Item #: SCP-1935

Object Class: Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1935 has shown no sign of activity within the last 36 months, and has been classified Neutralized. Researchers wishing to study SCP-1935 may do so with permission from Regional Command 24-A.

Description: SCP-1935 is a two-story concrete structure located in the outskirts of ███████, █████. The ground floor consists of four identical chambers and a staircase to the second floor. The second floor houses an additional four chambers. Each chamber contains an empty alcove, four meters in radius, indented into the floor.

From the time of SCP-1935's discovery and for the five years following it, any person within the structure would experience hallucinations, coupled with sense of temporal and spatial dislocation, at inconsistent intervals. Said hallucinations always consisted of a view of the Earth as seen from a moving point in space. This point is located at height of approximately 370 km above sea level (i.e, in orbit) and moves at a speed of approx. 27,000 km/h. Hallucinations typically lasted between five and thirty minutes. The intervals between hallucinations grew increasingly long during the time SCP-1935 was active, from one occurring approximately every hour in the time immediately following its discovery, to hallucinations occurring only about every two weeks in the period prior to its neutralization, following Incident SCP-1935-Atropos.

Additionally, SCP-1935 was found to be resistant to changes in its local reality; SCP-1935's interior repeatedly altered itself in an attempt to return to the way it was prior to being contained by the Foundation. This anomalous quality of SCP-1935 manifested in natural phenomena such as the patterns in which dust gathered and a significantly lowered rate of growth for flora found within the structure, as well as in the apparent discarding of litter left in the premise of SCP-1935. Larger items and people seemed entirely unaffected by this secondary effect of SCP-1935, and it is not currently known if or how it related to the primary phenomena. Surface similarities have been found between this secondary anomalous effect of SCP-1935 and that of SCP-1915, though due to the general nature of the phenomena and the inherent difficulty of conducting research in SCP-1915's vicinity, establishing more solid connections has proved unsuccessful.

Addendum-1935-A: Incident-1935-Atropos: following a period of three weeks without activity in SCP-1935, Foundation personnel within the structure experienced the following hallucination on ██/██/████. This hallucination diverged significantly from the previously established pattern of SCP-1935 in that it included an element of speech. Speaker was identified as male and spoke for seven minutes and fifteen seconds before ceasing.

<Transcript:>

First of all, I want to let you know that you don't have to listen to this. What I have to say isn't really all that important. Hell, I'm not even sure it's interesting. You could walk away right now, and nothing bad is going to happen to you or to anyone else. But if you're willing, and you have some spare time I'd like you to listen. It's the last story I'm ever going to tell, after all.

When I was little, I wanted to go to space.

Not as an astronaut, mind you. Even as a boy, I knew I didn't have what it took to be someone like that. I didn't really know how I would get there, or when, or why, all I knew that at least once in my life I wanted to leave this planet behind, if only for a few moments. To be above everything I knew, unrestrained, without worry, without fear. To be… uncontained.

You know these kids that get bullied in high-school? Those awkward, geeky, unattractive kids who get picked on by those bigger or prettier or more popular than them, who get pushed around relentlessly, without mercy, until they have no choice but to turn to each other for company, simply because no one else would have them? The kind of kids that adults always say would grow up to be scientists or venture capitalists or some other great thing just so they could feel better about doing nothing for them? I wasn't one of those kids. I never got my head stuck in a toilet, was never humiliated because of the TV shows I liked or the books I read or the fact I wasn't really interested in sports or because I looked weird or had a strange accent. Do you know what I felt when I watched those poor bastards being tormented, for no real reason, sometimes brutally? Why I never once said anything?

It's because I was jealous of them. I saw them hang around in groups, in pathetic bunches of the miserable and downtrodden. I saw the bonds building up between them, nurtured as much by mutual suffering as by their common interests. I saw those kids slowly transforming each other into grown men and women through their suffering, watched how they hardened and stuck closer to one another, like carbon molecules making a diamond. And me?

I stayed as I always was. As I said, I was never picked on by bullies. Hell, my existence was rarely even acknowledged by them. I seemed to drift through my years in school like some sort of half-corporeal apparition. I didn't have any friends, but not because of anything I was. No, it was because of this odd sense of lethargy that always seemed to weigh down every decision I made, like… an anchor to a drowning ship. I wanted to go out and hang with the other kids, to go do… I dunno, whatever kids do. Ride bikes, play video games or smoke or get drunk and caught by the cops and spend a night in jail until your parents come and drag your crying ass home. But I couldn't. I couldn't get myself to do anything at all. At first I told myself that it was just me being lazy, and that was probably true, to an extent. There was something more to it though, something that fed my laziness until it became a bloated, obese thing. I was scared.

