No, you deluded simpleton, it's not a perversion. If you cook 
something, you alter its flavor, the...character, so to speak. Why 
would | or anyone dilute or distort such a direct, sacred act as the 
sharing of love with something to vulgar and de-humanizing as 
cooking. Carol has the taste of nettle flowers and bright, sharp 
pennies. Cooking would just hide such things. Each part a subtle 


variation on the theme...the chest a symphony of textures, the 
tongue a dense, springing delight, those smooth, delicate fingers... 


Alright...ALRIGHT, I'm stopping...sit back down... 


... Yes, it's love for each of them. Humanity is not built for 
monogamy, and | don't feel that restriction is healthy. Each of the 
beautiful, devoted women you stole from me | love as deeply and 
truly as any man alive. | spend a fortune on them, with IV drips, 
bandages, treatments...look at them, not a sore, bruise or laceration 
on them that was not precisely necessary. As | come to love them, 
more and more, | take more and more of them to me, but | NEVER 
let it go too far. Murder is the ultimate sin, and to do so to a loved 
one...it's unthinkable. They come to see the true, deep joy of giving 
and love as | do, in time. Molly actually offered her foot to me, 
weeping tears of joy to give it to me. 


So | consume the love and flesh of those | adore? How am | so 
different from you, except for the purity of expression? How can you 
call me a psychopath, a pervert, when... 


What? 
Who? Oh...you...you mean Helen... 


Well...I'm human. | mean, | have faults, the same as everyone. | 
mean...haven't you seen a women and gotten a bit more... frisky 
than normal? 


| mean...really...why do you need limbs, when you have Love? 


Feverish 


The sweat slid in rivers as he burned. Inches from the fan blades, 
the pounding breeze doing next to nothing to relieve the searing fire 
in his flesh. Sick for the last two days, Adam's fever had only started 
to soar over last night, and now he felt as if water would boil in his 
mouth. Leaning back, he rubbed his temples, trying to decide 
whether going to bed was worth having to feel his own burning 
fever-heat reflected back at him by the pillows. 


He felt hot and almost pliant, like almost-baked dough. His throat 
was also a red, burning lump in his neck, with an opening that felt to 
be the size of a pin prick. Every time he moved, he could feel 
twitching, shivering shocks jolt down his limbs to swollen, creaking 
joints. Told to say hydrated, he had a tall glass of icy water next to 
him. It could have been on the moon, for all the good it did him, as 
every time he tried to take in anything more substantial then air, he 
felt like choking. 


He tried to take another swallow of water, but his raw throat seemed 
to clamp shut the second it touched the cool liquid, causing him to 
gag. He rose, tossing the cup aside, and stumbled in to the kitchen 
with the vaguely formed thought of getting something hot to drink 
instead. As he turned to the stove, he saw the place on the wall 
were he had leaned coming in. He blinked, his overheated brain 
trying to process what he was seeing. 


There was a bloody hand print on the wall, dripping slowly. 


He looked down to see his shirt spotted with blood. His pants, his 
hair, everything was spotted and dripping blood. He started to 
stumble back out of the kitchen, unable to scream for help around 
his raw throat, but everyone was gone anyway, run to the store for 
fresh medicine. He moaned, feeling sharp, shocking pain rocket 
through his joints with each movement, sending him to his knees. As 
he looked, a clear fluid started to replace the blood welling from his 
skin. Then his finger sagged. 


It just...flopped, like a wilting flower, the knuckles reversing as easily 
as if it'd been made of dough. Adam started panting, gently trying to 
push his finger back up, but it sagged more, then started to drip 
through his fingers like overheated play dough. He moaned, trying to 
rise, but found himself stuck. He looked down to see his legs starting 
to puddle around him, flowing in a glaze of bloody and clear fluid. He 
watched, barely able to breathe, as a toenail floated out of his shoe. 


He groaned, trying to pitch his sagging, flowing body forward, but 
landed on the floor with a sickening splat. He felt his face start to 
flow, the soft tissues pooling in to the carpet, his vision starting to 
distort and blur as his eyes spread like two brown-yolked eggs on to 
the carpet. As he felt his gums and skull start to sag and mush like 
old, rotting pumpkins, his one consolation was that, finally, he didn't 
feel like he was burning anymore. 


Alone 


Have you ever been Alone? Not just alone for a bit while others are 
out, or feeling rather isolated at the end of a relationship, but Alone. 
That special Alone that you feel at 1:25 in the morning, when the 
whole world is asleep. Nobody to call, no real place to go, even the 
depths of the Internet unable to turn up even a passing 
conversation. You suddenly realize how isolated you really, truly are. 


The house is louder and quieter at the same time. You'll catch 
yourself turning on things just to have light, noise, something to fill 
the space, and sometimes that can work. At least, for a while. Still, 
that gnawing feeling of Alone keeps creeping in. You could even 
consider calling someone you know to be asleep, just to hear the 
sound of another voice. After a while, you'll start getting more...alert. 


