"You won't get a new body until you wear this one out, Jackie," - 
said Time in an annoying voice through a nurse who was tinkering 
with medical probes. - "Oh, and by the way - another namesake of 
yours was caught yesterday. This time it's a she. Only the Spades 
left. His time will come too..." 


Next to the insectarium, Time caught up with another Foundation 
hero of days past. He started frequenting this place lately. His beard 
became completely white, his glasses - disgustingly thick. Now he 
was moving a finger along the insectarium cage, looking at a man 
standing inside. It was himself, but young, brash and armed with a 
sword. None of the booooterflies that put this show on for him 
remembered him young, not even their great-great-great- 
grandmothers witnessed the times when he was still able to keep a 
firm grasp on such metalware. Time's brief laugh made the 
butterflies’ wings flutter, and for a second the illusionary sword 
became rusted, and the young doppelganger's eyes became 
lifeless, empty sockets. The old man gave a jump, then wiped his 
eyes, sighed and resumed building his living card-castle. Time went 
on. 


Time's breath touched everyone and everything, making no 
exceptions, caring not for age and authority. A seemingly young 


man who sat there with a stiffed gaze, blinked and touched his 
forehead. It seemed like Time did not dare touch him - no one could 
ever harm him. His body did not grow old, his hands were ever 
strong, but he had long forgotten the taste of bread. Time, as if 
taking revenge for an invincibility so egregious, sped up 
thousandfold against all plants the brazen immortal dared approach. 
This too was, as it turned out, possible to get used to, so Time 
generously gave him much knowledge, in which, as it is known, is 
much grief. Time did not care what he was thinking, be it Procedure 
110-Montauk or Protocol 10-Israfil-B - neither knowledge would let 
him sleep in peace. 


Time even had a means against the Creator himself. For all eternity, 
every moment Time was whispering an ancient curse in the Lord's 
ear - a curse called Boredom. This curse has led Him into these 
walls one day, like a puppeteer's string. This very curse made Him 
leave by his inscrutable ways. At least that was what he told his 
hospitable jailers in his farewell letter. Was he really the Maker of 
Time itself, or was it just a manifestation of lunacy inflicted by 
boredom - only Time could tell. Anyway, one day God just left his 
temporary abode deep in Site 17, quickly and without trace, leaving 
behind only a note and impotent panic. 


Time slid into a tunnel, as quickly and deftly as only Time could 
manage, and went into an Existential Isolation Facility several 
kilometers away. Its only inhabitant sat in front of his screens, 
gazing at the stream of world news, remembering things he lived 
through with every passing moment. This abnormal old man was 
Time's favorite, for he, unwillingly and bravely, challenged this 
invincible force of nature. He was living the inside out. It wasn't a big 
difference for Time, though - some people live from birth till death, 
this one lives in reverse, but it all began with an appearance, and it 
will end with a disappearance, although a very unusual one. Maybe 
Time perceived this man as some quirky diversity, touching his hair 
and taking pieces of silver away instead of giving more. 


Hands on the clock completed their turn. Calendars moved a tick 
forward. Some people died, some were born. For the majority, it was 
just a day - good or bad, Time did not care or even understand. 
Time, if you're inclined to personify it, saw in its boundlessness how 


the purest enterprises grow into blackest villainy, and how absolute 
atrocities become the greater good. Colors were changing too fast in 
its wake, and black and white were blending into gray, the moments' 
circle never meant to end. 


Timing 


Mr. Moon knew he was very good at timing these things. He really 
couldn't afford to be bad at it, with his condition. He'd tried to use 
watches, but watches only worked when you had eyes to watch 
them with. Same with a metronome. So Moon counted. 


One... Two, Three... 


Thirty two thousand, four hundred and sixty seconds. That was how 
long he'd been able to see. Moon felt his bones cry out in protest as 
he rose to the chamber door. In approximately three hundred twenty 
four seconds, a Security Agent would open it and let him out. Give 
or take twenty nine, if the Agent was slow. 


Thirty... Thirty one... Thirty two. 


Moon's face was clouded, partially with worry and partially because 
it was a cloudy night. This particular Agent was an early-bird, and 
it'd thrown off the count. Deciding that he could make do until it 
reset, he timed the approximate two and a quarter of a second it 
took him to make a step with his cane. 


Four and a half... Six and three quarters... Nine... 


The air conditioning had been on for five hundred sixty seconds 
when Moon took his seat. Waiting here was the hardest part. In five 
hundred seconds, the doors would open and they would see him. 
He'd watched one hundred and twenty pitying expressions staring at 
him. 


Five thousand, six hundred seventy three.... Five thousand, six 
hundred seventy four... Five thousand, six hundred seventy five... 


