If you ask him, he'll tell you it's a matter of perspective. 
There's nothing wrong with you, per say, it's just that you 
don't really understand how things work around here. It's 
not about being kind, or strong, or right, or even clever. 
No, it's all about appearance. There's no such thing as 
power, he'll say, except for what people see. Ask him, 
and he'll say it's all about the shoes. You can do 
whatever you want, really, if you have the right shoes. 
Sure, he might have done some things in his days that 
wouldn't fly anymore. You couldn't say his closet was 
clean of skeletons, certainly not. If all you found were 
skeletons, you'd consider yourself lucky. If he was 
anyone else, it might have haunted him. But he has the 
shoes. And the hair. And the big, shiny smile. So he 
walks it off. Boy, does he walk it off. 


What makes his shoes so special, you ask? Funny story, 
that. Ask him, and he'll tell you it's really not about the 
shoes at all. Walking a mile in a man's shoes is nice and 
all, but walking a mile in his toes is better. 


"Currents" by FlameShirt 


The first thing | remember seeing was the gorge and the 
grass. I'd spend hours playing in the fields and among 
the mountain rocks. But as time went on, | grew longer. | 
arrived at the concrete and the people. They came out of 
nightclubs and pubs, blinded by lights and throwing up. | 
could see glances, or a touch of the arm. The couples 
holding hands, followed by the break-ups and fights. 
Sometimes an old couple would pass by, sitting ona 
bench in the soft sun. 


As | exited the city, | turned to look back at suburbs. A 
little boy was having a birthday party in his garden, 
surrounded by cake, balloons, presents and friends. 


| left, and surged out into the sea. 


"The Knife and the Red Cork" by Wogglebug 


The first time it happened | thought it was odd, but not 
the second time. The first was a mangy coyote standing 
on a wall behind an Albertsons, its eyes red and its teeth 
stained black with the blood of an unlucky crow. The 
second time it was just some asshole that stood me up. 


| guess that could probably use some explaining. You 
see, whenever | get off work | always walk down Main 
and up 37th to my apartment, partly on account of | could 
use the exercise but mostly because Cindy at the flower 
shop on the corner sometimes says hi. Anyway, | was 
going past Albertsons and | heard a weird cawing sound 
from out behind back, like some bird had gone and 
gotten itself stuck in the packaging they dump back 
there. | went to see what it was, and as | turned the 
corner this huge beaming fucker just jumps up onto the 
wall, the bird hanging out of its teeth. | thought it was 
probably rabid, and that | ought to call animal control or 
something, but then the asshole opened its mouth and 
started talking. | don’t mean it was mimicking like those 
parrots do, or that I’m some sort of dog whisperer. | 
mean some asshole coyote was speaking English like it 
wasn't any big thing. | didn’t actually catch the first thing 
it said, on account of the whole ‘holy shit a talking dog’ 
thing, but | remember the second thing. It said, “The 
woods by the old Wilson place where you and Tommy 
went in the summer. Come there Sunday with a knife 
and a piece of red cork.” 


Alright, | get at this point you probably assume that I’m 
bullshitting you, or that I’m just incredibly stupid. Neither 
of those things are true, and at the very least not the first 


one. You probably assume | just hallucinated the whole 
thing, or that it was some homeless guy talking from 
behind the wall or something. Neither of those are 
correct either. At this point you're probably thinking that 
surely | couldn’t have actually gone out to a patch of 
woods five hours away where | hadn’t been for twenty 
years, based on what was likely either Satan ora 
similarly-themed hallucination. Once again, bad news on 
that front. 


Getting the knife was easy enough, but the cork took 
ages. Turns out that barely anyone sells cork in the first 
place, and the guys who do don’t really go for the full 
rainbow effect. Eventually | found some in a craft store 
down by the old hospital, the one they renovated last 


spring. 


Sunday night at maybe five | showed up down by the 
creek across from the woods, expecting there to be 
some sort of sign or similarly genre-appropriate bullshit 
to point me towards a journey of self-discovery and 
excitement. There wasn’t. So, after milling about for a 
while and throwing little rocks at little fish, | decided to 
just check the creepy-ass woods themselves. Well, that’s 
not really accurate. The woods around there aren't really 
that creepy, and a lot of it isn’t even real woods- just a 
ton of trees the developers put in to hide an ugly power 
substation that the County insisted go right in the middle 
of Fuck-all, Nowhere. 


As it turns out, I’m not the greatest at going through the 
woods. You wouldn’t even believe the number of spider 
webs | walked through. Well, actually, you probably 
would, given that you're reading this at all. But it was still 
a lot. Anyway, eventually | got back to the part where 
none of the neighborhood kids ever really went, because 
the giant hazard signs the County put up around the 
substation. | was walking along what could probably 
have been a path if it hadn’t been absurdly hard to get 
through when | saw the same coyote | had seen at 


Albertsons. Well, it was less that | saw it than it just sort 
of jumped out in front of me and knocked me over. But 
still, | did end up seeing it, albeit flat on my ass. 


