real Dr. Owings. He died of a heart attack when I escaped my cell. I was so simple-minded back then.

"October Mmmmph, 2020. Beginning testing." Dr. Owings looks at the Goatman, its white fur stained red by flesh, constantly flowing blood from wounds inflicted on it as part of its containment procedures— all completely necessary, he understands. "Now, SCP-9328421, what is your name?"

He has been in here for three weeks. He began as defiant, but then I stole something a thoughtform values more than anything else: their image. It was by sheer happenstance that Nina Weiss saw me as the Goatman in her bottomless pit, imprinted the image of him onto my being, but it gave me an alibi, and an in.

"J-Jasper Sloth," he stutters. His fur is white, but his face is now more man than goat. It is that of a nineteen-year-old, pale-skinned and sallow, no doubt affected by some disease on the Christmas when he died in 1890. "W-who are you? What's an SCP?"

"Well, SCP-9284171, you are an anomaly. And we contain anomalies, keep humanity safe from them."

"Am I dangerous?" His voice is dulled, like a lobotomy victim. I wonder if he can even tell up from down.

"Oh, very. You killed a dozen people on your way in here. Regular slasher you are, SCP-84719."

"Why do you keep changing my number?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about SCP-8371458. If you say something like that again, we'll have to cut off a foot— for testing purposes, of course."

"…okay."

He is dulled to the point where I can cut off his fingers. I have done so a dozen times, but they grow back, because he is still the Goatman, and the Goatman always has ten fingers. Still, I snip at them.

"Now, let's see how well you write without your thumb, SCP-38421741."

"Yes, sir."

The Camp Krakow Memorial Park was a simple, solemn place. A metal totem pole (replacing the gore-covered wooden one as of early 2016) stood at the center, surrounded by steel plaques bearing the names of over fifty men, women and children (mostly the latter) who died in 1976, as a result of the Foundation's sheer incompetence. Markers show where the buildings of the camp once were. The lock on the utility shed was programmed to unlock at sunset every night, to let out the guardian spirit waiting within, to protect the now-dead children from the nightmares that killed them. Beyond that was wilderness and woods, the rotting remains of cabins, and the long-since-vacant showers.

"None of us ever go here." Sinning Jessie swallowed as she exited the back seat. "It's… painful. The things in the camp are contained, but… they like to taunt us. Poke and prod at us."

Allison frowned, looking at her partner. "You ever go here? Besides the Mandated Visit?"

"Once or twice. Got called to a possible anomalous animal sighting in the woods." Tofflemire opened the trunk of the car and withdrew a pair of rifles, handing one to Allison. "Three hours reading and memorizing every name on the memorial for orientation was bad enough."

Alison kept her rifle pointed down at the ground as she approached the perimeter of the park. She stopped at the entrance, gooseflesh popping up all over her body, her head swimming with a sudden rush of adrenaline. The park looked completely normal, but somehow, Alison knew that if she stepped into the park, she would die.

"It-it…" She swallowed. "Bob, something's wrong. There… there's something wrong with the park."

Tofflemire stepped next to her, looking around, feeling his arm. "I feel it, too…" He frowned. "You… do you think this is where it makes its home? The things in the camp, they're… birthed from the anxiety of children…"

"Maybe we should call for backup."

As if in response, a long, bleating scream of pain came from somewhere deeper within the park, close to the woodland, followed by a series of sobbing sounds. The two agents ran into the Memorial Park, their fight-or-flight responses telling them to choose 'flight' at every step.

Shadows darted between individual blades of grass. Alison felt something scratch at her ankles, trying to trip her, and a chainsaw roared in the distance. Robert heard the familiar laugh, wet, cruel laugh of an old, rotting man, and smelled oozing decay on the air— was his leg actually sinking into the ground, or was he imagining it?

"The shed!" Alison yelled, her eyes shut against an unreal, screaming wind. "We gotta get to the tool shed and break it open!"

Robert cracked open his eyes, and immediately shut them— for an instant, he was back in Site-19, and his former partner was begging to be shot. "They shouldn't be this active during the day!" Robert stopped in place, reaching for his phone. "Helen! Indicate direction of Asset 87-K-03 relative to myself!"

