"But... but | saw them. They really did! One of them nearly pecked 
my poor eye out... All | did was try to give them some nice shrimp. | 
didn't mean to knock the poor thing over. I'm telling the truth you 
know. You have to believe me. | really am!" 


"I'm sorry Mr. Windsworth, there's nothing | can do." 


"This is preposterous! /am an American citizen. | shall not accept 
this kind of treatment... I'd like to speak to your Manager!" 


"I'll put you through to my boss, Mr. Windsworth, but he'll just tell you 
the same thing." 

"Hello?" 

"Who is this? Are you the manager?" 


"Yes Mr. Windsworth. I'm told you've been having some trouble with 
your lawn ornaments." 


"Trouble! You don't know trouble. And they're certainly not mine. | 
don't know who put them there. Whoever did it, they're a terrorist. 
Those little monsters have been assaulting me. They're a public 
nuisance, | tell you!" 


"Mr. Windsworth, you have to understand. No one is coming. No 
one will ever come. Give up.” 


"Hello? Are you still there? Hello? ...Hello?" 


"Is this Captain Jefferies?" 


"Yeah Emerson, what's the problem? I've been trying to get a hold 
of you all day." 


"Sorry, Cap, the damn thing died again. You should see this place 
though, fuckin’ preposterous. There's these weird-ass flamingos all 
over the place. Whole house is filled with ‘em. Old man must've 
been collecting the damn things." 


"Have you questioned him yet? The dispatcher told me he sounded 
a bit out of it." 


"That's the thing captain. The old man, Windsor or somethin’, he's 
dead. Gaines found him out front, covered in these weird scratches. 
Must've been some crazy-ass gardening accident or something. | 
dunno. Anyway, the guy's dead. Looks like he bled out. | think the 
crows already got to him, the eyes and tongue are gone." 


"No signs of forced entry at the house?" 


"No. There's a broken window upstairs, but nothing bigger than, like, 
a bird or something could get in through there." 


"Alright, Emerson, call the morgue and get back to work." 


"Hey Cap, one more thing. The phone line's down here. Looks like 

something snapped it. Not sure what could have done it, though, no 
trees nearby. Maybe somethin’ landed on it or something. Whatever, 
I'm out of here. These birds are starting to get pretty fuckin’ creepy." 


Flora 


She could grow flowers from the ground and fruit from the trees by 
glancing at a barren place. 

Everywhere she went, and everything she touched, was beautiful 
and alive. 

She burned like a star and was cool to the touch. 

Her name was Flora. 


| laid with a huff in the grass next to her, backpack next to me, so 
near to the cliff | could see the world stretch beneath us for miles 
through the mist. 

"You're so lucky. | can't get a single thing to grow in my window box, 
and | mean it. Not a single thing!" 

She flopped down next to me, throwing me an apple, one in hand for 
herself. 

"Did you fertilize?" 

"Yes! Yes, of course | fertilized." 

She laughed. 

"Nothing much we can do about bad soil." 

| looked up to the clouds, like a child. A lone hiker from a nearby 
college and a woman from the soil. 

"You should just come and do my gardening for me." 

| knew the answer to that. 'l can't leave here. | can never leave.' 
She never told me why, and | never once wanted to know. 


| finished college with a masters in aerodynamics, and worked ina 
local engineering firm, close to the National Park. Every weekend | 
went to see my Flora, although my whole adult life | wanted to see 
her every day. It never rained where she was, never stormed. The 
sun always shone and the light was always bright. We never dated 
per se- it was not in my place, and not in hers, to ask- but she was 
my best friend, my everything. Even though the age gap was 
significant. 


Her garden was amazing. It couldn't even be classified as a garden 


past a certain point- just a design of rings and rings of bushes and 
beautiful trees and fruit, and her house was an amalgamation of 
vines and gnarled tree branches so tight not a single drop of dew 
could be found. 


And every month, she lit her world into flame. 
| never told a soul. 

We got older. 

And older. 

And | left. 


Well, | had to leave. My family lived in another state, running a 
family business, and there came a time after my mother's death 
where my father insisted | come home, if not just for a month, to 
help. 

So | told her. 


"I'll be back in a month." 

The sun shone through her white hair like it was glinting off the 
rapids of a river. 

"Do you promise?" Flora, the amazing Flora, said. 

"| promise." | said. The hiker in the woods. 


| did not come back for many years. 
Perhaps | forgot, if it is possible to forget such a beautiful thing. 


Perhaps it was my train of thought as the moon rose, thirty years 
later, when | was old and wary. 


Perhaps it was my pining for her, in my subconscious. The fact that | 
was alone. 


But | became, again, the hiker. 


There was barbed wire around her home, and it pricked suspicion in 
my heart. When | called to her, | heard nothing but the sway of the 
trees. Along the wire, signs warned "KEEP OUT" and 


"RESTRICTED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT". How 
had they found their way here? So far upwards, so close to heaven, 
so close to the sky? 


| hopped the fence, into my Flora's perfect garden. Nothing had 
changed. Still the same patterns. Still the same. 


| clutched the flowers | brought for her. 
My Flora. She was still here! 