They were older. Four thousand, three hundred and eighty two 
weeks had taken their tolls. The small talk was painfully low. She 
smiled at him, telling him about all the things outside. About Jim, and 


how wonderful he was, and how happy he was for her. Mr. Moon 
had lied to her three thousand, five hundred times. At least Jim 
hadn't accompanied her this time. 


Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... 


She cut the visit short by ten minutes. Apparently she'd been five 
minutes late to a social event, and had been paying him a favor to 
visit. Fifty seconds later, she'd left him again. She was getting 
quicker. 


Five thousand, nine hundred seconds later, Moon's ear began to 
grow dull. He paced his cell, counting the steps. Eleven and a half 
steps north to south, fifteen and a quarter east to west. Pacing until 
the count could reset and bring him respite. 


One... Two... Three... 


Mikell took him far, far. The world spun. TJ hurt like nothing he had 
ever felt before. "Can't we go home? Can't we go home?" he 
pleaded, but Mikell did not turn around, and after the first hour TJ 
knew for certain that it was not a hospital they were going to. 


He slept. When he woke up, they were still driving. Fresh blood 
seeped through his sweater. Please, god, Mikell, go home, just go 
home. 


His brother did not speak to him the entire car ride. Not when TJ 
cried, not when he screamed, not when he begged him to stop. Not 
when TJ knew in the back of his mind what was happening, no, not 
when it dawned on him that maybe his brother would never protect 
him in the way he thought he would, and when TJ passed out from a 
syringe pressed in his arm and subsequently awoke, he awoke ina 
place with bars on the windows, and his brother was gone. 


But this, too, is a story lost to Jack. No matter how TJ may wish it 
wasn't. 


return 


Tjalla 


She watched from a distance as three Staff walked by. It was 
unusual to see a group of them moving with some apparent purpose 
during the day, but it wasn't unheard of. She knew the god-awful 
things would ignore her while the lights were on, but that didn't make 
her want to go anywhere near them. She'd seen what they do when 
the lights were off. 


So she waited for them to pass, clutching the clock in her hands. 


The clock was a gift; it was Hannah's birthday tomorrow. She hadn't 
expected to find love in an endless Ikea filled with monsters, but no- 
one ever did, she figured. She'd been here for a little over a year 
now. A year since that fateful day when she'd gone shopping for 
shelves and ended up in what must be as close to hell as humans 
will ever see. A year since she met Hannah. 


Hannah had been here a few months already when she arrived, and 
the first time she saw her, she was swinging a makeshift club at the 
head of one of the Staff. She hated herself just a little bit for the way 
she remembered it, all in slow motion like some Hollywood movie 
cliché. The club swinging in, the crunch of the Staffs head as it 
connected, her dirty red hair flying wildly around her. Then she 
turned and look straight at her, and the fierceness of her expression 
almost stopped her heart, her eyes ablaze with some internal force. 


The whole thing had happened in about three seconds; she 
wondered how much of that memory her mind had embellished over 
the last year. 


She'd never really believed it in that spark people always talk about 
feeling, dismissed it as some overly romantic nonsense made up to 
sell love stories to idiots. But they met properly the following day, 
and the sparks were immediate. She was fiery and confident, and 
people always listened when she spoke. She wasn't entirely sure 
what Hannah saw in her, but it was just as instant for her, she said. 


So a year later she got Hannah a clock. 


Getting gifts for someone was hard work when you live in a store 
where everything is free for the taking. But, Hannah was always 
complaining about never knowing what time it was, especially in the 
dark of the early morning before the lights came back on, and so 
she had found her a clock. 


She waited for the Staff to pass before continuing on her way back 
to Market Hall. She'd wandered a bit further from town than she 
normally would have done, but she knew the area well and there 
was plenty of time to get back. Past the isle of lamps, through the 
weird bed display section where all the beds were small squares, left 
at the giant hotdog sign and then- 


Her heart skipped a beat. 
The exit was in front of her. 


She'd heard the stories of course. That sometimes people would 
find the exit and leave, or that others would see it just to have it 
vanish in front of them. She didn't really believe them. But here it 
was. 


Her legs were moving before she even had a chance to think about 
it. Sprinting as fast as they could towards the doors, clock still 
clutched in her hands. She wasn't sure she could have stopped if 
she'd wanted to. 


It took less than five seconds to reach the doors and pass through 
them. And then she was outside, the overcast sky searing bright to 
her eyes. 


She fell to her knees and wept. One hell traded for another. 
She'd never see Hannah again. The clock was gone. 


Item Description: An Ikea-brand wall clock which 
seems to disappear and reappear once every second. 
Date of Recovery: - -19 

Location of Recovery: , scotland. 

Current Status: Disappeared at 1124 hours GMT on _ - 


-19 . Item never materialised, presumed irretrievable. 


