Ninth Circle - SCP Foundation

⚠️ Content warning: gratuitous violence, mutilation, and manipulation

Joseph wakes up, and flinches, a constant, spiking throb echoing in his skull.

His eyes adjust to the blinding, artificial light, darting around only to find an entirely white room.

The floor, the ceiling, the metallic chair he is situated in, the locked door before him are all white.

It's the same type of room as his cell; he's still on-Site.

The room is empty, apart from a folded chair and a mysterious bag. The fluorescent, bleach-white light illuminating the room breaks the silence; a consistent and annoying hum-buzz bleeding into the background.

His usual orange jumpsuit is replaced with a pair of regular jeans and no shirt; his upper body is exposed. His arms are pulled taut, the wrists bound by a clunky pair of handcuffs that also matched the room.

His eyes adjust enough to find a white clock, hanging above the doorway. The hands are white, but he can barely make out the time with the tiny shadow.

6:41

'Is it before or after midday?' He can't tell; there are no white windows to confirm this.

Tap

Tap

Tap

Joseph hears someone walking from behind the door.

Tap

Tap

Tap

It's a long and straight walk, probably a hallway behind that doorway.

Tap

Tap

Tap

This sound is utterly distinct to Joseph. He can already picture the black, leather shoes with wood soles, typical of Foundation researchers.

Tap

Tap

Tap

The white handle slowly turns, and the door opens.

A woman adorned with a labcoat enters, her grey hair framing a pair of dainty, plastic rim glasses. There is a pale grey Foundation logo on her shoulder, but it's different from usual. She closes the door behind her, framing her body against the opening. Joseph wasn't able to look outside in time.

"Well, hello Joseph."

Her voice is kind and rusty, the type that grinds at your ears with all the affection of the world. She smiles at Joseph, the type of smile that seems to go on for miles, fitted with uncanny plastic-looking teeth.

"I'm Doctor Johanna Adler. Now, before we start, do you know why you're here?"

"What do you mean?" Joseph shrugged. "I have no idea why you Foundation fucks brought me here."

"You really don't?" She gingerly pulls out a little notebook from an inner pocket and starts writing with her pencil. "Dearie, I can tell by these tattoos and those eyes of yours that you probably did something unsavoury to be here."

"Unsavor—?" Joseph snorts in disgust. "I didn't do anything wrong. White coat got what was coming to him."

She gazes back at Joseph with an exciting look. "Hoh, so you killed someone?"

He stares at the wall behind her. "If I'd had ten more seconds, yeah."

She's still staring at Joseph, with that disturbing smile. "So you attempted to kill someone, is that right?"

He looks back. "Yeah."

"Interesting." She said, dutifully jotting down notes in her little notepad.

She continues. "So, as you probably guessed by now, I'm a Foundation researcher."

"Really? I would've never known." says Joseph sarcastically.

"But I'm from DAP; the Department of Atypical Persuasion."

He glowers at the researcher. "What do you mean by Aty—"

He's suddenly muzzled by the old woman, a mask made out of dark metal and tangled in a hundred wires. He tries to shake it off, to no avail.

He screams at the woman for putting the mask out of his face but fails to utter a single sound.

"We developed this little miracle. It will make you quiet." She places her index finger against her lips. "It's not that I don't like you talking; I could just gab for hours! But silence makes my job much easier, you see?"

He doesn't listen. Joseph tries to shake his head in every direction, yelling and spitting into it, but that damned muzzle doesn't budge. She turns from Joseph and searches through the white bag. "At last! We can start."

With her back turned, searching, Joseph catches a better glimpse at the strange Foundation logo. It's the usual border of the logo, but an icon of a black brain in the center is penetrated by three arrows pointing down. Joseph has no idea what it could mean.

Finally, she stand back up, groaning in pain. "When you get to my age, everything is a chore." She reveals a black round remote with multiple buttons. "Here we go."

She pushes a button. Joseph's head suddenly snaps back, his neck straining from the tension. He struggles to pull his head back down, as if the hair on his head was wrenched back.

"And that is just for making sure you won't twitch and giggle while I do my job."

Joseph looks directly at the researcher in fear and confusion. His vision is blurred, the edge of his vision becomes streaks of colour as the woman's voice bleeds in his ears.

"My department was created in… I think sometime in the 50s? Our entire careers back then were to torture people to get information. It was… a constant and complex struggle. Nowadays, there are probably thousands of psychics, truth serums, or reality-bending, intelligence constructs used to read the mind of others."

