Fleet Director Lum, alone with his thoughts, took a moment to collect 
himself before opening the channel back to High Command. Letting 
his attention wander to the neat pile of sample bags, he noticed that 
a second bag was attached to the one containing the ID card. 
Turning it over, he examined its contents: a piece of shaped metal 
adorned with several gemstones, hanging from a thin chain. Looking 
back at the card, he mused to himself as he discovered that if he 
turned it sideways, it resembled an old terrestrial script that he'd 
studied as a young history student. 


"Dree-jahwk Breyht", he muttered to himself. "| wonder who you 
were." 


Item #: SCP-42058 
Object Class: Veren (C3/T5) 


Stellar Colonization Profile: Unusable. SCP-42058 has 
been marked off-limits to all exploration and is to be 
observed via long-range telemetry only. Two armed 
Foundation patrol ships are to be stationed on the 
perimeter of the system's planetesimal threshold, and all 
unauthorized vessels attempting to approach the system 
are to be tracked, detained, and boarded. 


Description: SCP-42058-1 is the third of eight planets 
orbiting the star G-44-9081, a yellow dwarf located at 
78.3 radial loar along the third galactic arm. 
SCP-42058-1 is in a regular elliptical orbit with a mean 
distance of approximately 4.6 vyr at the center of 
G-44-9081's green zone. SCP-42058-1 is suffering from 
terminal-stage (S7) reality corruption; while its 
manifestations appear to be trapped within its gravity 
well, it is believed that the corruption is still highly virulent 
and that artifacts retrieved from the surface may pose an 
infection risk. 


SCP-42058-2 is the extinct indigenous intelligent species 
that once inhabited SCP-42058-1. Archaeological 
evidence suggests that while capable of conventional 
rocket launches and on track to becoming an 
interplanetary civilization, SCP-42058-2 was 
overwhelmed by the high degree of reality corruption and 
was unable to maintain continuation of species before 
achieving faster-than-light capability. As of the time of 
this documentation, SCP-42058-2 appears to have been 
extinct for over twelve hundred (1200) standard solar 
years. 


SCP-42058 has been designated for observation by 
Foundation patrol craft. Due to the extensive nature of its 
corruption, there are no current plans for planetary 
remediation unless the corruption begins to spread. 


I'll See You Next Time 


Hello, !am Agent Tyler; what is your name? 

"Hi, I'm Agent Tyler. So, what's your name?" 

"Ellen Jones." 

Do you remember how you got here? 

"How did you arrive at this location?" 

"He brought me here." 

Who? 

"Who brought you here?" 

"The one that remembered my name." 

Have you ever encountered anyone else that shared this trait? 
"Was he the only one that could?" 

"Yes." 

How long have you been here? 

"How long ago was that?" 

"| don't know. Twenty, twenty-five years, maybe." 

Have you had any significant incidents with our personnel? 
"Have there ever been any incidents between you and our staff?" 
"Yes, you killed him." 


What do you mean? 


Dr. B_ : Now if you could just tell us what the purpose is, 
maybe- 


SCP-744-1: No, let me tell you something, mister! All you 
scientists think you get what makes the world turn, and if 
you see something that you don't get, you try to lock it 
away. The world deserves to see the purpose, doctor, 
and you are impeding it. | would think you of all people 
understand the futility of standing in the way of progress. 


Dr.B : Why can't you tell us? 


SCP-744-1: ... That defeats the real, awful truth of it all. 
You'll just have to help me so we can see it. 


<End Log> 
« SCP-743 | SCP-744 | SCP-745 » 


"Who killed who?" 

"Your people killed him...the one who remembered, the only one." 
Why? 

"Why?" 

"He tried to help me." 

! think that's enough for now. 

"Well, | think that's enough for this interview." 

"Anytime." 

... Thank you. 

"... Thank you." 


Then Agent Tyler left. The way he stood up and slid to the door in 
that cowardly manner, it hadn't changed at all in two decades. | 
remembered every single word from his last interview. Always the 
same conversation; little differences, of course, but after hearing it a 
few times, | knew the underlying script. He would come every once 
in a while...usually every month, sometimes once in a season, 
sometimes the very next day. | don't know why they always sent 
him; | assume they don't even realize they are doing it. It doesn't 
really matter. They're all the same. 


Everybody but one. 


| don't know why he was different, why he could see, but | didn't care 
for the reason. It was enough that he could. Maybe that was why | 
was so selfish with him. Maybe that was why | let him risk himself for 
me. | didn't realize that if he died, it severed my only link to the 
world. 


They killed him...no, | killed him. They didn't even know what they 
were doing. They couldn't, only | could. | Knew what | was doing. | 
killed him. 


