My first question was about his arm, but he passed it off as nothing, 
saying he just had an accident. After a little prodding, | got him to tell 
me what had happened. Paul said he'd been sleeping badly. Always 
prone to fits of insomnia, he said that lately it had been worse. He'd 
wake up from strange dreams, panting, and find the bed soaked with 
sweat. He said he also had the weird feeling that someone had been 
in the room just moments ago. By the time he'd gone and checked 
all the doors and windows, he couldn't get to sleep again. He'd 
laughed then, saying the joke would be on the thief, that he'd 
probably end up losing money anyway. 


| laughed too. Paul could be funny, and smart, and almost charming 
at times, but it always got buried in a big, smothering wave of gray 
blandness. He didn't seem bland then. He looked...nervous. He 
blinked, looking around, then leaned in a bit. He smiled nervously, 
and said what had happened was rather embarrassing. In the 
middle of the night, he'd woken up from a horrible dream, and found 
himself unable to move. He said it was like a weight on his chest, 
pinning him down. He'd also seen something across the room. He 
paused, seeming to decide whether or not to go on, then sighed and 
shook his head. He said that there was a thing standing in the 


of the world event in a few hundred years than 
an NK-Class "Grey Goo" end of the world 
event in the next few weeks. We'll deal with 
that then, but for now, Protocol Grey is buying 
us time. As long as we end Protocol Grey in 
the next ten years, | don't think there's 
anything we'll need to worry about. 


| will notify everyone once SCP-622 has been 
contained and when Site 16 staff discover why 
it was able to breach containment. 


Carry on, 
O5- , 12/15/12. 


[PROTOCOL GREY CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES ONLY AVAILA 


ACCESS DENIED. SITE STAFF HAVE BEEN 
NOTIFIED. 


« SCP-621 | SCP-622 | SCP-623 » 


doorway to the hall. He said it looked like it had a cloak, but it 
seemed to move like it was alive, and its head was like a insect, long 
and narrow, with a cluster of eyes on each side. 


| looked at him, dumbfounded. Here was a man whose greatest 
imaginative moment was suggesting a blue background on the 
monthly expense pie chart instead of white. He must have seen my 
shock, because Paul laughed again, loudly, causing a few people to 
turn. He waved his good hand, saying for me to relax. He said it was 
sleep paralysis, uncommon but not unnatural. Paul said when you 
sleep, your body sort of “switches off” to keep you from flailing 
around and hurting yourself. Sometimes, if you wake up suddenly, 
your body stays in that mode, and you feel pinned. He said you can 
even have very, very vivid dreams when you're like this, which 
explains what he called the bug-monk. 


| asked him if this happened to him a lot, but he said no, not since 
he was little. He went on, saying that he thinks he blacked out for a 
moment, or went back to sleep, because he woke up again with a 
sudden, sharp pain in his chest. He'd shouted, tried to get up, 
missed the edge of the bed, and managed to bash his arm off the 
edge of the nightstand, giving himself a nasty bruise and gash. | 
prodded him about seeing a doctor, but he said no, he's just 
wrapped it with some gauze and medical tape and gone back to 
bed. Lunch had wrapped up by then, so he'd gotten up, nodding 
apologetically, and quietly gone back to his cube. | sat for a bit, 
looking at my untouched lunch, and just thought. 


Work kept me busy for the next few weeks, and | didn't see much of 
Paul except for the once-weekly carpool and an occasional wave in 
the hall. Whats more, one of my idiotic cats had gotten out and went 
missing for several days, so | was very preoccupied. | say that, 
now...but really, | wasn't. What Paul had said was so...weird, so out 
of character, that | just wasn't able to process it. So, | didn't. Have | 
not said that Paul was insanely easy to forget? Looking back, | see 
now what | should have seen...his weight loss, the baggy eyes, 
unkempt hair... 


It was a Friday, and | had been working late. | don't mind the office 
at night when I'm engrossed, but as soon as | lift my head, | realize 
how very...empty things seem. Unless you've been in a huge office 


after hours, there's no good way to describe it. It's like there's an... 
energy. Something stuck to the walls, the desks, all the hustle, 
bustle and human exertion leaves a...residue. I'm wandering. It's 
enough to say that, when Paul came up behind me and said hi, | 
nearly screamed. 


| spun around to say hi, and | literally gasped. He looked like a 
shadow of himself. He'd lost weight, but in all the wrong places, and 
his skin looked baggy and poorly fitted. His eyes were red and 
hollow, and when he smiled, his gums looked raw. He seemed to be 
wheezing a bit, as if he'd jogged a short space and was catching his 
breath. | blinked and shook my head, trying to recover, and offered 
him a seat. When he sat, his joints cracked and popped like a box of 
corn flaked being stomped. 


