All the memories of the place I belonged to, really belonged to, before it all fell apart and stopped making sense.



SCP-3997: In My End is My Beginning

Author: Tufto, written on their original account. More of their work can be found here.

Item #: SCP-3997

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: All SCP-3997-1 instances are to be taken into Foundation custody, and interviewed to acquire information on SCP-3997, before being issued with Class-C amnestics and returned to the population.

A special taskforce, MTF ██-██ "Ragged Claws" is responsible for the location and detention of these individuals. This taskforce has undertaken extensive antimemetic and cognitohazardous training, in an effort to [DATA EXPUNGED].

Description: SCP-3997 is a mental phenomenon affecting a number of individuals, hereafter referred to as SCP-3997-1 instances. There does not appear to be any common factors linking these individuals beyond their anomalous properties, although a significantly large number of these instances are residents of the county of ███████████████, England.

SCP-3997-1 instances report a number of vivid dreams featuring white roses. These dreams often involve memories of early childhood, but which have been altered to feature white roses or the SCP-3997-1 instance walking through a rose garden. SCP-3997-1 instances demonstrate an inordinate affection and regard for white roses, sometimes bordering on the obsessive.

SCP-3997 was first brought to the Foundation's attention when the regular psyche evaluations of several researchers at sites in the West of England revealed that they shared almost identical recurring dreams, despite a lack of contact or involvement with one another beforehand.

Below is an interview with a typical SCP-3997-1 instance: Dr. █████ ███ ████, a Level 3 Foundation researcher.

Interview 3997-56

Interview 3997-56

Interviewed: SCP-3997-1-A.

Interviewer: Dr. O██████.

Foreword: This interview was conducted 02/09/1997, in a standard humanoid containment cell in Site 226.

<Begin Log>

Dr. O██████: Hey, H████.

SCP-3997-1-A: That's SCP-3997-1-A to you, sonny. <Laughs>. I thought Frank was interviewing me?

Dr. O██████: Nah, he'll be along later today. I wouldn't worry about it. So, when did you first start getting these dreams?

SCP-3997-1-A: When I was about four, I think. I kept dreaming I was a delivery guy. For mechanical parts of some kind. It's a bit weird, really- not the kind of thing a four-year-old normally dreams of. Anyway, I'd keep dreaming about white roses in pretty much all my dreams, no matter what they were about. Houses would be made of them, clouds would look like them, that sort of thing.

Dr. O██████: Was there any particular… feeling, or emotion, that you associated with the roses? Just something the others have said.

SCP-3997-1-A: …Yeah, actually. They've always reminded me of my childhood, and my home back in M██████. Whenever I see them, I keep thinking of… old memories. Little things, you know- like going to church, or lying on the grass, or swimming down near W█████. It's weird, really- nothing else has that kind of effect on me. They just… make me feel nostalgic.

Dr. O██████: Why is that weird? It's not that strange to have memories and feelings triggered by things from your childhood.

SCP-3997-1-A: Yeah, but, that's the thing- apart from those dreams, I never really had any contact with white roses. Mum didn't grow them in the garden, we never had them in a vase… they just bring back memories. Make me feel… innocent, I guess. I don't know why it is.

Dr. O██████: What are your feelings towards white roses in general? Outside of your dreams?

SCP-3997-1-A: Well, as you know- I like them. I've painted a few, down at my house in █████, and I like growing them. They're just pretty flowers, though.

<End Log>

FURTHER INFORMATION RESTRICTED TO LEVEL 4 PERSONNEL AND ABOVE ONLY

WELCOME, OVERSEER

Item #: SCP-3997

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: All SCP-3997-1 instances are to be immediately and permanently taken into Foundation custody on discovery, and interrogated for knowledge pertaining to SCP-3997. A special taskforce, MTF Mu-45 "Ragged Claws", has been established for the purposes of both detaining SCP-3997-1 instances and locating SCP-3997; this taskforce has undertaken extensive antimemetic and cognitohazardous training, in an effort to counteract the presumed effects of SCP-3997.