He was the only one that cared. He was the only one that could. He 
knew what my existence was, this body that forgets it needs to 
breathe, to eat, to sleep, to age, to die... 


After twenty-five years, my memories of him are the only thing that 
let me weather the corrosion of time. They are neither good nor bad, 
well, really, they are both, but more importantly, they are something. 
Anything, something to give me meaning. There is nothing else | 
have. 


Time did not forget me, everything else did. | remember. | remember 
everything. 


At least one attempt has been made to destroy 
SCP-055, or possibly move it from containment at Site 
19 to another site, meeting failure for reasons unknown. 


Worn 


All that was left was the waste, and in the waste there was nothing. 
Deserts spanned the Earth, and in one there was a cavern, and at 
the mouth was a pillar of stone. 


It was hardly a shape anymore, but the rock had looked like a man 
once; now the body had been rubbed smooth and far too thin from 
erosion. The head was almost absent, rubbed to little more than a 
tumor on the neck. The fingers of the right hand had broken, and 
nubs were left on the end of a stump. The left was ground almost to 
the elbow. 


It was moving inwards, although if anybody had been alive to watch 
it, they wouldn't be able to tell. 


Years later, it would touch the back of the cavern, and begin writing 
on the walls, again. Already there were other lines scratched into the 
rock, in a language nobody was left to remember. From centuries 
earlier, they had only started to fade. 


| saw a flash today. it was so brief | thought | had imagined it, but it 
was hot, as the mountain had been hot when I was young. then 
there was fire. nothing was left after that 


before everything changed faster than | could keep up 
trees would grow, seasons would change in moments. 
now there is nothing left to change 


It reached the back and brought its arm up, grinding for months, and 
leaving one more line. 


This will have to be my new home 
It finished, satisfied with its journal, unaware of the atomic pace it 


moved at. As it turned back, it fell. Too fast for the stone man to 
comprehend, it was on its face, but could not get up. The torso, 


ground thin from years of erosion, had snapped, breaking his body 
in two. 


For decades, the stone man wept in his own way. It would still be 
centuries before he died. 


Bronze 


There was a cataclysmic reshuffling of the deck. Something very far 
away had been broken, first on that most basal of structural scales 
— the atomic nucleus — and then on a much more macroscopic 
and aesthetic scale — land, sky, composite stone, and refined 
metal. Beams and boards splintered. Foundations cracked and 
craters formed. 


Several seconds later, something else far and nearby broke open. 
There was a Way in the wall of the laboratory, haphazardly 
structured and clearly unintended. Smoke, steam and ash billowed 
through the hole from the other side, as was now both allowed and 
required by the air pressure differential. Severed wiring on the rims 
of the hole fizzled. The desert's stillness was broken, and irreparably 
broken at that. 


Several minutes later, the emergency lights and fire suppression 
systems in the laboratory came back online. Though not purposeful, 
a cloud of chilled carbon dioxide spilled onto the desert sands and 
dissipated. The fires inside were put out, but the sun outside burnt 
on. 


Several hours later, if one strained one's hearing, the distant thrum 
of one or many motorized vehicles was apparent in the regions 
surrounding the laboratory chamber, even through the Way. If one 
used artificial enhancements, one would hear shouting. Maybe even 
slamming doors and the tapping of toes. 


Several days later, after much preparation and forethought, a hand 
in possession of six fingers and mottled ashy skin probed through 
and gripped the side of the Way. Wrapped in a rubber glove, it was 
joined on the other edge of the breach by its mate. A lean, towering 
humanoid figure vaulted itself through the hole. Feé’fo panp's 
booted feet sunk into the sand to his ankles, and he shifted his 
weight so he would not sink any deeper. His reflective, protective 
full-body suit twinkled. 


His earwig crackled into life. "A// clear. Getting readings now." He 
waited. "Readings check out. Environmental conditions not harmful 
to life. No life present." 


"No life at all? Describe the nature of the new area," a tinny voice 
piped through the electric umbilicus springing from the back of his 
suit. 


"Desert as far as | can see. Temperature of 1080 Pwu. Altitude 
indeterminate." He paused, squinting at the sky with his myriad 
instruments. "...The sun isn't moving. This isn't Praveal." 


"Bureran that. Okay, turn to face the realized window. What does it 
look like on your side?" 


The giant complied. "Same shape, same depth on the inside, zero 
depth on the outside. A direct connection." 


"Okay, come on back. Watch the drop." 


"Bureran." His nimble, elongated fingers grasped at the ragged 
edges of the Way and with a mighty chin-up he pulled himself up, 
into, and through it. 


Scientists young, old and ancient watched as Feé’fo panp fell back 
through the hole in the top of the laboratory wall, briefly obscuring 
the clear blue sky behind him. He was scanned, his cable was 
disconnected, and Rad-Squad took him through the secondary 
airlock to decontamination. The data was sent to be analysed. 


