Description: SCP-803-1 is a currently undetermined number of 
autonomous machines, resembling small umbrellas, averaging 170 
centimetres in width and 150 centimetres in height. An average 
specimen is almost indistinguishable from a normal umbrella. There 
are no identifying marks or labels on instances of SCP-803-1. When 
unfolded, a large amount of medical equipment is visible on the 
underside of SCP-803-1's canopy. These include vials of varying 
liquids and gases, plastic tubing, syringes, scalpels, various motors 
and joints, [DATA EXPUNGED]. All specimens possess the ability to 
retract, disguise or otherwise hide this equipment, making 
identification of SCP-803-1 in the field difficult. All attempts to 
disassemble or deactivate instances of SCP-803 are forbidden by 
order of Dr. (see addendum 803-01). 


SCP-803-2 resemble SCP-803-1 in almost all respects, except for a 
greatly increased wingspan of 5 metres and a central power system 
apparently fueled by [REDACTED]. SCP-803-2 serve as carriers for 
swarms of SCP-803-1 on rows of metal hooks that replace the 
medical equipment found in instances of SCP-803-1. 


The primary function of SCP-803 instances appears to be the 
capture, experimentation, and occasionally dissection vivisection of 
medium to large mammals using the aforesaid apparatus. 
Specimens of SCP-803-2 hunt by either waiting in a large, open 
area or by tumbling through the air using natural updrafts and bursts 


The memories here are stored in these little alcoves in the walls, 
where the crystal doesn't touch, and they aren't at all what | 
expected them to be. Unless I'm missing something and memories 
from plague-times and pastoral nature scenes are suddenly 
thematically linked, there's no connection between this place and 
Sub-Area 24 even though the two are adjacent. Making it this day's 
second possible first, | guess. Heh. Whole thing makes me curious 
to see what else | can find in here. | suppose | could go back to the 
dormitories, but that's a few hours walk and I'll have to waste half of 
tomorrow just getting back here. No, | think I'll stay here for the 
night, nice and cozy in my sleeping bag. Not like anyone's going to 
miss me. Doubt they'll even notice, really. 


Dec 24th 
It was daylight. God. 


I've been with the Foundation for the last twenty-seven years. I've 
worked on seven SCP items. I've seen and heard things | doubt 
most people would even buy in a science fiction novel. And through 
all of that, | can't remember feeling such a sense of true wonder as 
when | saw the forest. 


There really shouldn't be anything here to make me feel that way. 
Not after... not after everything. Just a small wooded valley, and a 
road covered in snow, and some mailboxes poking out every once in 
a while like they've been planted there by some giant squirrel. This 
should be nothing to me, this is nothing to me. 


None of this makes any sense. Nothing about SCP-921 ever 
indicated there could be something like this in it. Sure, we found 
some large rooms before, but this- if this is a room, 921 is making a 
damn good job of disguising it. By all accounts | should go back right 
now, report this to my supervisor and get some actual experts to 
deal with this. | flunked the tests for the Paraworld Analysis 
Department, | was literally found unsuitable to go any further by 
some of the brightest minds in the world. But I'm... I'm not going to. 
Because this place, it does mean something to me. 


| feel like I'm home again. 


And that doesn't make any sense either. This isn't me! I've never 
lived anywhere even resembling this. My current place sure as hell 
doesn't. Nothing in this forest should be in any way familiar to me. 
And nothing really is. And yet, here | am, standing knee deep in 
snow, fumbling through mailboxes full of artist's dreams, most likely 
going to freeze to death come nighifall. That is, if night is even a 
thing here. And the memories, they're far more vivid than anything 
921's other wings have to offer. In the inner rooms you always felt 
like you were watching things through a screen, or touching them 
through thick gloves. Nothing like that here. No barriers. | can feel 
the brush in my hand. | can hear each creak in the harp as my 
fingers weave a pattern on its strings, lightening fast. | can feel the 
razor parting flesh, warm bath waters filling the wound. I'm there, 
and it flows through me. My blood is its blood. 


December 24th today. You know what, fuck it. This is my Christmas 
present. For once, screw protocol, screw those Paraworld Dep 
asshats, and screw being myself! For once in my life, I'm going to 
see something through. 


Dec 25th 


| can't feel the cold. I've been walking most of the night through a 
snow-filled forest with not so much as a coat on, yet | feel nothing. 
Not tired either, and now that | think about it, | haven't eaten in more 
than a day. | just forgot. Why didn't I think about that? Why do my 
thoughts... seem so orderly, growing into a, a narrative? For how 
long now? | can't seem to get the frame right. It wants me to, it's in 
its nature. Who's ‘it'? Why doesn't SCP-921-2 say anything 
anymore? 