Description: SCP-3997 is a rose garden, believed to exist somewhere in the British county of Gloucestershire. Information on SCP-3997 has only been inferred from the testimony of SCP-3997-1 instances, and thus its existence is only theoretical.

It is believed that, should any adult individual enter SCP-3997, a significant temporal shift will occur. This involves the individual's memories being transferred into the consciousness of that individual at an earlier point in time- ordinarily between the ages of 2 and 5. These memories appear to the child in the form of a particularly vivid dream, followed by several similar dreams for 5-8 years following this. Individuals affected in this manner are referred to as SCP-3997-1 instances. These individuals are unaware that these dreams are anomalous.

The presence of these memories in the consciousness of SCP-3997-1 instances appears to have a dramatic effect on the course of their life, often influencing them to take entirely different decisions and manifest a notably different personality than in the previous timeline. SCP-3997 instances are thus usually- though not exclusively- highly successful in both their personal and professional lives, often becoming experts in their chosen fields. In addition to this, SCP-3997-1 instances suffer vivid dreams throughout their life featuring SCP-3997, white roses and several childhood memories. Speaking about these dreams often causes SCP-3997-1 instances to enter a kind of trance-state, where they are able to recall aspects of these dreams in great detail.

Activation of SCP-3997 thus causes a subtle but significant CK-class restructuring event, which is believed to have occurred innumerable times. The location and termination of SCP-3997 is now a top priority All efforts to locate SCP-3997 have been ordered to cease immediately, on the orders of O5-█. Because of this, and the temptation among many personnel to seek out SCP-3997 for their own use, full knowledge of SCP-3997 has been restricted to the O5 council and selected personnel involved with research on SCP-3997.

SCP-3997 was first brought to the Foundation's attention when the regular psyche evaluations of several researchers at sites in the West of England revealed that they shared almost identical recurring dreams, despite a lack of contact or involvement with one another beforehand.

Addendum 3997-1: On 28/11/2001, several concerned members of MTF Mu-45 "Ragged Claws" revealed to researchers that they possessed shared memories of multiple nonexistent squad members. Researchers later determined that the individuals whom they were remembering did, in fact, exist, but were instead civilian SCP-3997-1 instances with no knowledge of the Foundation and its activities. These instances had never met the squad members in question.

This not only adds weight to the theory that SCP-3997 is indeed a real location, but has led researchers to believe that on innumerable occasions the Foundation itself has [DATA REDACTED ON ORDER OF O5-█].

Addendum 3997-2: Below is an interview with an SCP-3997-1 instance. This instance was formerly Dr. Henry St. John, a Level 3 Foundation researcher, before his anomalous status caused him to be stripped of his rank and placed in containment.

Interview 3997-57

Interviewed: SCP-3997-1-A.

Interviewer: Dr. Kartesian.

Foreword: This interview was conducted 02/09/1997, in a standard humanoid containment cell in Site 226.

<Begin Log>

Dr. Kartesian: Good afternoon, SCP-3997-1-A. Are you finding your quarters comfortable?

SCP-3997-1-A: Frank, you've known me for seven years. I've been a researcher for thirty. I know the drill. Let's get on with this.

Dr. Kartesian: …Very well. What can you tell me about the rose garden?

SCP-3997-1-A: The- what? What rose garden?

Dr. Kartesian: If our suspicions are correct, you should have had a dream about a rose garden. Several dreams, in fact. Since you were a small child.

SCP-3997-1-A: You want to know about the garden? Well, OK… I suppose I have dreamt about it quite a lot. It's just a recurring dream. There's nothing suspicious in it.

Dr. Kartesian: That's for us to decide. Now, tell me about these dreams.

SCP-3997-1-A: O-kay… well, they always start with me as someone else. I'm not a linguist at all, I'm a truck driver. I drive trucks. Or was it a van? Something like that. I've always disliked them- too big, smelly, that kinda thing- but I really hate them in this dream. Resent them, that sort of thing. Anyway, in the dream, I'm doing a delivery to this big country house.

Dr. Kartesian: A- do you remember anything about this house? A name? Location?

SCP-3997-1-A: I'm afraid not. I remember some kind of classical-looking facade, but… nothing else. Is that important?