To Catch A Witch 


OMG! So, liek, darkblade posted this REALLY REALLY good story 
last year n | jst wanted 2 write in his world, ya know? Many thanks to 
my beta readers: MannW/Plan, AteredCliffs, and Cappuccino! U all r 
teh best! 


To Catch A Witch: The War-Lich Cycle: Episode One: So Be It 


A white streak of lightening cut through the night sky, illuminating an 
ever changing face for the briefest of moments. In that second, the 
man had appeared as a vulpine demon, snarling in the falling rain. It 
was an appropriate image for Sir Clef, the last on the Light Knights 
that opposed the appointment of Jack Bright, Lord of Spite, the 
previous High War-Lich of the Schips Foundation, a group of 
American wizards whose original purpose had been twisted by his 
evil. 


Sir Clef, originally stationed in the British quadrant, was now 
investigating the fall of the Schips due to one particularly 
meddlesome little wizard: Harry Potter. 


Since Harry had perfected the Life Spell, a magic capable of 
returning those dead to life, so long as they weren’t gay, he had 
brought back many of those slain by Voldemort, including Albus 
Dumbledore. The two of them had raided Schips, the group 
responsible for the protection of the United States’ most valuable 
magical artifacts. Before Bright’s dark, venomous hands closed on 
the neck of the wizarding group, it had been mostly passive, and 
after his death, it was pretty much unevil again. Though, there were 
still loose ends to tie up. It was a dirty, difficult job—and only the 
dirtiest and most difficult were asked to do it. And no one was more 
difficult and dirty than Sir Clef. 


But there was a problem. The young wizard had stolen back the 
American Chosen One, his sister, and taken her back with him to 
Britain. Sir Clef had no choice. He had to get her back; his Lord and 


Photo Result: Still transcribing interview logs. 


Subject: Agent "Mister" Bibs 

Photographed Activity: Standing in Examination Room #5233, 
attempting to convince staff that their experiment involving SCP- 
will prove dangerous. 

Photo Result: Bibs is standing with O5- outside of Examination 
Room #5233, who is smiling and patting Bibs on the back. In the 
background, experiment staff are seen out of breath but relieved. 
SCP-_ canbe seen in the background, which not [DATA 
REDACTED] as is normal. 

Note: Everyone expects me to gloat when | wind up being right. | 
only gloat when the people survive, thank-you-very-much. - Bibs 


Subject: Research Assistant Corbette 

Photographed Activity: Sitting at desk, eating Corn Nuts. 

Photo Result: Initially thought to be unchanged, however, Research 
Assistant Corbette was able to inform researchers that the name 
plate on his desk had changed from "Research Assistant Corbette" 
to "Researcher Corbette". Research Assistant Corbette expressed 
extreme dismay. 


Subject: Dr. Chelsea "Photosynthetic" Elliott 

Photographed Activity: Sitting at desk writing a report on the 
biology of "plants" produced by SCP-697. 

Photo Result: Using a jeweler's loupe and her bare hands to 
examine a mat of live plant specimens produced by SCP-697. Dr. 
Elliott is not wearing protective gear beyond her lab coat. 

Note: Ofcourse / wouldn't actually do that. I'm not an idiot. Can't a 
woman dream? —Dr. Elliott 


Subject: V. A. Eisenberg K.T.H. 

Photographed Activity: Running a set of experiments on SCP-836 
samples. 

Photo Result: The photograph shows a collared lynx sitting on a 
Russian "troika" type-sled, in nondescript snowy wilderness. The 
sled is pulled by Professor Crow, Dr. Bright, and SCP-953. Upon 
closer inspection, the collar is seen to hold a tag with "05-13" 
engraving. 

Researcher Eisenberg pointedly refused to comment on the 
contents of the photograph. 


Master demanded it. 


“So be it,” he thought. 


Clef entered the bleak chamber of the Schips greatest prisoner: 
Threfor Threed, the Demon Warlock. He drew his black broadsword 
—Ookoolayla, the Song Ender—and stood before the beast, 
prepared to strike him down. 


“Yes, Sir Clef,” the gnarled old man spoke. “You've come to me for 
the secrets of demonic power at last? | have such wonderful things 
to show you.” 


“Silence yourself, warlock,” said Clef, glaring at his old, grizzled foe. 
“You will submit yourself to my authority, lest | smite thee.” 


The demon consorter laughed, then looked at his ancient nemesis, 
glaring. “So be it, Clef,” he muttered. “Return my wand, and | will 
help you recapture the chosen child. But mark me—if | am betrayed, 
our bloods will mingle on the ground and water the thorns.” 


Clef spat. “Temp me not, rapist of the pure souls,” he said. “Do as | 
command, and you shall have your freedom.” 


“So be it,” cackled the ancient man, his voice echoing through the 
cell like a death knee on the eve of a Winter’s morn.