| asked if he was all right, but he just stared at the floor like he didn't 
hear me. | asked again, and he slowly shook his head. He said he 
hadn't been feeling well, and wheezed out a slow, painful sigh. | 
started to ask if it was something bad, but Paul waved it off, saying it 
was probably just a flu. | just watched him, stunned. He must have 
lost forty pounds, and his clothes fit him like a sack. He suddenly 
looked me in the eye, a rare feat for Paul, and asked if | 
remembered about his dream. It took me a minute to remember 
what he was talking about, and seeing me think, he started to rise, 
saying “I shouldn't have come”. | put a hand on his arm, telling him 
to stop...and | felt the ridges on his arm. 


| pulled my hand away, stammering something, but Paul looked 
down and sighed. He sat back down, and put his head in his hands. 
He said he was sorry for saying anything, but that he really didn't 
have anyone to talk to. He started to ramble, waving his hands and 
speaking with a tone that was equal parts hopeless, tired, and 
hysterical. Paul said that there was something wrong with him. He 
said it was the dream, that he didn't think it was actually a dream. 
He'd found little pinpricks all over his body the day after the dream, 
and he'd peed blood. | started to ask if he'd been checked for 
cancer, but he kept on as if | wasn't there. 


He said he'd felt something, inside. Something not right. He got up 
and started to pace, going out to the hall and back in to my cube, 
rambling. He said something about growth, and something trying to 


take over. Mid-way through his monologue, he stopped, cried for 
about thirty seconds, then started back as if nothing happened. | 
was starting to get very afraid. Paul always seemed like someone 
prone to depression, and | was scared that he'd had a breakdown or 
something. For a moment, | saw my face on the news with the word 
“Missing:” underneath. He suddenly shouted, saying he wasn't going 
to let it out, and rolled up his sleeve, saying he'd found a way to fix 
it. 


| stared and had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from 
screaming. His arm was a horror show. A deep, winding gash 
stretched from his wrist to his elbow along the underside of his arm, 
looking nearly a quarter inch wide in places. Blood was crusted all 
around it, and what looked like...pus, or some other fluid. What was 
worst, though, was the stitches. He'd taken some kind of heavy 
gauge thread and stitched the cut shut. It was a bad job, the 
stitching jumping around randomly, in places pulling the skin into 
tight, painful angles. | looked up at him, horrified, and he pulled his 
sleeve back down, turning away. He said “I shouldn't have come” 
again, then rushed out of my cube and down the hall. | should have 
done something...but | just got my things and left. 


Paul wasn't at work the next day. | felt sick. | was pretty sure I'd just 
witnessed the end result of a suicide attempt, but | had no idea what 
to do. | thought about trying to get help, but | couldn't think of who to 
call, and it felt...inappropriate. | hardly knew him, and it didn't feel 
right. | was sure he'd get help, or...something. | justified myself not 
calling a thousand ways, and when | heard, finally, that he'd called in 
sick, | just moved on, filing it under someone else's problem. | wish | 
could say that | did everything | could, that | tried my best, but | 
didn't. | just... moved on. It was so unsettling, and weird, and just... 
wrong, that | just pushed it away. 


It was nearly two weeks later that | finally checked. He had stopped 
calling in, and the carpool just cruised past his house. It looked bad. 
The lawn was unmowed, the car just sitting in the driveway, several 
newspapers on the porch. | asked around work, but the very few 
people who even knew who Paul was had no real idea about him. 
They just shrugged and assumed he was sick. | went each day with 


visions of him dead in the bathtub, or coming in and shooting 
everyone. It was when | drove by and saw his door hanging open 
that | finally did something. 


| was heading home, and as | went past Paul's house, | saw the 
front door hanging open. It was late, and it was just standing, wide 
open. | slowed down, looking, and | saw one of his shoes sitting on 
the porch. Like he'd run out of it, or kicked it off. | sat, looking, and 
almost before | decided to, | pulled in to his driveway. | sat in the car, 
gripping the wheel, looking at the door. If he was fine, it'd be a 
monstrous invasion of privacy...for all | knew he had a girl in there, 
and had slipped off his shoe in a mad bout of passion. He might 
have just been hot, and was letting the house cool off. There might 
be a robber inside, and dropped his shoe on the way out with a load. 


| had the window down, and the evening was very quiet, just a few 
insects buzzing. | was just about to put the car back in gear when | 
heard the sound. It was a short, sharp sound, like someone yelling 
after banging their shin. | looked to the open doorway, listening, and 
after a few seconds it happened again. | rummaged in my purse, 
grabbed out a little can of mace I'd gotten from my mother, and 
started over to the house before | could really think about what | was 
doing. By the time | decided this was a terrible idea, | was already 
through the doorway, mace in hand. 