No. Can't... can't think about that now. It's not time yet. Not there 
yet. 


Huh. Nodded off there for a minute. Must be tired, shouldn't have 
walked all night like that. Still, I'd say it's been worth it. God, look at 
that view. 


| reached the castle shortly after dawn, and it looks like it's the 
center of this... well, not sure if Sub-Area is even the right word to 


use anymore, but it's what | got. Anyway, it looks like for once the 
sensations here are what | expected them to be. In every stone 
there's a memory of conquest. It's odd how similar they are to those 
art memories | found in the forest earlier, now that | think about it. 
There's no restraint to be found anywhere around here, that's for 
sure. Each memory is so intense, so raw, and there's a whole 
building-worth of them. I'm surprised the thing can even stay in one 
place with such foundations. Like the pulse of a colossus, soon to 
awaken. 


You'd expect I'd be intimidated by all of this power, but... I'm really 
not. When | was working in 17 | was always on edge. Everything out 
there, every SCP, even the Safe-level stuff, they all felt so alien to 
me. We couldn't understand what made them tick, we didn't ever 
really know how to stop them from doing whatever they wanted to 
do, we were never in control. This isn't the same. The power here... 
it's human. To its core. The liquid creativity | found in every mailbox, 
the sheer, burning ambition housed in every stone, it's all us. Ina 
way, it's really quite encouraging. Because now | know that 
whatever the universe can throw at us, we can throw back harder. 
It's not us that should be scared. Why did | ever think it was right for 
us to hide under our rocks, to pretend none of this is real? We can 
do better. We can do so much better. 


There's something calling me. It was calling me ever since | first 
entered this Sub-Area, but | only just got close enough to really tell, | 
think. Something in the very rocks of this place. Tomorrow, I'll be 
going inside. Honestly, | can't wait. 


Dec 26th...maybe? Am | counting the days now? 


There is a new order in my mind. Thoughts become words, aligned 
in lines of occurrence, in pages of events, in volumes of a lifetime. 
Bits and pieces yet persevere in reckless chaos, but they are not 
long for this world. | shall not push them, for they will come in their 
own time, when they find what they seek. When they reach the end. 
Soon. Then... then, my tale could be told. At long last, my words will 
be heard. 


I'm... what was | doing again? | don't know if it's just lack of sleep, or 
if I'm coming down with something, but it's getting really difficult to 


keep focused. It's like most of my brain is busy doing other things, 
and I'm forced to deal with what's left. There are no records of 
SCP-921 ever doing something like this to anyone, but then again 
no one ever came this far into it. It doesn't really matter anyway. Any 
desire | had of going back faded when | entered this place. Back 
there, | was Mike Levine. Failed husband, failed father, failed 
researcher. In here... | don't have to be myself. In every vista | view, 
in every step | walk, in every breath | take, | become someone else. 
| dive into another memory, another... yeah, | suppose | can call 
them that. Another secret. Something about these memories elude 
my understanding. It's as if whoever they belong to went into a great 
deal of trouble to keep their true meaning hidden from anyone but 
themselves. But you know what? 


It doesn't matter. There's someone's world in each of them, and they 
are all so beautiful | am never more than a step away from crying 
like a little boy. And no two views are the same. The edges of a 
keyhole, as my eye spies on a pair of bodies writhing within. The 
distorted lens of my spyglass, as hands are shaken and lives 
exchange hands. The identity of the atom that would shatter worlds, 
trapped within the safety of my mind, until it is unleashed for all to 
see. Whispers and secrets, all of mankind's, all pass before me 
between blinks. Heh. Almost sounds poetic, if you don't think about 
it too hard. 


There's not much further to go on. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the 
last of it. 


A Time to Tell 


Sarah. | think | finally understand now. | think | can finally see why... 
heh. It's a bit too late now, isn't it. | can feel myself sinking into the 
floor of this final chamber, but I'm not afraid anymore. There's not 
really a me to be afraid. There's nothing that most people fear more 
than losing their sense of self, but me? | embrace it. | know that as 
soon as my head drops beneath this floor, there won't be much left 
of me, not as | was before at least. That's okay. The only thing | 
regret is that you'll never get to see what | saw, never get to live as | 
did these last couple of days. Oh, and being as bitter as | was. | 
regret that too. | think I... | think | want to go now. 


| think it's time to be someone else. 


| do understand. Why this place doesn't act like the rest of SCP-921. 
Why 921-2 never speaks here. Why | now think the way | do. Why | 
wouldn't go back. 


