But apparently, there's this thing called a "prostate" in 
Daddy. Or, well, there used to be. They said that 
"luckeemy" or "lookemiaw" or something like that got to 
his. They said Daddy would be taken away from me and 
| wouldn't see him any more. They would never say 
something like that about you or Buttons or Millicent or 
Socrates. You'll be with me forever. | guess all you need 
is thread and stuffing to really change someone. 


And | got my way, Freddybear. Now Daddy can be with 
us again. Mommy was so right. | haven't seen him look 
so happy since he got sick. I'm tired though, | think it's 
time to go to sleep. 


Good night Freddybear. 
Good night Buttons. 
Good night Millicent. 
Good night Socrates. 
Good night Daddy. 


"Dust You Are" by thedeadlymoose 


The wretched creature was alive once. Before it - she, 
then - walked down the wrong back road, stepped into 
the wrong copse of scraggly trees. Something laid in wait 


there in the backwoods, a tiny monstrosity nesting ina 
hole in reality. A flytrap. 


It's important not to misunderstand the nature of this tiny 
monstrosity. It was hardly unique. Nor even at the top of 
the food chain. Nor was not even preying on this woman, 
at least not in the way we might understand that term. 


It was aiming to reproduce. 


The flytraps catch many things, but their favorites are the 
thinking ones. More suitable for the precious eggs 
desposited in its carapace. The flytraps fear the eggs, as 
the eggs are not their own. The eggs are not dangerous, 
but their layers are, and the flytraps know that the 
thinking things make better minds to add to the embryos 
in the eggs. 


This flytrap caught the woman in its snare, and injected 
her with its venom. The venom would keep her alive for 
eons. Paralyzed, conscious, fresh. 


Once the eggs were implanted, the flytrap spun her up 
into the cocoon of rock and dirt and crawled back 
through its hole. Back to its cold, black, infinite den, from 
which none escape. 


It arranged the woman and several other victims in a 
careful circle around a tiny flame. The tiny flame would 
provide enough light and heat to keep the woman alive in 
her prison, with the venom doing the rest. The flytrap 
spun carefully, gently. After all, this was a nest, and 
these were its charges, the children it would raise for its 
masters. 


The flytrap watched the woman for a time, to ensure that 
the temperature was right and the woman would not 
wake up before the eggs had grown into her. 


The flytrap was very patient, and it watched for a long 
time. It watched the boils form on the rock prison as the 


woman tried to scream inside it. Tiny rivulets of melted 
rock run along the prison's surface like tears. The prison 
trembled, and the flytrap watched with concern. 


A tiny part of the prison broke off, taking a piece of the 
woman with it. The flytrap shuffled the broken part back 
into the nest next to the imprisoned woman. Maybe this 
extra piece would form a child too. It had been known to 
happen. The woman's torn body writhed in agony for a 
long time after, but the prison held firm. 


The flytrap waited until the woman's screaming cooled to 
a silent insanity, and the prison cooled with it. The 
broken piece was forming into its own, smaller, cocoon 
as well. By now, the eggs had grown into the woman so 
much that they could no longer be considered separate 
entities. They were now a child in a cocoon. 


Then the flytrap crawled away, satisfied. Soon enough, 
now, the creature would be ready to be born, and more 
eggs were waiting to be laid. The woman's quiet, 
undifferentiated, mindless fear would be just right for the 
fledgling child. The first few eons were so critical. 


So the flytrap missed what happened next. 
The cocoon became infected. 


Boils spread again across the woman-thing's cocoon, 
and burst to form rivers, lakes, oceans of pus. A haze of 
gas clouded over the cocoon's once-pristine surface. 
Tiny parasites swam in the infected swill and multipled. 
The woman-thing struggled anew as the parasites 
swarmed across the cocoon's surface, biting and 
crawling like an army of fleas. The woman-thing's quiet, 
sleeping insanity became a mad existence of paralyzed 
torture. 


Floating in its solar nest, in the corner of the flytrap's den 
in the vast expanse of space, the creature called "Mother 
Earth" by its parasites waits in increasing madness to be 


born. 


Surprise! Happy Birthday! Still? 


What? You again? 


| thought we'd taken care of this. Didn't you read the 
others? The other stories and tales? There was the one 
with the children who swallowed up their father when he 
didn't sing them a lullaby? What about the one where the 
author became his story, then accidentally cut his own 
character? Or the purloined thumbscrews? Hmm... | 
thought we'd got you with that one. 


