Personal Database - SCP Foundation

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Personal Database

By: FLOORBOARDS

Published on 24 Apr 2022 02:49

Ending the diagnostic scan, you flick absentmindedly through the database. Each slow, flashy page contains a list of names — previous volunteers, transferred out for better, brighter things at bigger, more exciting Sites. As you move to close the terminal, however, something catches your eye: a Neuron Imaging Engine record has been left unlocked.

A silly mistake, you think to yourself, your hand hovering over the file, ready to lock it and send it back into the archive; but something stops you. You haven't experienced memories in a while now, one peek wouldn't hurt, right? You hadn't even looked in this file since the last diagnostic.

You spread your palm, opening the file. You are faced with seven red hyperlinks.

FoldUnfold

Table of Contents

james biggio (#5886)

madeline lane (#5435)

"v. a. laferrier"

placeholder mcdoctorate

olympia “subject 0”

randall bannock

rainer miller (#4051)

james biggio (#5886)

Asphalt's always been hard to run on

There are little chips of rock

And cracks that you trip over.

The rocks will get stuck in your shoes

And the path will leave your knees bruised.

Sometimes.

But if you keep running long enough

Into the dust and fog of a moonless night

Somewhere down the line,

you're homebound.

The world stands still to watch you

Without really ever seeing you

Or knowing what you're up to.

Sometimes they'll prod at you

Or try to move you along to somewhere else

But I just

want

to lay down

for a while.

If that's alright?

My favorite songs are too slow and sad today

I can't hear them, they're so low

So I plug my earphones into their charger

In a place where you can't find them

And I'll let them charge until I have place

to listen.

I'm trying to make it on my own for now

But if I ever find this place again

I'll be sure to try and stay

and see some of this

crazy, crazy stuff

in action.

Thanks for having me,

but

I've gotta keep moving

on down the road.

madeline lane (#5435)

Fires on the horizon

Distant sparks of orange light

My dash, I rest my head to cry on

I've been driving through the night

I never wanted to do this

But I never want you to feel I don’t care

But there’s someone after me

And I need to get out of here

Dawn is close by

In my rearview, hug the curves tight

My home town is somewhere, far behind

I can't think of a single reason why—

Goodbye to those November nights

Remember when I threw my knife

And you laughed, and took a picture with your flash on

All the backroad creepy avenues we used to drive on

To get away from cops and my stupid mom

I'm gonna miss the way we smiled

Rest on the side of the road, exhaust pipe dragging

Open the window, let out my smoke

Sun's still shining out there alone

Solar bodies, flaming bones

Tired of running away

I want to find my own

Somewhere past today

I don’t want to be alone

Goodbye to those November nights

Remember when I threw my knife

And you laughed, and took a picture with your flash on

All the backroad creepy avenues we used to drive on

To get away from cops and my stupid mom

I'm gonna miss the way we smiled

There were things I wanted to say

But it doesn't matter anyway

There were things I wanted to do

With you

There were things I wanted to say

But it doesn't matter anyway

There were things I wanted to do

With you

Goodbye to those November nights

Remember when I threw my knife

And you laughed, and took a picture with your flash on

All the backroad creepy avenues we used to drive on

To get away from cops and my stupid mom

I'm gonna miss the way we smiled

"v. a. laferrier"

So you've come to the middle of the road

And all seems lost and foggy

Then here, let the records show

I was never disembodied.

Two paths diverge in a nameless wood

And two more diverge from the left

And two more diverge from the right

And it keeps going like that

in circles.

Hear the flow of marsh water

The gentle cry of the toad

Here, your face does not matter

Just get where you're to go.

On a moonlit night, a chilled mood

In the suburbs, I believe I belong

In my office, nursing my boss

Taking hunks of clay off the walls

And exploring my box's confines.

I am a mayfly in the summertime

Or one traded places with me,

I want to go back to where my life was mine

Before this creature replaced me.

I vaguely remember what I was looking for

On that dark night in the forest

It was the consequence

of something far deeper

something

very

primal.

I think I saw it when you brought me here

Not you, but your friends

I think it was a building

with four sharp claws

digging into the sidewalks

of a city

where there shouldn't have been.

placeholder mcdoctorate

Late.

Later.

Lately.

Lately, things have felt

Off

Like my body is too tight

Like I’ve outgrown my skin

Or like neither were mine in the first place.

My name doesn’t feel like my own

But when I reach out, my mouth in my hands

They will respond: “That’s the way you’ve always been.”

But does it have to be

the way I always am?

Can this state of me

change?

My name is a placeholder position

Until someone comes along

Who fits me just right

That name will be distant from me

To make room in my head

Sometimes I forget to respond, when they call me by that name

It’s very late

I could be dreaming

Rather than stressing over this

But instead

I think:

When will I find my own?

Where can I find it?