As she speaks, she takes the folded chair, slowly bending it open, and places it directly in front of Joseph.

"But that doesn't mean we don't do that anymore. No matter how many mind-affecting anomalies there are, there will also be another anomaly to counter their effect. Such is the nature of anomalies. Always a bigger fish. Of course, we do things besides persuade people to spill the beans."

The chair makes a little squeaking sound as she sits in it, and she pulls out a little green jar. Joseph can barely make out her words. His nerves are hyper-focused on the pain in his neck, trying to figure out a way to get out of his invisible trap.

She continues. "Sometimes, it's a question of containment, where we have to torture someone to keep an anomaly contained. Occasionally, we torture the anomalies themselves. Those are the worst kinds. There are times when an innocent must be hurt, entirely undeserving. My sympathies go out to them." She shakes her head, disappointed.

She looks up and flashes her toothy smile. "And finally, I get to torture the people like you. Because you simply misbehave! And we can't have that."

Joseph can read the words, ANOMALOUS BIOHAZARD, on the side of the jar. She opens the jar, revealing a purple substance resembling an ointment. The smell is putrid.

"That's why I love this job; you never know what comes your way, and that's kind of exciting, you know?"

She spreads the weird cream on Joseph's arm. Carefully and slowly. She then takes out a tiny napkin and wipes the substance from her fingers. "So we just wait a little bit to let it dry and…" She waits a few seconds. "Boop!"

She touches the surface.

Joseph's arm is torn off, as though a cannon ripped through him. He feels his bones cracking and twisting, the marrow and sinew exposed to frigid air. He is losing blood; he feels cold. He gasps for air. His vision fades away, and he dies of shock, only to wake up a moment later.

She removes her finger. "It feels like real pain, doesn't it? Don't worry; the little doodad on your mouth will make sure you do can't pass out."

He looks at his arm. It's still there, intact. As if his arm was removed for a short time, only to grow back the second later. As if nothing happened.

"I know; it's pretty weird, but you'll get used to it. Let's try other parts of your body."

She scoops up a dollop of purple cream and begins to smear it on Joseph's forehead. He tries to move, but he is still glued to the chair. He tries to beg her to stop, but no words come out.

"Calm down a bit; it's only the beginning. Today is just a test, no real torture yet."

She accidentally nudges the covered surface of his forehead.

A hundred blunt screwdriver chisels into his head, leaving his brain exposed to the air. He can feel his cranium drying up and crumbling as the vibration of the blow sends needles into the rest of his body. He dies, only to unceremoniously come back yet again.

"You're quite good at this. As a break, you can eat your dinner."

She searches in her bag and pulls out a long, transparent tube with a sloshing liquid pocket, holding a dirty brown texture. She slips the end of the tube into one of the holes in the mask adorning Joseph's face. She presses on the liquid pocket, and he can see the brown substance slowly worm its way through the tube. With each heavy, gasping wheeze, the thick sludge is pushed into his gullet, the thought of which makes him retch.

"There you go, enjoy it while it lasts. Everything I do makes this easier; I won't have to feed you for a long time."

'Enjoy it?' His mind wanders further. 'Did I eat it? I didn't feel anything entering my mouth. It's entirely tasteless.'

"That's it for today. Take a snooze, hun. We have a big day tomorrow."

She takes out the remote, pushes another button, and he immediately falls asleep.

The next day, Joseph wakes up in a cold sweat. The old woman peers over him, smiling that damned horrid smile, and lowers a pair of red eyewear onto him. Afterwards, she sat down beside him, tucking a napkin around her neck, and makes a long, thin slit in his stomach. He watches as his intestines spill out, imagining what it might feel like to try and push it all back into his gut. The old woman begins frothing at the mouth, her eyes bloodshot red, and she dives into his stomach, scarfing down his organs. She sucks the blood out of his pancreas, and pulls apart his kidneys like bread. At least, until she accidentally knocks off the glasses, revealing the same old lady, except she's reading a book. She then pressed a button on her remote, and he falls asleep.

The day after, Joseph wakes up, hearing the same, wooden footsteps, and the woman entered. This time, she holds a glass container where a giant parasitic worm writhed about. She places the container's end on his body, and a blazing fire subsumes his body. His flesh begins to melt as if burning hot magma was poured over his chest, the fat bubbling and leaking onto the chair. In a desperate plea, he leans over to drip blood, pus, and fat onto his cuffs, hoping to slip out. His blood begins pooling, a brilliant sanguine drying into a viscous, tar-like mess, sticky and black. He vomits into the mask, but is quickly wiped clean, removing any trace of puke. Once finished, she presses the button again, and he was ready for the next day.