Dr. Kartesian: I'll ask the questions, thank you.

SCP-3997-1-A: For God's sake, Frank…

Dr. Kartesian: What happened? Did you enter the house?

SCP-3997-1-A: No. I knocked on the door, but nobody was home. I waited around for a bit, but there wasn't anything there. So I… I'm sorry, Frank, it's hard to remember. It's a dream, they're not easy to remember… so, I see this hedge. Got an entrance in it. I go in, and I'm in a rose garden. Lots of white roses everywhere. They're arranged over archways, over wooden frames. Little neat stone paths, stretching, stretching away in front of me… so white, so pure…

At this point, SCP-3997-1-A seems to have entered a kind of trance state.

SCP-3997-1-A: And I walk through it, and I look at the sky… it's a fine sky… the grass looks like it's glowing, 'cause the sun's shining down and it's all so calm, peaceful, serene… nobody else is around. There's just me, and the roses…

Dr. Kartesian: SCP-3997-1-A? SCP-3997-1-A, are you alright? …Henry? Can you hear me?

SCP-3997-1-A: And then… all of it fell away, in a single instant. The roses were all around me, and it all felt… right. Like when I was a child, and they knew what was right and what was wrong again, and the warmth of my mother’s arms. I remembered… I remembered things, images, little things you wouldn’t remember… summertime as we walked the path to church, looking at the old gravestones and thinking of their age, looking at the sky and its distant clouds, the way they played against the sky. They weren’t abstract balls of steam and water, they were, were… they were an anchor of infinity to earth, and a solid, real reminder of infinity. I looked at the gravestones, and thought of how beautiful this place was, this England. It was a place where they could truly be at peace, under the sun and in the green and yellow fields, rolling on down the hills. The world was beyond the horizon. Here was paradise.

Dr. Kartesian: …And what else?

SCP-3997-1-A: What else? I remember…. I remembered running in the playground. I remembered watching the news about the Suez Crisis and not understanding what it meant, or why my mother seemed so serious so suddenly. I remember rainy days reading old books, nestled in a corner by the radiator. I remember films about New York, how strange the city seemed with its cabs and its grey buildings teetering on the edge of the same bright sky I saw in the graveyard. I remembered my childhood as a whole thing, all the little things that seemed normal and unimportant then, but seemed so visceral now, so real. And I remembered the roses.

Dr. Kartesian: What about them?

SCP-3997-1-A: The roses… the roses in the garden. They were there, too, as I walked through it. They were my mother’s arms, they were the warmth of summer, they were sitting in a brightly-lit train as it tunnelled through a dark thunderstorm… they were memories, all the memories of the place I belonged to, really belonged to, before it all fell apart and stopped making sense. I was real again. I was me again. I went back to my home, my England, and then, and then- and then I woke up.

Sorry, Frank. Was a bit out of it, there. What were we talking about?

<End Log>

FURTHER INFORMATION RESTRICTED TO LEVEL 5 PERSONNEL ONLY

WELCOME, OVERSEER

Note from O5-█

By now, you will have realised the implications of what you've read. What we've done. And I'm sure that many of you are now feeling tempted to enter the rose garden yourself. It is for this reason that I've restricted all our information on possible locations to the Council. The temptation is always there, and it is always great. I have lain awake myself at night, thinking of all my regrets, all the things I have done wrong. For the price of a few bad dreams, I could make all my sins go away, and be new again. In my end is my beginning.

Don't try it. What you have read is not an escape route, but a testament to the Foundation's failure. Its utter, complete failure, which we have brought upon ourselves time after time after time. You'll be destroying the innocent, stopping them from ever being born, preventing them from knowing what life was. They'll only be a shade of a memory, a scattered thought on lonely days by versions of people who might once have known them.

And if that's not enough, remember this: the comfort the garden offers is unreal. It's a withdrawal from the truth. We all want to go back to when things were warm, and simple, and the days were filled with the summer sun and cool grass. We all want to live in the light again. But we all made our choices, and we all swore our oaths. Every one of us will die in the dark. Accept that.

~O5-█