It's the first over-the-shoulder glance that brings it to the forefront. 
You'll feel stupid for doing it...but you can't stop it. Maybe you even 
justify it by looking at something to the side of you...but you're really 
craning around though your peripheral vision, trying to see what's 
behind. It's so stupid...but it's that itchy spot in your back that does 
it, you just keep having the weird urge to look behind you. 


Keep doing it. 


They only take prey when they're Alone. For some reason, eyes 
scare them. 


Maybe because they don't have any. 


had turned to a mix of dark red and brown. The average 
relative humidity remained at 14% until thirty-five (35) 
hours elapsed time, averaging at 19% (18.56% with 
significant figures). When applying significant figures to 
the control rooms, the average relative humidity has 
dropped from 20.17% to 19.96%. 


Note: | think it’s safe to believe that SCP-622 may have some sort 
of chemical component that still lingers long after SCP-622 has 
dissolved. For future reference, let’s do all testing outside of Site 
16’s circulation system. —Dr. Z 


Test Log 622-4: 


Organic Testing of SCP-622 to determine shelf life of 
chemical compound [REDACTED] in an outdoor 
environment. 


Procedure: SCP-622 will be applied to a small patch of 
grass on the Site 16 Testing Biosphere 07 and viewed 
through remote monitoring devices. Moisture measured 
and monitored by electronic instruments. For a control, 
Testing Biosphere 02 and 01 were also monitored for 
humidity content, averaging at 68% and 73% relative 
humidity, respectively. 

Results: [DATA EXPUNGED]. See Addendum 622-2. 
Security levels 3 and above, refer to Document 622-A 
and 622-B. 


[DOCUMENT 622- 
A ONLY AVAILABLE TO THOSE OF SECURITY CLEARANCE 3 OR 


Test Log 622-4: 


Organic Testing of SCP-622 to determine 
shelf life of chemical compound 
[REDACTED - 05 PERSONNEL ONLY] in an 
outdoor environment. 


Procedure: SCP-622 will be applied to a small 
patch of grass on the Site 16 Testing 


Mice 


We have such a mouse problem. What's worse, they're stupid. Your 
average mouse has the common decency to stay hidden 90% of the 
time, you just find nibbled items and mouse crap. Our mice just 
wander around, it seems. Step in to the kitchen, and one's running 
like hell for the stove gap, like he had no idea anyone was in the 
house. In the bathroom, and one's frozen on the edge of the tub with 
an “oh shit” look. | run five traps, and get at least one a night, high 
score is a solid five. Either a testament to my trapping skill, or (more 
likely) additional evidence of dumb mice. 


It was very late, and I'd gotten up to lay down my baby daughter, 
who had woken up doing her “nobody loves me in the entire world” 
cry. Again. | was stumbling back to bed, navigating more by memory 
and that sleepy sixth-sense you get in the dark, when | heard a 
clacking sound. Our house creaks and groans like a clipper ship, but 
this was odd. A sort of rhythmic clicking: Clack...clack...clack... 
clack... 


If you've ever used a glue trap before, you already know the sound. 
It's less common with the standard wood-and-spring traps. It's the 
sound of a mouse that is stuck and/or crippled, and trying to get 
away. For about ten seconds | seriously considered just ignoring it 
and going to bed, but knowing my luck my wife would get up for a 
drink, step on it, and lose her shit for the rest of the night. So | 
followed the noise to the kitchen, still only half awake, and clicked on 
the light. It wasn't a mouse. 


Jesus CHRIST it wasn't a mouse. 


It had gotten nailed by the stove. It looked like it hadn't even been 
trying to get the peanut butter, just crawling (Walking? Running?) by 
the trap and set it off. It'd crawled about thirteen feet in the general 
direction of the laundry room. | just stood there, dumb with sleep, 
watching it crawl. The arms were toothpick skinny, ending in little 
squirming masses that looked like pinworms. Below those were 


rows of the same little tentacles, and the legs looked boneless, but 
they might have been broken. The trap had snapped over the things 
back, and the metal was sunk in deep. Some kind of clear liquid was 
oozing around it and leaving a tiny trail. 


| think it had a tail, or it might have been three legs. The lower body 
was wrecked, and just looked like a torn fleshy skirt. The head. The 
head was disk-shaped and had this kind of random spattering of 
little back dots on top. They looked like spider eyes. Underneath 
was the mouth, it looked like an upside-down “Y”. It had a kind of 
greasy looking fur all over except for the head. The clacking came 
when it tried to crawl. It would reach out and pull, but the trap would 
catch on something in its back, lift up, then fall. The thing couldn't 
have been much bigger then a kitten. 


| didn't know what to do. | just...froze, kinda. Some people can 
stomp a mouse, easy as swatting a fly. My dad can. | can't. | just...1 
can't, and | couldn't then. | just watched it, assuming | was dreaming 
or something. | thought maybe | could try and grab it and throw it 
outside or something, but if it bit me or touched me, I'm pretty sure | 
would lose it. | thought again of whacking it with something, or 
stomping it, or something, but | just watched it. Finally | grabbed a 
broom and just kind of...brushed it over to the trash area. 