Well, none the less, | suppose I'm supposed to bid you 
welcome! Welcome to the tales, in honor, in... 
memoriam? No? Soon, perhaps. Tales of sorrow and 
joy. Tales of the goblet filled with the blood of the sun, or 
perhaps tales about the simple flute who became a man. 
Tales of the raven, snake, bear, and raven again, when 
coyote chopped him in half. Tales of paper tower made 
of lost stories, and the Cruciform of Jude. Tales of Little 
Bo Peep, the forgotten note, or the left handed tree. 
Tales! Tales to celebrate this, the day of your death! 


Birth? 
Like there's that much of a difference... 


Happy birthday...! And many more. 


"A Creepy Pasta" by Murphy Slaw, age six. 


(An excerpt from The Thing on the Plate, a collection of 
restaurant reviews written by H.P. Lovecraft for the 
Providence Journal.) 


As | set foot into Guiseppe's, | was promptly seized by a 


wave of thoroughgoing revulsion. My mind reeled at the 
churning revelation that the establishment was no temple 
to the finer inheritances of Rome, but rather a low den 
catering to the coarse pleasures of the debased Sicilian - 
a swarthy, degenerate people whose only talents lie in 
the demesne of street violence and the production of the 
vile Marsala - a mucilaginous, sanguinary mockery of the 
vintner's art. 


The inchoate grunting of the proprietor indicated that | 
should select my own seating within. With mounting 
trepidation, | picked my way amongst the rude timber 
tables, eventually perching myself at the least repellant 
example of carpentry | was able to detect. 


The very fabric of space-time itself seemed to elongate 
and ripple obscenely as | awaited some signal of 
acknowledgment from the sullen attendants. The 
escalating desperation in my eyes finally captured the 
attention of a waiter, who stamped gracelessly to my 
table with the languidness born of his Mediterranean 
birth-place. 


The menu was engraved upon a coarse hempen paper, 
heavily adorned with the greasy finger-prints of the 
luckless diners who had paid visit to the blighted 
accommodation in days long past. With desperate haste, 
| opted for the spaghetti and meat-balls. | clutched to a 
slender hope that the proprietor's reluctance to specify 
the flesh involved did not implicate the establishment in 
some ghastly charade. 


The beetle-browed attendant set the proffered dish upon 
the profane checked table-cloth with a clattering thud. 
Within seconds, my worst fears were made manifest. 
Deep within his sweltering lair, the oafish cook had, 
through a foul mockery of the culinary arts, taken the 
noble tomato and reduced it to a scrofulous paste, with a 
glabrous sheen never meant to adorn earthly food. With 
a heavy hand, this ichor was ladled over a collection of 
rugose agglomerations which disgraced the good name 


of sphere. 


And underneath these insults lurked the most unsettling 
revelation of all. For the Sicilian, not content to take the 
staff of life and produce therefrom the wholesome bread 
of our ancestors, instead had so abused and warped the 
corn of the wheat-stalk as to produce a clotted mass of 
slithering filaments, a writhing heap of wheaten 
degeneracy which so rejected my every sensibility that | 
sat dumb-struck for several minutes as it steamed and 
coagulated. 


Additionally, the cannoli | selected for afters was 
niggardly in the apportionment of nuts to a scandalous 
degree. 


Two stars. 


"Just A Moment Of Your Time" by Roget 


It was Sunday. The second Sunday in August. The 
apartment was small, but not cramped. The walls were 
lined with a faded floral wallpaper, added by a resident 
past, and Harold was enjoying his tea. He quite liked 
Sunday. It was a day where nobody would come around 
and knock on his door. No bills. No mail. Just peace. 


At least, that's how it usually was. Today was something 
different. Because on that particular Sunday, there was a 
knock on the door. A quiet one, from somebody who 
wasn't bold enough to want to wake Harold up. It was 
just loud enough to alert him from his newspaper and 
warm mug. 


He rose, joints creaking and slippers fluffing, and 
shuffled over to the peep-hole. On the other side of the 
threshold, there was a well-dressed man. He wore a dark 
brown suit, plain blue tie, and dirty glasses. His hair 
looked as though he'd recently been wearing a hat, that 
had been lost to the wind. Normally, Harold would have 


ignored the solicitor, gone back to his chair, and 
resumed reading. But today, he didn't. 