It was dark inside. | mean pitch black. The only real light was from 
the doorway, the streetlights leaking in to the living room. The smell 
hit me first, and as my eyes adjusted, | saw why. Old, half-eaten 
food was out everywhere, balanced on plates and the arms of 
furniture. Craning my neck a bit, | could see in to the kitchen, and 
the fridge door was hanging open, the light burned out or broken, 
more dead food rotting there as well. | heard the sound again, 
louder, and it seemed to come from the back of the house. | started 
to thread my way to the hall, trying not to be afraid. 


Mid-way down the hall, | looked in to what seemed to be a office. 
Papers were tossed everywhere, and the little window on the wall 
was...black. | looked in a bit more, then stepped back. A garbage 
bag had been taped over the glass. Looking back in to the living 
room, | could see all the windows had been covered. | tried the light 


switch, but nothing happened. All the lights and windows were 
useless. | started to shake, softly, and called “Paul?”. There was 
nothing for a bit, then start sudden yelp again. It was coming from 
the next door in the hall. 


| inched down more, screaming at myself inside to just run, just 
leave. But, | felt responsible. | was the only person who could have 
helped him, and now, if he was hurt, or sick...or worse, it was my 
fault. | had to try something. | started to push on the door, but 
jumped back as | heard a sudden, deep, muffled moaning from 
behind it. It kept on, sounding like someone sobbing in to a pillow, 
sounding so hopeless and lost. | slowly pushed open the door, and 
stepped in to what | now saw was the bathroom. The curtain was 
pulled down, and lay on the floor. In the shower, naked, with the 
door open, was Paul. 


He was curled in the corner, blood smeared on the floors and walls. 
His body looked as if he'd been attacked with a machete. Deep, 
gaping cuts and sores stood out all over. Pieces of flesh looked as if 
they'd been torn or lopped off, and his skin looked...thin and 
sagging. His feet were misshapen, and it looked as if his spine had 
somehow swollen and twisted in his back. When he moved, 
everything flexed and opened, but only let out tiny trickles of blood 
and yellowed pus. 


He was stitched shut. Every cut and sore had some kind of thread 
trying to close it. String, yarn, twine, shoelaces, even wire, all of it 
was stitched in to his skin. It had grown over or ripped free in places, 
and the threads were all sodden and dripping with ooze and blood. 
From each of the cuts, too, there seemed to be some kind of... 
growth coming out. Stiff hair-like things, or hard, sharp, black points. 
From a deep gash on his back a long, thin patch of what looked like 
red plastic hung, flapping with each movement. His skull looked 
broken and twisted. His ears and eyes had been sewn shut. His 
nostrils were closed with thick, dripping bands of copper wire. He 
howled that muffled, moaning cry again, and as | looked at his face, 
| saw why. 


Paul was forcing a sharpened shoelace through his lips. 


| screamed, and | fell back against the wall, watching him lace his 


mouth shut, and | threw my mace at him. | was hysterical, 
scrambling along the floor. | looked back once, and saw him lean 
back, his mouth sealed shut. His lips were moving, as if his tongue 
was trying to push through them. | ran outside, knocking over his 
coffee table on the way, and threw up in his yard. | got in my car, 
peeled out, and called 911 when | was six blocks away. 


Paul is dead, in the eyes of the law. | was investigated for a while, 
but he was labeled a suicide and quietly buried. Nobody came to 
claim the body. | didn't go to the funeral. | took a week off from work, 
and got pumped for information as soon as | got back. | didn't really 
say anything. | drifted in a haze, just trying to forget. But | can't. | 
never will. 


You see, there's a issue with Paul's death. It was never made public, 
but they never actually recovered a body. Yes, they recovered a 
great deal of tissue and flesh from Paul's house, but not nearly 
enough to make up a corpse. It was mostly skin, some fat, a little 
muscle, nothing more. | was discounted mainly because | had a 
alibi, and that I'm not strong enough to skin and butcher a fully 
grown man. Whatever happened to Paul didn't end when the police 
charged in. 


| don't know what happened to him. I've read about insect 
physiology, and watched science fiction, but | still will not even 
attempt to explain. Paul is dead. However, | don't think that means 
as much as it should. When I'm finished with this, I'm going to go 
take a shower, go to bed, and polish off a full bottle of both vodka 
and Vicodin. 


Last night, | woke in the dark, groggy and feeling drugged. | looked 
to my window, and saw a shape there for a few seconds. It moved 
away, but | saw it. Narrow head. Wide black eyes. 


But it still has Paul's face. 


Love Hate 


The house was dead when he came home. No lights, no noise, even 
a little chilly in the early spring dusk. Pete Kothkis stood in the 
entryway, peering in to the house with a slightly confused smile. 
Maybe they dipped out to the store for a bit and just didn't say 
anything? No, he'd had the car...her mom, maybe? He shook his 
head, tossing his bag on the couch, snapping on lights and looking 
in the kitchen and hall in a half-hearted search.