Hopefully she had not forgotten. | ran to her home, grass squishing 
under the lift of my boots (always well-watered and well-cut), bugs 
buzzing lazily around flowers in the bushes (they never bit anyone), 
calling to her, calling "Flora! Flora, I'm here!" 


And indeed she was. 


Her skeleton lay on the floor, hardly disturbed. Table still set. 
Flowers still blooming. 


| thought about the signs on the wire outside. 

"PROPERTY OF THE US GOVERNMENT". 

| welled with rage. 

Flora WILL NOT be yours. 

| burst into the clearing, eyes welling with tears, panic in my chest, 
her body against mine like when we were young, in the grassy 


clearing. 


Fog drifted at the base of the cliff below, the world spanning around 
us in a flurry of green. 


| held my Flora tight in my arms and asked for one more beautiful 
thing. 


She could grow flowers from the ground and fruit from the trees by 
glancing at a barren place. 
Everywhere she went, and everything she touched, was beautiful 


and alive. 
She burned like a star and was cool to the touch. 
Her name was Flora. 


When she left, it rained in Eden. 


Flower Girl 


Blossom was a flower girl 
who was in fact a flower 


she worked a shop on Third and Pearl 
which was in fact her bower 


A boy walked by and pointed out 
her status with some laughter 


and though she smiled and offered doubt 
she lost her mind right after 


Site Long-Term Non-Anomalous Item Storage 
Facility 


Item Record 
Locker #: 6709-033 
Ref: Item 1 of 10 
Archived By: Dr. 


Description: 

Hand-written document, black permanent marker on 10.5 
inch by 8 inch (26.67 cm by 20.32 cm) paper roughly torn 
from a spiral-bound notebook. 


Document and 9 additional items of interest were 
confiscated and transferred to Site on // by 
undercover agents embedded in local law enforcement 
after they were recovered from a downtown flower store 
in [REDACTED] owned by [REDACTED], a young 
woman approximately 23 years of age. A concerned 
neighbor had reported that the storefront had been 


closed for three days in a row despite the immediate 
proximity of Mother's Day, which is one of the best sales 
periods for such businesses. Neighbor reported that 
upon investigation, they could hear muffled sobbing or 
crying from within the store, which prompted the police 
call and was corroborated by the initial responding law 
officers. 


Upon forcing their way into the store, all sound from 
within the store immediately ceased. Approximately 12% 
of the store's stock was disturbed or destroyed ina 
manner consistent with having been displaced as a 
result of an individual searching for something among 
the shelves, and all flowers within the store had had their 
petals removed in a manner consistent with careful 
detachment rather than violent tearing. A single neat pile 
of mixed flower petals totaling approximately 58.6 kg by 
weight was discovered behind the main counter, which 
was inconsistent with the amount of flower stems located 
within the store; this discrepancy in mass remains 
unexplained. 


None of the items recovered from the scene exhibited 
any anomalous properties or effects. No traces of 
[REDACTED] or the notebook that this document was 
torn from were ever found. 


Follow The Keter 


Note: The following audio log was recovered from security cameras 
inside of SCP-682's containment cell during Incident 
682-076-1JF4D-NAS5, in which SCP-076-2 breached containment 
and engaged in combat with SCP-682. For the full incident report, 
please refer to Document 682-076-1JF4D-NA5. 


<Begin Log> 


SCP-076-2: You say you fucked my mother? I'll fucking kill you, 
man. Nobody fucks with A-to-the B L E. 


SCP-682: Faggot, you just wish you was me. Stop playing, maybe 
I'll spare you. 


SCP-076: Yea, yea, yea, yea, alright boy, this time you asked for it! 
A vat of acid, that's your decorum? 

Check my swag, I'm back in a black case 

Just in case you missed the memo, I'm based! 


I'm the king of the hill, as real as they come, 
You was probably rich, but | came from the slums. 
A heart of darkness, but | came the farthest, 
Your flow is retarded, if | want beef then I'll start it! 


SCP-682: | killed you before, | can do it some more. 

I'm getting hundreds, you got twenties, but lemme settle the score. 
No cheap ass screwball from off the street 

Can withstand the weight beneath 682's feet! 


I'm the out-of-town gangster, major shot-caller, 

| call guard's necks snapbacks, which | brought back, holla, 
I'm a straight up baller, rhyming sicker than HOVA, 

You the son of a gun, | scare the shit out of Jehova. 


SCP-076: Ay yo, let's be real, eh? 


Details: An unknown non-terrestrial organism which began 
screeching loudly before quickly expiring from asphyxiation and 
explosive exsanguination from its eyes. An autopsy performed by 
Dr. determined that the creature was not capable of breathing 
oxygen and in fact could not survive in an atmosphere with Earth- 
normal atmospheric pressure. 