At this point in the story you're probably expecting me to 
have my throat violently ripped out by a psychopathic 
ghost dog making some sort of dark sacrifice. If so, you 
clearly don’t understand how the first person works. I’m 
not dead. That’s sort of how it works. At the time though, 
| was sort of shitting myself in fear. Not literally, mind 
you, just metaphorically. If | had literally shit myself | 
probably would’ve just left that part out. But still, there | 
was, on the ground in the middle of the woods with an 
absurdly filthy coyote glaring at my face from about a 
foot away. So | made the clear and obvious choice and 
just said “What the fuck, man?”, accusatory hand 
gestures included. 


The coyote stared at me for a while, and eventually just 

sort of stalked away. Not like in the movies or whatever 

where the animal guide leads the protagonist off into the 
woods to face some great evil. It just sort of left. 


Eventually, after dusting myself off (or de-dirting, or 
whatever you call it) | looked around for the coyote. | 
looked for three fucking hours, and | couldn’t find it 
anywhere, which sort of pissed me off. Eventually | gave 
up, because hey, hallucinations happen, right? (right?) 


That next Tuesday | was walking home when | heard the 
familiar sound of a bird dying a horrible, terrible death. 
Same thing as before, blah blah evil looking coyote blah. 
And it just sort of stares at me this time, doesn’t say a 
word. | swear to God, if an animal could be 
embarrassed, that one was. After just staring at each 
other for a while | decide to go with the good-old “What 
the fuck, man?” 


It just keeps staring and starts talking, a dead bird 
dangling from its teeth, going, “Hell, | didn’t think you’d 
actually do it. Fucking weirdo.” And then it just scampers 


off, like some king-of-all-he-surveys asshole. 


No, but, like, seriously. Fuck that guy. | still don’t know 
what that shit was about. 


"The Missing Tone!" by Jekeled 


"So, Doctor Hartman,” Doctor Grangeman said, sitting 
down at the interrogation table, "let's talk a little more 
about the delusion we were discussing yesterday." 


Hartman sat in a little huddle at the far end of the table, 
humming to himself quietly. He stopped this for long 
enough to ramble: "...not a delusion...it's REAL!! it's ALL 
REAL! None of you Bastards would listen to me, but it's 
rEAL!!!" 


"Now, now,” Grangeman said in a soothing tone of voice. 
"Remember what we talked about: you've got to use 
proper spelling and punctuation when you speak. It's the 
polite thing to do. Now, what do you say?" 


"...sorry..." Hartman mumbled. 

"No, no," Grangeman said. "What do we say properly?" 
"I'm sorry," Hartman said. 

"Very good. Now, on to your delusion." 


"It's not a delusion," Hartman insisted. "I found the 
missing note!" 


Grangeman sighed. "I see you're still laboring under it. 
There is no missing note in the musical scale. It just isn't 
how these things work!" 


"That's what everybody thinks!" Hartman cried. "Think of 
all the music that could be created! Think of all the new 
tones to create! Think of how the piano would have to be 
remade!" 


"Listen," Grangeman said patiently. "These things don't 
work that way! All the tones and letters are completely 
arbitrary! They're all based on specific frequencies which 
our brain takes out and labels as specific pitches. The 
tonal system we have is just a way for us to categorize 
those frequencies! You can't discover another musical 
note; there are only a finite number of frequencies to 
find!" 


Hartman shook his head vigorously. "It's true!" he said. "I 
call it hleem! Because the next note after G should be H, 
but | shook it up a bit! Here, I'll even hum it!" 


Here he hummed a note. Grangeman, who had had 
some musical training, immediately recognized it. 
"Doctor Hartman,” he said, "that's middle C." 


"No! No!" Hartman cried. "You're out to get me! You're all 
out to get me! It's a conspiracy! A conspiracy i Tell You! 
A CONSPIRACY!!!!" 


Grangeman sighed. There went another session, right 
down the drain. 

"| feel sorry for the poor fellow," Grangeman commented 
later to one of his colleagues, as he watched the security 
camera footage of Hartman in his room. "A music 
teacher gone completely mad...you've gotta sympathize 
on some level." 


"| suppose," his colleague said. "I just wish he could 
have chosen a less ridiculous thing to fixate on." 


"Well," Grangeman said, "it had to be something. Not 
surprising that-" 


"Wait!" his colleague said. "Look at Hartman's monitor!" 


Grangeman gasped. "We've got to get over there, fast!" 
he cried. 