There are no walls here, beneath the end. Which is a bit funny, 
considering what he is. This whole place was built on his bones, but 
he has none left to shield him where he is weakest. | feel sorry for 
him, really. 


The Spine of the World, he calls himself. The Curator of Memories, 
He Who Remembers. It's a bit sad. | don't think even he buys all of 
those grand titles. He says he called me here because he felt a 
need in me, some desire to become something other than myselr. 
That may be true. | suspect, however, the need was truly his. He just 
wanted to tell his first—his last tale. He wanted someone to listen, 
someone who could pass it on. Someone who would remember. It's 
all he ever wanted. This place made me into the book he needed me 
to be, the very way | think into a tool with which to document. To 
document what he cannot. 


They were four, when the knot was struck. Four torn by one man's 
arrogance, by a blade that was quick where the mind was not. Four, 
scattered to the wind by the sundering. Four, left to replace what 
was once their souls with bits and pieces of others, like ethereal 
parasites, each with a different preference. For years, for decades. 
For centuries. Four, who finally became something much more and 
much less than human. Four. He always repeats the number. 


One fed off ambition. In him was conquest, the desire to rule, and 
the ashes they leave in their wake, sometimes. He is Pulse. 


One fed off creativity. In her was art, the very spark of making, and 
the mire of madness that drowns them, sometimes. She is Blood. 


One fed off secrets. In him... well, no one knows. Such is the nature 
of secrets. He is Breath. 


One refused to feed. In him was everything, and nothing. He did not 
posses the brutality of the others, the will to take. All he ever wanted 


to do was to document. If he fed off anything at all, it was stories, 
sensations. Memories. He watched the others grow, and in his cave, 
he wept, for he knew they would ruin all that he sought to preserve 
in their hunger. And so, around him, he formed this place. A 
museum of memories. A time capsule, so that something may 
remain, so he could still tell his stories. And here, right near his 
heart, he built memorials for his brothers and sister. He is Spine. 


He cannot speak here. There is a bit of irony in that. His heart 
belongs to the others still, and so he must be silent where their 
spirits linger. And so, he called me here. So that their stories could 
be told, so that they could have a voice. He knows that they ever 
prepare themselves to war with each other, each with their own 
aspect, though he little understands why. He never could. 


But I can. 


He wants me to tell you their tales, for he cannot. And this, | shall 
do. He has molded my mind into a form that would be suitable for 
such a task, and indeed, it is. But he was wrong about one thing. 
When the telling is done, when the Spine of the World finally breaks, 
| shall not stand aside as he has. There is a convergence coming, a 
gathering of the aspects. They mean to finally settle whatever score 
lies between them, and they will stop at nothing to do so. He expects 
me to stand aside, and document. To watch as the culmination of 
humanity's unthinking wrath bends the world around it. As the 
stories burn. But | cannot. 


If there is to be a convergence, then | shall attend it. Not because 
he's forcing me to, or because | have to. Because | want to. 


Before coming here, | was alone. | was hanging on to routine like a 
drowning man to a sinking piece of mast. It wouldn't have lasted, not 
for much longer. | was surrounded by people, but they didn't see 

me. Worst, | didn't see them. It's so easy to forget that you're not the 
only one out there, that behind those porcelain masks we call faces 
there's a spark, in each of us. There's...humanity. The Spine 
showed me what the others would do, if given the chance. They 
would take away this spark, and pervert it. They never meant to, but 
that is what they will do. In their blindness, their single-mindedness, 
they will take humanity and make it into what | was, before | was 


called here- into masks with nothing behind them. Into a people with 
no stories to tell. The Spine seeks to prevent that by hoarding all the 
stories we already have, but he doesn't understand something very, 
very important. He doesn't understand the very thing that he made 
me understand, when he called me here. 


Stories are nothing if there's no one left to listen to them. 


Broadcast 


John Carlyle ran his hands over his face and stared at his naked 
form in the bathroom mirror. No longer lean and muscled, it was 
beginning to sag. Everywhere, the hair was beginning to recede, 
except, he noted, for his back and chest. At least the graying and 
the wrinkles were evenly distributed. In almost every way, his earthly 
vessel was beginning to decay.