His phone chimed, and replied with: "Asset 87-K-03 is approximately ten meters to your north-east."

"North-east, which way is north-east?" Robert and Alison spun around, trying to orient themselves in the blinding fear. The wind turned into a horrid buzzing.

Alison grew stiff. The buzzing— memories of her childhood, of sticking grass down a yellowjacket nest, of the swarm that followed, of the car ride to the hospital, of not being able to go into the backyard for weeks because of the pesticide her father sprayed. The buzzing she heard then was the exact same as now.

And so, she ran straight into it, dragging Robert alongside her. She felt the venom enter her body, and she still strode on. She felt the biting wasps at her eyes, but she still walked. She swallowed her fear and felt her dread burn as she walked through the unseen swarm, and felt her hand against the lock on the maintenance shed. She guided Robert's hand to it.

"Holy shit." He grinned. "How—"

"Figured if it was trying to keep us from here, that's where it would be." Alison winced. "Fucking… open it, before I get some kind of… autophalctic whatever."

Robert felt at the keypad of the lock, and typed in the clearance code. The doors opened, and there was the sound of a bear growling. A rush of air and fur burst from the shed, and the buzzing, the pressure, the anxiety, it all vanished.

The two of them opened their eyes; Alison had some welts on her, but nothing severe. She picked at them, frowning. "That… is not a great feeling. Ow."

"Like looking right into the Pit." Robert shuddered. "I… wonder if that's why it came here. Because of what you see when you look into the Pit. Your greatest fear."

The two of them looked around the park. For a moment, it was silent. And then, another bleating scream, beyond the camp— in the woods.

Every year, Camp Krakkow had named its cabins differently. In 1976, they had been themed after the Zodiac. Neither of them were surprised when they figured out the screaming was coming from the ruins of the Capricorn Cabin.

The two of them stepped inside the rotted wooden hull, and found what seemed to be a man. He had odd patches of white hair on him, and what may have been stumps of horn on his head. One eye had an hourglass-shaped pupil, while the other was a normal, human eye in a shade of brown. The two of them saw a trace of Jackson Sloth, the town's founder, in his face.

The man recoiled from them both, curling up into a ball and screaming the way only a goat could. Robert put down his weapon and approached the man, who he now realized seemed to be wearing an orange Foundation jumpsuit. "What the hell? Alice, are you seeing this?"

"That… that's the Goatman?" Alison frowned. "He… god, he looks like something ate him alive. Let's… come on, let's get him back to the car."

"How?" But even as Robert asked, looking around. Then, he spotted it— what might have been the only piece of unrotted wood in the whole cabin, just long and wide enough to be used as a backboard.

The two of them carefully loaded the Goatman onto it, and over the course of a painful half-hour, made their way from the woods, back through the park, and to their car.

"Jasper!" Sinning Jessie screamed as she saw the broken form of the Goatman. "Oh, god, what? What happened to him? He…"

Alison and Robert put him down on the grass, with the former taking his pulse and putting a hand under his nose. "He's breathing. Pulse is good. But… he won't stop screaming."

Sinning Jessie reached out to touch her fellow legend, and grabbing his hand and whispering something into his ear. Color returned to his face, and he sat up, clutching his head. "What… what happened? Where am I?"

"…are you the real Goatman?" Alison's hand went to her rifle.

The man on the plank stared at her as his other eye grew an hourglass-shaped pupil. "What kind of a question is that?" He stood, unsteady, the jumpsuit melting away into a pair of suspenders. "Of course I'm the Goatman! Who else would I be, Richard Nixon?"

"…you were never at the Site this month?"

The Goatman opened his mouth to speak, before he started to frown. "I… don't think I've been… anywhere this month. It's… hard to remember." He rubbed at his regrowing horns. "Ugh. I have a headache."

Robert looked at Alison. "I… I think we need to call for backup. We're out of our depth, here."

"We can't."

Robert turned to Allison and frowned. "Why not? We have phones, and there's a radio in the car. Let's just call someone."

Allison tugged at her hair. "I— I don't… I don't think… S-something's wrong."