And it was like that for… Weeks? Months? Joseph couldn't tell anymore. His sleep was instantaneous and restless. His waking moments were spent on torture, without knowing if he had slept at all. It has been so long time since he ate a meal that he fondly recalls the brown sludge fed to him on the first day. He doesn't know what to do. He wants to beg for forgiveness, and a deliver a deep-seated promise to follow every test dutifully, with no questions asked. He'll even bark like a dog.

The muzzle stays on.

He doesn't know what the Foundation wants from him anymore. Why do they keep torturing him? His hair has grown long, gray, and unkempt. His body is entirely unmarred; any traces of wounding or scarring is wiped clean, as blank as a fresh canvas. But he clearly remembers every time something was used on him, each strange torture device.

The days go on and on. Always the same thing, hearing the steps from behind the door, the old woman torturing him while talking about her manicures, and the day finishes at the press of a button, his agency erased. The doctor became a bodiless voice and a smile to Joseph, witnessing his agony with a sign of empathy.

But, sometimes, it's different. Sometimes Joseph sees someone else entering the chamber. Sometimes he is welcomed by his father, friends, people he's intimate with, and they all try to torture him in every possible way. This brought some sort of cruel comfort to Joseph. He still remembers enough to keep him sane. Although, he's unsure if what he has seen is real; maybe he's lost his mind.

'When is it going to end?' At first, this question cycles through Joseph's head. After what seemed like years, the question changed. 'Will it ever end?'

He wakes up.

Like every other day, he feels weak at the mercy of the old woman of the Foundation.

He tries to squint to look at the clock. Fatigue clouds his mind, even seeing causes sharp pains behind his eyeballs. He can barely make something out beyond the blurriness.

6:42

'Was it always 6:42?' He thinks.

Tap

Tap

Tap

She is coming.

Tap

Tap

Tap

Joseph doesn't have the energy to move.

Tap

Tap

Tap

He just accepts it.

Tap

Tap

Tap

The handle turns, and the woman enters. Joseph doesn't even look at her until she closes the door behind her.

But it's not the woman this time. Joseph gawps at a monstrosity. A disgusting amalgamation of flesh and exposed organs, forming a rounded figure with an orifice in the center. Like a massive television made of meat. From the orifice, a long, knuckled neck sticks out, terminating with the facsimile of a human face, constantly shifting into people. People he loved, people he hated, people he only met once in his life.

Good morning, Joseph.

The thing speaks with the hollow, raspy voices of a hundred people. It strains against itself, the exertion further warping it. The voices of people, people he knows, and something underneath that sounds too human. Yet, he recognizes the tone from the old woman, buried deep inside.

It's time for your daily treatment.

Joseph is horrified. 'Did the torture already start?' Is this another hallucination?' His thoughts are drowned out as a thick schlick, like sucking wet paper, gurgles from within the monster. A slimy finger claws its way out from within the folds, then another one, then a full hand, then an arm. It stretches all the way down to the white bag, splattering mucous, clumsily knocking the bag around the room.

The monster peers at him, with the face of his father, his boss, his friends while still searching the bag.

What's happening, big guy? You're looking more pale than usual. Do I have something between my teeth?

It laughs with the sound of a thousand voices. Some of the voices seem to beg.

The creature pulls out the round remote from the bag.

Anyways. We have to start the- Oh!

The remote slips from its hand, landing at the feet of Joseph.

The creature screams.

Wait!

Instinctually, Joseph swings his leg out to reach the remote. He presses one of the buttons with his feet, releasing the handcuffs of the chair.

Joseph stumbles to his feet and runs, dodging the creature as new arms emerge from the folds, grasping and narrowly missing him.

He reaches the door, turns the handle, and he shoulders his way through.

It's not the Site.

It's not the place he used to know.

It's outside.

A billow of cold wind welcomed Joseph, blowing snowflakes into his eyebrows. He is at the feet of a snowy mountain, waves of snow rolling like thunder in the distance. There isn't a building on the horizon, only the distant dark-blue sky. The room he was tortured in is a small cabin, barely noticeable, buried in the snow.

He looks back at the monster, now lumbering on two leathery elephant legs. It breaks down the door to the cabin, groaning.

Come back here, darling.

Joseph runs into the cold dark.

Run.

The word becomes more foreign each time he hears it.

Run.

It won't stop chasing him. There is no escape, only…

Run.

He tries everything to avoid being chased, but it keeps getting closer no matter what.

Run.