Several minutes later, the data returned from analysis. Everything 
was Clean. The scientists left the room as it was sealed off and filled 
with expanding sealant foam, from the bronze-inlaid floor to the 
vaulted ceiling. 


"Walk with me," said the scientist of the most advanced age. 


..." all said. 


"...What do you suppose we do with it?" spoke a middle-aged 
scientist. 


..." all said. 

"Research." An older scientist proposed. 

".,.and development?" A slightly younger scientist queried. 
"Research and development," all agreed. 


"and development." said the youngest researcher. 


Several weeks later, the Way was unsealed. 


Several months later, the area through the Way had been fitted with 
personnel transport pads, railways, barracks, labyrinthine facilities, 
and a production command center. The last of these was by far the 
grandest structure. Eighty-one-hundred “Reiuqu tall, an utterly 
massive gray building oversaw the desert. A pyramid, at least from 
the outside, with two enormous spheres of beryllium bronze which 
hung like balloons in the air and connected by thin pipes. The 
structure was constructed of the standard Codalitao protein, which 
was what made it such a genius feat of engineering. Chalk it up to 
the pressure, the temperature, or the gravity, but it was amazing that 
it worked. Using the absolute best in dysdimensional protein folding 
had allowed the Pravealeaons to construct a factory facility inside 
that far exceeded the size of the pyramid in all eight directions. In its 
gut was the Way. 


Several years later, the factory ended production owing to a sudden 
and total lack of employees. All non-essential materials were 
scavenged and harvested thereafter. 


Several millennia later, there was an admittedly quite minor 
reshuffling of the deck along the eastern seaboard, and an 
organization devoted to protecting normalcy uncovered the factory. 
Several years later, they reopened it. 


Addendum: 
Date: 03/18/19 
Recent advancements in dematerialization science and 


containment techniques have allowed for the successful 
unfolding of protein P-17392-1 AKA "pyramitin." 
Procedures to unfold said protein as it occurs in 
SCP-1216-3 are to begin shortly. 


Addendum: 

Date: 03/21/19 

RCOC considered a loss. Lenox considered a loss. 
SCP-1216 upgraded to Keter effective immediately. 


The Deep End 


On the table there behind the glass, time was about to break. 


Thad smiled cautiously as numbers flew past his vision and he 
checked the math again and again and again. It should work—or 
rather, it should stop working—just as he had predicted. 


“Ms. Anastasakos?” 


“Yes, Doctor,” Athena replied confidently (a statement, not a 
question) as she pulled her hair into a tight bun to keep it from her 
eyes. Scrupulously she scanned the tiny ant-farm on the table with 
its houses and simple electric lights, and tiny microphones and 
cameras and little cars running along their little tracks, all laid out 
meticulously about a miniature AM/FM/VHF/UHF transceiver. “We 
are powered off. Ready for control test.” 


Five years now since SCP-176 went tits-up and trapped several 
dozen good young researchers and at least four paramilitary pukes 
in an endless cycle of creation and destruction. A full year of that 
had been spent trying to solve it. When that proved impossible, 
Xyank tried to break it for another three years. And finally, out of 
ideas, the last year was used to bottle it. The Euclid classification 
was little more than a formality at this point. And he’d learned a lot. 
The Foundation learned a lot. That was something. 


And as a way of saying ‘thank you’, they’d given him another 
tachyon emitter to dissect. 


“Alright,” Dr. Xyank said, cracking his knuckles. “I’m about to 
activate the snooze alarm on SCP-281. Mr. Kitterman, if you would 
kindly roll film on my mark.” 


“Ready,” said the lithe Jr. researcher from behind his panel. 


“Three. Two. One. Mark.” There was a loud crack. Several ants had 
died from the temporal pressure. All the little electric cars jumped 
instantly to their new places. Two light bulbs had burned out. Video 
captured in excess of 9 minutes, 57 seconds in the space of 1 
millisecond. “Alright, now we're cooking,” Thaddeus said with a nod. 
“Mr. Kitterman; talk to me about ambient radiation,” Xyank 
demanded from behind the glare of ancient lenses. 


Marcus Kitterman spun and slid his way down the bank of 
instruments and stopped himself before the correct panel, making 
little humming and clucking noises to himself as he built the various 
readings into a gradient and overlaid that gradient into the room in 
which they all stood. Fingers crossed and breath bated, three 
scientists prayed for an end of time as they knew it. “...Nothing even 
close to hazardous. We'd have to be in here about eight years just 
to be sure we had cancer.” Marcus delivered a smiling thumbs-up. 
“We're green.”