Can I find it?

I shake my head, jostling that name from my shoulders again

I will find my name

I will carve my own identity

into the margins of this

cocoon built around me

I will find my name

Later.

olympia “subject 0”

If you come back I'll still be here

I'm off screen, so I'll whisper

I'll walk across the set after

And sit across from others.

You never gave me much

A name to say or

A body to touch

I've always been an imprint

Of an indentation.

And when they plug my cochlear implant

Into a device to record my mind

I'll try not to cry

'Cause this is the first time

Someone's asked me "why?"

Or, "How are you?"

"What've you been up to?"

Oh, hey

By the way

Would you call me Sophia?

Oh, and

By the way

Can you make sure it doesn't break

I need to keep my head on straight

And keep my heart nailed to my sleeve

I don't want to leave

I don't want to leave

I don't, I don't

want to leave.

randall bannock

I’m disappointed in myself.

I hang, suspended,

behind a glass pane.

And I watch someone younger

kinder

and more qualified than me

cradle a stuffed animal to her chest

her eyes half closed.

I was scared to go in there.

My feet barely scrape the ground as

I press my hands against the panes of loss.

I see my reflection in the glass in my eyes

someone younger

kinder

more qualified

for these situations.

There’s supposed to be a detachment

But you can’t pry your eyes away

What’s the difference between

The liquid eye and

the glass pane?

Both, foggy with moisture

Both, hold to you, a mirror

A mirror to something you once were

Like the smudged fingerprints of a child on tempered glass

Like the deflating stuffed animal held in her arms.

Something snaps me back to the present moment

And my feet scrape the ground

As I come back down.

I’ll be with you in the morning, you

But for now I have to go

I have to sleep off

whatever this is.

rainer miller (#4051)

It is easier to sleep.

When I am asleep, there is no work to be done

No tasks at hand, no requests to fulfill

Nothing is asked of me,

And I ask for nothing.

I am cared for

In a vast vat of chemicals

And wires and neon glowing clasps

I am held down, and I convene with myself.

There is a pump in the back of my brain

That delivers medicinal sludge directly inside me

But

It has a

side effect?

Of allowing me to dream.

I dream:

A hidden tomb, from which a spinning disc emerges

On either side are six glowing eyes, which stare into my own

I find myself in a tunnel of feathers

A light ahead

And the silhouette of a woman.

I dream:

A towering castle, which parts the clouds with its spires

Fire licks the windows, illuminating the dark

A parade of flaming witches stumble onto brooms, shrieking with loss

A tuneless whistle echoes from a deep valley

Beside me is a man, who rests his hand on my shoulder proudly.

I dream:

A serpent hovers just out of my view

It is far larger than the ideoform we occupy

But it remains and watches with a kind smile

A coarse hand drags me to safety.

I am an oneironaut

A traverser of fantastic worlds

I am, for an infinitesimally small moment

Free.

And when they pull me out of my incubator

When I stumble, then fall, into hyperreality

Someone new will pull me off my knees

Stare hard into my eyes and say:

Rainer. You’ve got a job to do.

I know I'll have new stimuli to collect

To convert into muddied memory

Into swirling dust and feathers

Into dreams.

It is easier to sleep, but to stay awake? That’s more fun.

Your head is hazy, like a poorly cleaned aquarium filled with very small fish. With some effort, you unplug the Engine from the back of your skull, and gently set the nozzle on the table beside you. A warmth envelopes you, once forgotten emotions swimming up and down your veins.

You stand, slightly wobbly from sitting for so long, before taking cautious steps towards the terminal. You count out loud; seven names, seven hyperlinks.

Everything is accounted for. You smile, closing the tab with a wave of your hand.

Author's Note

Hide Author's Note

This was an interesting experience.

Writing about a character who is not your own is always a harrowing, difficult process. Authors, whether they realize or not, allow minor smidgens of their inner workings to occupy their characters; thus, when writing for another author's character, you must find what you have in common with that author. You must allow yourself to communicate vulnerability with the other author, and insert yourself into the character.

It is the ultimate exercise in empathy, I believe. This website, and its community, is founded on the shared experience; connecting to one another's stories, but more importantly, connecting to one another in of itself.

In writing this collection, I was able to collaborate and open myself up to authors in ways that I couldn't, and would not have, in any other circumstance. Some have come forward to say that it allowed them the opportunity to do so as well. I think this is very beautiful.

We are living in a very beautiful world. Today, if you do but one thing, open yourself to it. Make a new friendship, or rekindle an old one, or share a smile and a laugh with a stranger. Love one another.

This note is very contradictory to the actual themes of the collection itself; but we must always take the good with the bad. Perhaps these lonely characters, now collected in one place, can find peace in each other.

Perhaps, you lonely authors, can find peace in each other. ~Shuck & Roxy