It just wallowed there, on its side. I'm pretty sure it didn't know what 
was going on. Anyway, | pushed the trash can in front of it and went 
back to bed. It seems retarded now, but at the time it just seemed 
like what | could do. | figured I'd just deal with it in the morning. | was 
pretty sure | was still half dreaming, and that it was just a screwed- 
up mouse that | wasn't seeing right. | laid in bed for about an hour, 
then got up to go look at the thing again. 


It was gone, and the basement door was open a crack. | was 
honestly relieved, | didn't have to deal with it now. Then, | thought of 
stepping on it in the dark, or slipping down the steps, and sighed. 
So, | opened the door and pulled on the light over the steps. The 
light is pretty crappy, and to light the actual basement you have to 
go downstairs to get to the switch, so | could only really see the 
steps and a couple feet in to the basement. There was a little trail of 
that clear stuff down the steps. 


There's a wall with a vent right at the bottom of the steps on the left 
side. The grating is an old cast-iron job that's probably been there 
since the house was built. The grating gaps are very wide. The trap 
was sitting right beside it. Hanging above the trap was the little thing. 
Holding it up was the head of a bigger version. All | saw was the 
head, but it's probably the size of a average cat. Disk head the size 
of my fist, eye-spots a lot bigger and blacker. It was holding the little 
dead thing by the neck. Like a mama cat. It stared at me a second, 
or maybe it was just the light. Then the head sort of...narrowed, and 
it slipped in to the vent with the dead thing. 


| didn't get back to sleep. The ice machine went on as | was walking 
around the house, and | screamed like I'd been shot. My wife woke 
up in a panic, told her | had a bad dream. | get those. The next day, | 
booked a hotel for a couple days, called off work, and lit at least two 
bug bombs off in every room of the house. Six in the basement, and 
even rolled two in to the vent. The house smelled like chemicals for 
days, but by god the mice were dead as shit. | never told my wife. 
I'm not even sure what | saw, really, it was late and | was very, very 
tired. 


The problem is, the cat got hurt yesterday. We got her just a little bit 
after that night, much to my wife's delight. She brought the cat to me 
yesterday, crying, her hands bloody. The vet says she must have 
gotten in to something, or fell somehow. She was cut all over. She 
was all dusty when we brought her in, and the vet said she'd 
probably got in to a closet or vent somehow and gotten hurt. | looked 
in on her when the vet was fixing her up. The cuts looked like little 
“Y” shapes. 


| don't know what to think. She could have gotten hurt on anything, 
anywhere. Maybe she was chasing a stupid mouse that was too 
dumb to hide well. Or one that was too scared to hide in or behind 
anything. One whose territory had already been taken. There's been 
nibbled things around the house lately, and my wife says she hears 
mice in the attic. | pretend | don't. | don't dare set a trap. 


| really don't want to know. 


Elevator 


He was lost in hell. Or as hell, one of the two. He'd kicked and 
screamed to get here, and now he just wanted it to be over. Two 
days of computer and technology stuff, in a nice big hotel, with lots 
of food and drink. His girlfriend had been less than thrilled, to say 
the least, but he'd prevailed with a minimum of tears. It all seemed 
like such a good idea at the time. Now, he felt shell-shocked. Too 
many people, everything so expensive, rude and snide jerks 
everywhere, and the growing, acidic tension between him and his 
girlfriend was starting to come to a head. 


He'd managed to drag her down to look at cell phones, but he'd run 
into an ex-girlfriend running a seminar registration table. She'd sort 
of cornered him, immediately pouring out her heart, how sorry she 
was, how much she missed him. By the time he'd gotten away, his 
girlfriend was well gone, only the aura of her rage hanging behind. 
He searched, demoralized, but she hadn't even returned to the 
room. He'd had to narrowly dodge the Ex a couple more times, 
reminding himself easily of why he left her to begin with. At least 
their car was still in the lot. 


Slithering through the crush of people, he wormed out to the relative 
calm of the lobby. He just wanted to rest, to let the clock spin to the 
end of this nightmare, even if he knew it'd lose him position in the 
great argument to come. The elevators were packed tight, a hefty 
and unruly line pressed against them, and he sighed, looking around 
for stairs. He spotted a small, dingy set of elevator doors set against 
the far wall just as his Ex spotted him across the lobby. He dived for 
the call button like a drowning man.