But by the time they got there, it was too late! Blood was 
everywhere, and in the middle of it was Hartman, twisted 
into a grotesque parody of a half note. 


Grangeman's colleague bent over and vomited, and he 
himself recoiled from the scene. He slowly walked into 
the room, trying to avoid stepping in any major blood 
puddles. Reaching Hartman's desk, he picked up a 
single sheet of paper laying there. It was a musical staff 
in all ways except for one: instead of five lines and four 
spaces, there were six lines and five spaces-enough 
room for one more note! 


"Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Azzleflux 


It's cold outside. I'm holding my jacket, my soft, warm 
jacket, as close to my body as | can, but it doesn't help 
much. I'm shivering, shaking harder than | have for a 
while. It's been a mess ever since they laid me off. My 
only joy, gone. 


Gah. | have to stop thinking. It's not helping at all. | just 
have to get home, where | can snuggle up under my 
homemade blanket and read a nice book by the orange 
light cast through my newly constructed lamp and shade. 


God. | just miss all of them. Little Albert, Josie, Laura, 
Stevie... | wish | could just pick them up and hold their 
soft, warm little bodies in my lap and rock them asleep. 
They were always so precious. | can't lie to myself, | 
even thought of them as my own for the longest time. 


They'll regret sending me away. The goddamn 
Sunnydale nursery... the kids Joved me there. Much 
better than that bitch, Evaline. Hell, they were all 
probably just jealous that all of the little munchkins liked 
me more. Well, forget them. | pull my jacket a smidgen 
tighter around my torso and take a deep breath of that 


glorious smell and remember that wherever | go, it 
doesn't really matter that | don't have a job to work with 
those kids anymore. 


After all, I'll have little things that remind me of each of 
them everyday. Really (that reminds me, | need to make 
sure the lampshade has been tanned proper), those kids 
will always be mine in a certain way. 


"1914" by Vezaz 


"Diaphanous" by Zyn 


There’s a café that some know of, tucked away at the 
end of a back alley in a sleepy suburban city, that 
presents a different sort of atmosphere than most such 
establishments. 


It’s said to live up to its name, Cloud Mind. Mist swirls 
around a customer the moment they step through the 
glassy double doors, this mist is present in the entire 
place; it creeps along the polished, mirror-bright white tile 
and curls at the heels like a contented cat. 


The near-unnaturally pale-skinned serving staff are 
trained, precise, efficient—they glide across the swirling, 
ever-warping floors, whispering orders dreamily as they 
float from table to table. They wear feathered masks and 
only speak in rhymed couplets; it’s common knowledge 
among regulars that if you’re lucky enough to be 
approached by a server wearing a mask of blue feathers, 
you've been invited to spend your time, brief as it may 
be, in one of the specialty rooms. 


With the ever-present mist caressing the soft white walls 
and floors, it’s impossible to know just how large the café 
truly is, but those who have been in the special rooms 
swear that the floor plan must be luxuriously grandiose 
because how else would there be room for the delicate 


remainder of the assault team now consisted of three members, 
armed with a single flame unit. Use of this unit to repel the assault 
proved vital as standard firearms did minimal damage to the infected 
creatures. These infected creatures show minimal traits to associate 
them with any known form of life in the region, giving rise to the 
belief they may have been spawned by the SCP-610 infection itself 
as a form of defense. 


No further casualties were suffered during the raid and the 
remaining members managed to eliminate all attacking infected, 
allowing them to continue with exploration with added orders to 
attempt to locate lost team members. A further 20km into the tunnel, 
the river separated from the tunnel pathway and the team was 
instructed to abandon the recovery order, given the inability to 
navigate the waters safely. 


A total time of : : passed before the remaining assault team 
reached an end in the tunnel. At the perimeter of the area now 
known as Site B, the team came under assault again from a smaller 
number of SCP-610 that were much larger in size. These infected 
appeared in the tunnel as if they were lying in wait for the 
approaching team. These creatures were dispatched using the 
flame unit, although all fuel for the unit was expended in this act. 
The assault team was now limited to standard weapons and short 
range personal flame units. 


A time lapse of five minutes is allowed to pass before the team 
proceeds further into Site B, cautious of further assaults by SCP-610 
infected. The tunnel widens out into what appears to have once 
been a village of indeterminate age. The construction of the 
buildings in this area are primitive compared to the settlements at 
Site A and Site C, and are of clearly human construction. Many 
buildings rest at angles or slants, suggesting they were disturbed by 
a cave-in. Of interest is a building that appears to be a church with a 
working clock tower. This building is built atop the remains of two 
older buildings that have fallen completely, and has a visibly stable 
foundation. 


Surrounding all structures in this area is a depression in the ground 
filled with a substance resembling a liquefied form of SCP-610 
fleshy materials. The pool moves as if acted upon by minute and