Of what? Fuck if I know. My parents always tried to get me to try new things, to go out there and live, to just do something, for heaven's sake. They tried their very best. I was their only son after all, born late in their lives, and they only ever wanted what was best for me. They told me they didn't care if I got in trouble or didn't do too well in school or anything like that. They just wanted me to be happy, and I loved them for that. They were the only thing in the world I loved. But I couldn't do it, not even for them. So I drifted, on and on, until school was done. Twelve years, and I don't think I spoke more than a score of words to any of my classmates. I'm not even sure most of them knew my name.

Am I boring you? Sorry if I am. I'm getting to some sort of point with this, I promise. It's just hard to keep focused, the way I am now.

You see, I used to watch a lot of movies about college. They all promised that it was a time to party nonstop, to meet girls, have a good time. I wasn't stupid enough to buy that, but I thought that maybe living on-campus would force me to interact with people, and that maybe that way I'll finally get over myself for long enough to actually meet someone. My parents thought so too, and so they sent me to the best college they could afford, even though my mother was already not well at the time. At first, I thought it worked. I met a few people I didn't mind hanging out with in between classes and during meals, and I learned to talk a bit more and to joke around and be… social, I guess. But it was quickly becoming apparent that all of this was an illusion. Sure, I was talking to people, but I never actually got to know any of them. We would talk about this or that class or some show on TV or what an asshole that politician was and how he dared propose this particular law, and that was that. The moment I was out of their sight I was out of their minds, and sad as it is to admit, it was the same for me too. Once I was alone I crawled back to my old habits, became just the person I was in high school all over again. I didn't do any partying, needless to say, nor was I having a particularly good time. And girls…

There was one girl. She was a year above me, took some of the same classes I did since she had to take some time off during her first year. We'd talk sometimes before class. She was nice, intelligent, god damn gorgeous, and never anything but perfectly polite to me. Our conversations were never about anything of substance, just like with all the others, but I liked her a lot. Maybe even more than that. She was the only one I kept thinking about. I never did anything about it, of course. The thought of asking her out terrified me beyond reason. So I waited, though for the life of me I don't know for what. Maybe I dreamed she'd ask me out herself or some other stupid notion like that. Needless to say, nothing like that ever happened. At the end of my second year, she left. There was no drama, of course, because as far as she was concerned, I wasn't anything more than a casual acquaintance. She left, and that was that. I'm not sure if I cried because of it. I might've.

After that, well… you know how there are all those songs about having your heart broken, how bad it hurts and how the pain won't go away and all that? I guess that what I felt was the exact opposite. Not happy, obviously, what I mean was that I beginning to sort of go… numb, maybe? I don't really like using the word because it implies something deep and dramatic, some plunge into the depths of despair or something. It wasn't anything like that. I lived my life, I did alright in school, I worked, and most of the time I didn't even think about it. I functioned. But sometime, usually when it was late, I used to think about this… lack in my life, and it was then that I knew I should stop hoping. I realized that this is all I'm ever going to get. That what was is what is and what will be, until I'm gone. That the girl going away wasn't some great tragedy that would scar me for life- because she's only going to be the first among many to leave without ever even realizing I cared. And that someday, I'd stop caring altogether. You know what the strangest thing is? I began hoping that day would come sooner rather than later.

A year after I graduated, my mother passed away. Her back has been real bad for a few years by that point, and she really couldn't function anymore. My dad was worn thin trying to take care of her, but in the end it was decided that the only chance she had was an operation. You know, it's strange. Medicine has improved so much these last few decades, but most of that improvement has to do with the stuff in the front of the body. As far as back issues are concerned, you're about as likely to die on the operating table as you are to walk away. And my mother… she didn't. I told myself that she was in pain, that maybe she was better off now, wherever she was, but I just had to look at my dad to know it was bullshit. After everything taking care of her took from him, he just… he couldn't handle it anymore. He couldn't handle that it was all for nothing, that she just ended up… yeah. Six months later, and he was gone. Doctors said it was a sudden aneurysm, but I was never really sure. Doesn't matter anyway. Gone is gone.

Not much longer now. Heh, not like I have a choice anyway.

Without my mom and dad, my last real connection to other people was gone. I was working as a cashier in a local drug store at the time, since I never really found the motivation to seek work in my chosen field after college. My life began to sorta shrink, like I couldn't see anything past my register. I could vaguely comprehend there were people behind those hands that handed me credit cards, but they weren't really there. If you asked me, I honestly couldn't tell you how I felt during those days. I mean, by that point I was used to living like this. It was all I really knew. And it was paying work, good as any other, so there was no point in complaining. When I came home, I used to go to those group support forums. Not really to talk to anyone, because the few times I tried it never really did anyone involved any good. No, I was there to look at other people's stories, and convince myself that my situation wasn't as bad in comparison. And it really wasn't. Some of those people had terrible shit happening in their lives, and I mean real stuff, real pain. I… I didn't want to help though. Not at all. It's fucked up, but I needed them there, just the way they were. Their pain kept me afloat, kept me sane.