Incident 848-1: 

On // ,a[DATA EXPUNGED] materialized on SCP-848-2 and 
immediately breached containment using a . The [DATA 
EXPUNGED] and [DATA EXPUNGED] before response teams were 
dispatched and terminated the Subject after sustaining multiple 
casualties. Several specimens of SCP-848-1 were killed during the 
incident but a stable breeding population still remains. 


SCP-848 has been redesignated Euclid-class and revised 
containment procedures are pending review. 


« SCP-847 | SCP-848 | SCP-849 » 


I'm the realest realist, | never change, 
You have to adapt and move, can't stick with one flow 
But | can spit so hot that my fucking mouth glows. 


What's your killcount total? Every time | win! 

The greatest warrior of all time, the rhymes | spin, 
The lives chagrined at the child of Him, 

And the Grandson of the One, I'm able to spit, bitch. 


SCP-682: Hahaha, call that a line, close your eyes and stay alive 
You can die from minutes with me, and yes, I've tried. 

Call yourself a superhero when you're really super queer, yo, 

Yo shit's cheesier than Cheetos, gayer than a speedo. 


Sorry, when's the last time | lost my life? Never! 

You can't live more than a few years, but me? Forever! 
You can die and come back, fag, and get smacked. 
My casual causality actually gets stacks. 


Weak from the human pussy you got? Please. 
You get less than that SCP-073. 

| take mine, stay fly, make Rights get wide 

I'm a killer all day, all night. Alright? 


682, a legendary number, 

Cuz a real OG went and made it a Wonder. 

| got so many pocket dimensions, call them lint, 

| see your eensy weensy knives and their even littler glint 


SCP-076: The smallest knife | got outreaches your body, 
at 100 percent, yet, to which you never get, 

Then | whip out the swagger dagger, old school like Atari 
and knock off your right side, bitch, match, game and set! 


You just a real hater, and you been recorded saying it. 
You play the game just to win, but | play it to play it. 

A primordial beast, you disgusting, fuck this, 

So push me, pussy, I've been wanting to cut the shit. 


Note: At this point, SCP-682 became even more enraged and 
pounced on SCP-076-2. After seconds, vital signs for SCP-076-2 


ceased. 
SCP-682: Come at me, bro. 


<End Log> 


Footsteps 


| hated you. 


| can count every meaningful conversation we ever had 
on my digits. What | can't count is the number of times 
they told me how important you were. Government 
scientist. Indispensable. Fearless. Peerless. But it's 
funny that they could never tell me what exactly you did. 


It's so much funnier now. 


My family, our friends, mother's friends-your friends, they 
had no idea, but you were here the entire time. Not that | 
blame you for that, you couldn't come home and tell your 
family you looked after nightmares. Nightmares you sent 
people to their death to, by the way. No shame in it, so 
have I-it's the job. But the cover story they (or maybe you 
made it yourself?) had for you, people thought your shit 
couldn't smell sweeter, huh? None of us were any the 
wiser. 


But now | know everything, and it turns out I've followed 
in your footsteps, a fact which repulses me. Level 4 
Clearance! Site Director! Just like you! You must be so 
proud! But then you died. That's the only reason | find 
this course of events tolerable, because there's 
something different. | survived, like you couldn't. I'm just 
like you, but | lived. | can tolerate my memories of you 
because of this. Nobody expected me to live up to your 
example, | was never anything compared to you. But I'm 
better than you. Nobody knows though. Don't you love 
the irony? Is that irony? | hope it is. 


| hated you, dad. 


Why did you leave me to this shit. 


Everyone jokes about it, like "Hey, Charles, how many 
Keters did you find for us today?" and | laugh it off. It's 
not funny. It's not fucking funny! We're so used to it, I'm 
so used to it, radioactive birds, fountains haunted by 
dead kids, a fucking fetus controlling a nuclear defense 
system! | hate this place, | hate this world, and you left 
me here to deal with it all by myself! | fucking hate you! 


| just... 
...| miss you...dad. 


An old man in a suit looked over his computer, watching the video 
playing on his screen. "Site-59 Security Footage" was displayed in 
the corner. A younger man entered the hallway in the footage. He 
was in his mid-thirties, with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, and 
limping upon a crutch under his right arm. The old man stared at the 
younger man on the screen, the tired eyes racing with memories, 
thoughts, doubts. 


"Brian?" 


A second man, also elderly and donning a suit stood in the doorway, 
looking at the other. "The other eleven are assembled." 


"Yes, I'll be there presently." responded Brian. 


The second man walked over to the desk where Brian sat. 
"Watching him again?" he said, gazing at the screen. 


Brian nodded. "Every morning | wake up wondering if he's even siill 
alive." he said quietly and bitterly. 


"You could have stopped him from joining." 
"| know." 

"You didn't want him to join, did you?" 

"No, | did not." 


"Then why did you-"