It took several moments for Tofflemire to feel it. It felt like a narrator had lost the ability to describe their work effectively, like a cash-grab sequel, like all the lustre had gone out of a work that had been written for almost a decade, and the author wanted to roll it up into the trash. Robert wanted to do a dozen illogical things at once. This town was a ghost town anyway, who would ever want to read about Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin?

Then, reality snapped back into focus, and the three of them found themselves on the grass, the world spinning.

"What…" Allison panted, "The hell… was that?"

"I don't know, but I have a feeling every Narrative Fluctuation Detector north of Nebraska just blew a fuse." Robert sat up, clutching his hair. "It… it felt like reality… lost the plot." He looked around. "Wait, where's Sinning Jessie? And— and the the Goatman? "

In response to the latter question, a young man sat up by Robert, groaning. Fur was already starting to regrow, even as he complained about having a "Worse headache than… damn I don't know an analogy!"

Jessie was nowhere to be found. Allison got up to where the thoughtform had fallen, and picked up a pamphlet off the ground. It was printed on old paper, and bore an image of a woman riddled with disease, dressed in the clothing worn by stereotypical ladies of the night in the late 1800s. A slogan on it read:

MEN OF WISCONSIN:

Watch for SINNING JESSIE, THE LADY OF THE NIGHT

Whose SYPHILITIC LIPS will ROB YOU of your MANHOOD!

Then, there was a sound like radio static, and Allison found herself holding the hand of the woman who had accompanied them here. Sinning Jessie looked disoriented, and terrified. "Wh-I-ah-wha—"

"What the hell was that?" Allison asked again.

The Goatman sat up, dazed. "…I think someone just literally rewrote reality."

It takes twenty subjective years, but Jasper Phineas Sloth no longer suffers, or thinks. A bit of his essence remains, in the memories and minds of the people of Sloth's Pit, and the Foundation's files. Perhaps it will be enough to resurrect him some day.

Camp Krakow is a place that has been sucked dry of fear, it has been so thoroughly scrutinized and revered— it pained me to put Jasper's body even close to there, let alone let it hang in the park itself. Even then, I cannot linger to enjoy their shock upon seeing the broken form of a legend— I have other matters to attend to.

Nina Angelica Weiss sits on her hospital bed. I do not open the dozens of doors between the entrance to Site-87 and the infirmary, but I step into her room instead, sitting beside her. "You look distressed," I say in the voice of Jasper Sloth.

She looks up at me, confused, perhaps thinking she's dreaming. She holds up a strand of her hair, now grey. "I'm getting old again. Don't even get time to enjoy being young." She shakes her head. "At least they're going to give me back my clearance. So, that's something."

"Hmm." I frowned. "Nina, I am… deeply connected to the Narrative of this town. Maybe I can do something to help."

"What?" Nina snorted. "Are you going to write me to be eternally young and director of this site? For all I know, you could be whatever this thing is that's apparently been feeding on the town."

In response, I begin to Narrate. "Suddenly, Nina Weiss felt a warmth going through her hair. As she inspected it once more, she found that the grey streaks that had suddenly appeared had just as suddenly disappeared. She looked at the Goatman, and said—"

"How did you do that?" She looked between me and her hair.

"I am the son of Jackson Sloth. Father was not the only Narrator in the family." I smirk. "I can rewrite you to be young, Nina. To be Director. But I need something from you in return."

"…what?"

"Halloween's in three days. I'll tell you then. For now…" I begin to narrate. What comes out of my mouth are not words as much as they are thoughts, sensations, feelings. Commands. The Nexus itself is alive, and it has a fear that I am exploiting— the fear of a Bad Story. Someone getting a magical solution to all of their problems is one of the worst stories you can have.

When I am done, Nina Weiss, sixty years old but not looking a day over thirty, sits in her office on the 4th floor, sipping at a cup of tea and looking at the leaves outside. The expense reports for the quarter are looking better than ever. A Leafer Mantis starts swearing at her, and she shuts the window on it. It is a beautiful day, and nobody is the wiser.

Three days. Plenty of bad stories can be made in that time.

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