It's been a long time running. The mask seems to nourish Joseph, even if he can't taste anything.

Run.

The cold air of this place is making Joseph dizzy. His lungs feel frostbitten.

Run.

His teeth shudders so badly that he swallowed them.

Run.

He's being taunted by the expanse.

Run.

How many times did he tell himself to run? This mountain seems endless. He can't feel any parts of his body. His hands are frozen solid, and two of his fingers snapped off trying to push aside a tree branch. Each step in the snow leaves footprints filled with blood. Hell, he's walking as if he shit his pants.

Even then.

Run.

And run.

Run.

Run.

A light.

In the distance.

Something different than permafrost and crag.

It's a Site. A Foundation Site. His Site.

Joseph smiles, the ice around his mouth splitting. A big, open smile.

The creature behind him continues screeching- but this time, it sounds victorious.

Each side of the creature upper body peels open, revealing a fleshy conglomerate made of thousands of fingers, toes, and nails, an impossible, bloody angel.

Joseph runs faster, ignoring his crumbling body. His feet eroding to mere stumps, he can't help but laugh. The creature lands behind him, nearly crushing him. It nips him, and he can't help but feel nostalgic.

He continues to run. Each crack of his bones like a firework, every drop of blood like sweat in a race.

He recoils. His right arm is caught by the monster, the teeth piercing flesh.

'I'm almost there!' His soul begs him to continue. 'No more misery. No more fear.'

He pulls so hard that it finally rips apart from his body, leaving a bloody stub where his arm was. The monster moans, heaving as though crying.

He reaches the door, and doesn't turn back.

His other hand grasps the handle, warm to the touch.

He pulls it, and it opens.

6:43

Two security guards wait, opposite of a door. One of them has removed his helmet, revealing disheveled blond hair and striking blue eyes. The other is staring off into the corner of the room, where a security camera aimlessly watches.

"Has it been two minutes?"

The one without the helmet looks up. "I… think so? I don't have a watch."

He taps his foot impatiently. "Shouldn't we open the door then?"

The other shrugs. "Probably."

The blue-eyed guard approaches the door. His hand reaches for the handle, but it suddenly turns on its own.

"James!" He shouts, backing away from the door. "We have a situation here. The door-"

The door swings open, revealing a monolith, his figure outlined by the white room behind him.

Dark circles gouge his hollow, sunken eyes. He's wearing his standard, Foundation issue orange jumpsuit, his hands curled and menacing. Both guards are now poised, training their rifles on him.

"Alright," The one wearing his helmet says, "D-35221, move slowly in my direction. No sudden movements. That's right."

Joseph's eyes slowly drift between the two guards. He takes a step forward.

"Okay," The guard continues, "Good, now—"

Joseph falls to his knees, and as the guard closes in on him, he embraces him with his big arms in a massive, heartbreaking hug. He sobs. "I'm sorry!" Joseph snivels.

Joseph is given a packet of tissues and brought back to his cell. There was no struggle and he followed every order to the letter, the very example of obedience.

The blue-eyed guard looks at the other.

"What was that all about?" He asks. "Wasn't he the same one that nearly killed Dr. Kalister? What the hell happened in that room?"

"I dunno. I just follow the rules on the notice."

"What notice?"

"How'd you not notice?"

He points at the door they were guarding; a white piece of paper is scotched on it. The blue-eyed guard approaches it and starts reading.

This room and everything contained within is the property of the Department of Atypical Persuasion.

Item #:

[REDACTED]

Object Class:

Thaumiel

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-[REDACTED] and every copy of it is currently contained in a sensory deprivation containment chamber, of which is structurally identical to the D-class cell. Foundation Sites necessitating the use of D-class should possess one such room. Instruction pertaining to the containment of this anomaly must be included on the door to the containment chamber. Use of SCP-[REDACTED] is restricted to insubordinate D-class. Usage of SCP-[REDACTED] is left to the discretion of each Site.

To correctly use the anomaly, personnel are to make sure of the following:

The D-class has committed an act of insubordination.

The D-class has memories of his past prior to being employed at the Foundation (minimal amnesticization).

The containment chamber must be entirely white.

There is a white chair placed in the center of the room.

The D-class is sedated and placed in said chair.

No other personnel should be confined within besides the D-class.

Wait two minutes. In the event of non-emergence, Foundation personnel are to enter the room forcefully.

Contact the Department of Atypical Persuasion if necessary.

Description: [REDACTED]

"James?"

"Yeah?"

"What's 'Atypical Persuasion'?"

"… No idea."