One day, when I got off from work, I didn't go home. I just couldn't bear the thought of going back to that empty place, to sit alone in front of a screen and pretend that I care about the trouble of people I never met and will never meet. To take their dignity away as I secretly rejoiced in their suffering. So I just walked, I walked until there was no more streets to walk, and I was outside the city. It was the first time I left the city in years, and out there, in that point just before the mountains start, the light was low enough to allow you to see the stars. Swirling patterns of them, beyond count. Beyond reason. So many. I'm… not sure what I felt. It was wonderful. It was terrifying. I…

I'm making no sense. It's the fading, you see. Not much longer now. I'll try and keep myself together though, just for a while longer. Heh. Together.

I was watching those stars, but not only the stars. I began looking at the empty places between them, and my legs began carrying me, like that mountain road was going to take me up there, to the heart of the void. And I wanted to go, desperately wanted to go. But no. No road to the stars, just a building, this building. It was as you see it now, two floors, four rooms each, and the pools. Ah, but I forget, something was different. The pools, those dry indents right there, they were full. Full of nothing. Nothing made manifest. A nothing with… with teeth.

Did you know there are people out there who can create something from nothing? As my legs carried me to that pool, it spoke to me about those people. They can look into the empty places that are between things, and bend them, fill them with their will, and so, from nothing, something. But those empty places that they fill… they have to go somewhere, right? Yes, the pool told me, and I could hear it so clearly now, I was touching it, you see, the pool told me that most of those people just threw the empty places, that entropy, they just threw it away. They didn't care what happened when an empty place, a place that should be hidden, was exposed. They didn't care that when that happened, the empty places weren't empty anymore, because things from other places began to fill them, and people… people died. Most of those who could create didn't care at all. But he did.

I could feel him there, in the empty places he left behind him. He didn't throw them away, no, he made a place where they could be safe, where people would be safe from them. And he didn't even know it. He didn't even know he had the power to create in the first place. He was… he was just like me, but it was worse for him. I was trapped because I had no power, but he was trapped because he had too much. He was… stuck, because he believed he was stuck. He was unhappy because that was the reality he made for himself from his empty places, from his personal entropy. He didn't even know that all this power was there, that I was touching it, that I was holding it. But unlike him, I knew that this was power. That this was… real.

For the first time in my life, I had power. Not to create, of course, because this was the power of the empty places. No, this was the power to unmake. To erase everything. I began to shiver, as the empty places that the unknowing creator left behind him swarmed over me, and I became them, they became me. I could unmake it all. Those long years without anyone, that way people forgot about me the moment they turned away, that smile on her face, like she didn't even know, like she didn't even know that I cared! I could unmake it all. Gone, just like that. That would make them remember. Oh, I would make them care about me, they would care about me because there was nothing else left, because I'd leave nothing else to care about, THEY WOULD CARE ABOUT M-

I caught myself then, and I could see how far I have fallen. After all those years, there was nothing left in me but jealousy, resentment, and that kind of desire that only leads to ugliness. I couldn't use that entropy that was so kindly left behind for me. A better man could. A better man would use this power for good, because there was nothing wrong with entropy. No, it wasn't the power that was corrupt, it was me. But we were tied now, me and it. Forever. I knew that if I released it, it would… bring things forth. From those empty places between places, things will come forth, and there would be no stopping them. Not me, not the unknowing creator, nor those who held him, no one could stop them. I couldn't hold the power, and I could not release it. But there was a third option. An option that should have been unthinkable, that should have left me weeping for even considering it. But it didn't. I think I knew it was coming. Maybe I hoped it was coming.

I could unmake myself. If I could trust myself to use the power, just once, to send myself to a place where it could do no harm, where it would simply dissipate, left to blend with the greater entropy of creation. I would shoot myself upward, like a meteor in reverse, freezing instead of burning, and my consciousness would disappear with the power, forever. There would be no return, for there would be no death. I would simply be gone, for good. This…

This gladdened me.

It took longer than I thought. I did not expect anything of me to remain for this long, but I'm glad something did. I finally got to leave, you see. I got to watch the whole world turn below me, a hundred times, a thousand, more. Green, blue and red, and that's all. But now, the power is gone. The emptiness returned to whence it came. It's time to go. I thank you for listening. It did me good to know that someone was there to hear what I had to say. It might not mean much to you, but it does to me. I suppose there's only one question left for me to ask then.

Am I happy? I don't think I am. I wish that I could find some way to live down there, to live as something more than an empty vessel. To be content, I think that would have been enough. But the time for that is done. Done and gone.

Am I happy then? No. But at least I have nothing to fear anymore. And for someone like me, that would have to be enough.

Enough.

<End Transcript>

Researchers could not establish if the person speaking through SCP-1935 was addressing anyone in particular or if the speech was intended to be general. Following this incident, SCP-1935's primary phenomena ceased to function, 1935 was designated Neutralized.