Content In The End - SCP Foundation

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PeppersGhost

Content In The End by PeppersGhost

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“Why’d you do it, Stan?”

It’s been three months since the crosstest between SCP-106 and SCP-999. The families of the deceased watch expectantly from the other side of the glass.

“Last chance. Why did you do it?”

The former researcher shifts his gaze from side to side like a cornered animal.

“I don’t know what came over me,” he says. "One day I just got to wondering who was stronger. After that I couldn’t get it out of my head. I wanted to know who would win.”

“There are no winners here, Stan. There never are.”

Fluid spirals down a tube and comes to rest in the former researcher’s arm. The room, the world, and the fabric of reality in front of him slowly fade to a dreamy soup.

“I don’t know why this is happening,” he says. “I don’t even know how I got here. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t, Stan. It doesn’t.”

And then it all goes away.

___

The anxious scientist pulls up the next slide.

“Tell me what you see,” she says.

A lifetime passes in the moments of silence that follow.

“It’s a robot bear,” says O5-11.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” O5-06 chimes in helpfully.

O5-03 puts his hand over his mouth. He’s either about to laugh or throw up.

“Oh my god,” he says. “My kids play those games. Is it supposed to have those enormous breasts?”

The anxious scientist adjusts her glasses. She swallows hard—no small effort as her mouth has been completely dry all morning.

“What you are about to see has not been fabricated,” she says. “In fact, it was taken earlier this morning.”

A new image appears depicting the same robotic bear unhinging its jaw and devouring an entire bed whole, along with its female occupant.

“Great hopping Christ,” says O5-03. “Is that Nine?”

“We have confirmed it is O5-09, yes,” says the anxious scientist. “But that’s not the most alarming thing. The anomaly we photographed attacking her…”

She pauses momentarily and glances upward, as if offering a silent prayer to any deity kind enough to smite her down where she stands.

None does.

“… is SCP-096.”

It takes a full minute for the Council’s objections to die down enough to let the anxious scientist to get another word in.

“She’s fine, everyone. Nine is fine. Just a little bruised. She’ll be joining us later today.”

“How?” asks O5-06. “She should be dead. We should be dead—that’s Oh-Nine-Six’s photograph, isn’t it?”

“The rules have changed,” the anxious scientist explains. “Or at least they’re no longer applied consistently. The only priority is engagement, you see.”

And so she tells them of how it all started, just a few years ago, and so slowly. Subtle things here and there. An increase in fatalities. A declining number of women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ individuals employed in meaningful positions. Things which aren't given the proper attention even in the best of times.

“But things have begun to change,” she continues. “I mean things are literally, tangibly changing into other things. Our reality is being rewritten in inexplicable and generally distasteful ways.”

“Is it the fae?” asks O5-02. “They’re powerful enough. Chaotic enough, perhaps.”

“Based on how aggressive and extensive the degradation of reality has been, the verdict across all departments is that the cause of the corruption does not originate from our fictive layer.”

“Fucking authors!” O5-10 exclaims, pounding his fist on the table. “How did our people in Pataphysics let this happen? What about all their talk of downvotes and quality fucking control? All the canon fuckery and inane bullshit was supposed to be confined to doomed timelines and joke universes.”

The anxious scientist unscrews his Gymshark 74oz water bottle and doesn’t set it down until it’s empty.

“It’s not the authors,” he corrects him. “Our narrative bubble was only ever meant to sustain a small, insular community, but the rate and spread of its growth is beginning to outstretch the limits of a stable concensus reality. No one ever expected our universe to become profitable, but now it is, and since it’s creative commons, there’s nothing to stop creators from reshaping our universe into whatever brings them the most ad revenue.”

“No,” whispers O5-04, tears of grim denial rolling down his weathered face. “It will pass. It has to. That spate of containment breaches in 2012 passed, didn’t it? We can’t stay trending forever, goddamn it!”

The anxious scientist shakes his head.

“Our projections say otherwise. It’s a whole different ball game now. These new creators…”

He gestures solemnly at the big-titty Fazbear vore looming over them from the conference room wall.

“… they have no fucking shame. In our world, this is a still frame from home security footage. In theirs, it’s a hand-drawn thumbnail on a monetized YouTube video. And for many people, this is the only version of our universe they’ll ever know. We’re talking millions of children who aren’t old enough to read, and nearly as many adults who can’t be arsed to. Fad or not, the damage is done.”

A shroud of misery has fallen over the room. Half the Overseer Council is openly weeping at this point. The anxious scientist respectfully turns off the slideshow.

“So what happens now?” asks one of them. It doesn’t matter who.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” says the anxious scientist, glancing down. “By the time I arrived here an hour ago I no longer had an actual name, and now I seem to be a man. Most of the women in the room will suffer the same fate, and those who don’t will likely be uncomfortably sexualized. And that's just the start of it. The Ethics Committee was supposed to discuss the use of amnestics to help cope with the changes, but most of them are leaning on the side of outright euthanasia.”

O5-14, who had been silent up to this point, rises to his feet. He considers the mahogany conference table carefully for few seconds, head tilted, then grips it by the edges and hurls it through the floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire eastern wall until that moment. He counts the seconds before it hits the ground.

“We’re forty floors up,” he says grimly. “This room is supposed to be underground.”

O5-14 cracks his knuckles. As leader of the Overseeing Council, it’s his job to keep things in order. To give them hope. The others gaze up at him in awe, anticipating one of his legendary speeches.

“I won’t lie to you all,” he begins. “This is bad. Maybe the worst it’s ever been. But we’ve faced hard times before, and we’ve never backed down from a challenge. Hell, I may not know where we are, or how exactly we’re going to beat this, or who I’m supposed to be, but I’ll tell you what I do know: we won’t go down without a fight.”

Someone in the room asks what’s going on and is promptly shushed.

“Our entire universe is based around the Foundation. We have the whole world and more at our disposal, and we will not hesitate to use our assets to our advantage. Currently almost 10 million employees have joined our Shadow Organization over just the last six months, and it's one of the most impressive groups in its class with detailed models and environments! All the champions in the Foundation can be customized with unique gear that changes your strategic buffs and abilities! Currently with over 300,000 reviews, Raid Shadow Legends has almost a perfect score on the Play Store—”

The crack of a gun. A body hits the floor. It doesn’t bleed.

The anxious scientist composes himself and asks if anyone would like to be next.

Hands are raised.