Instead, he opened the door. 


"Greetings." said the solicitor. "My name is Gerald, and | 
need only a moment of your time." He smiled, a phony 
but sentimental gesture. He set his briefcase down, and 
adjusted his tie. Harold just watched him, not sure why 
he had opened the door, and not quite able to think 
about why he couldn't think about why. 


Gerald set his suitcase down, and clasped his hands 
together."So, I'm sure you have many friends and 
relatives. You've know them in the past. But do you know 
them tomorrow?" 


Harold blinked. "I... what?" 


Gerald grinned, a genuine one this time. "So, you haven't 
heard the Good Word?" 


Harold had not heard any such word. He shook his head. 


"My dear friend, you have been living in a dark age. 
Constantly looking over your shoulder to memories half- 
gazed over by your own mind. Wouldn't you like to see 
the memories before they happen, to get ready?" 


Frowning, Harold crossed his arms. "So, like... a fortune- 
reader?" 


A waggling finger was thrust into Harold's face. "Not just 
any fortune, my friend, but one absolutely-positively 
guaranteed to work. You'll know everything you ever 
needed to know about what's coming up. It's like having 
advanced tickets to the Big Game!" 


Harold could spot a phony when he saw one. The cheap 
smile, the dirty facade... this guy was a carpetbagger, 
through and through. "Prove it, then." 


recon of the vertical shaft. 


SCP-610 infection did not appear in the third pathway until 
approximately 3km and serious infection did not appear until 16km 
in. Even after the lengths travelled by the assault teams no SCP-610 
infectious life-forms were encountered and the fleshy material 
coating the cavern walls posed no threat to the team. The most 
significant reports at this time were the increasing thickness of 
material, suggesting a source, and the complete lack of SCP-610 
contamination in the water. As a test, a sample of SCP-610 was cut 
away from the cavern wall and placed in the flow of water. It 
exhibited no unusual reactions, but was quickly swept away by the 
current. 


At 20km in, the leader of the assault teams requested a transport 
buggy be dispatched to them. One was available at the above 
ground HQ. However, it would take time to move it to Cavern HQ 
and then remote-drive it to the teams. Rations provided to the 
assault teams were sufficient, so a camp was established while the 
buggy was moved and readied. 


During this time an aerial drone was also sent to explore the vertical 
shaft. The results of this exploration were placed on hold with the 
arrival of the buggy at Cavern HQ and ultimately concluded in 
document [Data Expunged]. 


The buggy was navigated to the assault team encampment with no 
events en route, however, upon arrival and preparation to continue 
the exploration, the assault teams came under attack by a number 
of large SCP-610 infected life-forms that emerged from the area 
ahead of them. Video recovered from the assault team cameras 
show them caught off guard as the SCP-610 infected made no 
sound and were undetectable. On one film, for one to two seconds it 
appears that some of the creatures are coming out of the SCP-610 
materials on the wall, not emerging from them so much as being 
created by the material and then breaking away to act 
independently. 


During this assault, in an attempt to protect the buggy, members 
were lost to the water currents and contact with them was lost. 
Contact was regained however and is recorded in SCP-610-L6. The 


If possible, the solicitor known as Gerald grew an even 
wider grin. "Right away..." his arms lurched into the 
suitcase, unsnapping the hinges and wrestling with the 
cords, until he revealed a massive, oily hunk of metal. 
Immediately, the reeking odor of fish and dock rot 
permeated the hallway. Harold stepped back, aghast. 


"Wha , guh-" he gagged. "What is that?" 


Gerald held it clasped between his hands, the oily juices 
dripping down his fingers, leaving thin red trails in their 
wake. "Ah, this is what | have been promising you. Touch 
it.” 


Harold hesitated. 
"Go on, touch it." 


Tentatively reaching out, Harold leaned into the device. 
Swiftly, a blade ejected from the front of its cobbled form, 
and pricked his outstretched hand. Recoiling in pain and 
surprise, Harold failed to notice the machine clutching 
itself as it savored the fresh memories, the new 
experiences that his lifetime had been enhanced with. 
Smoke billowed from its many openings and valves, until 
at last, an oily strip of paper printed out. Gerald snatched 
it, and peered past his grime-coated spectacles. 


"Do you talk to your sister, much?" 


Harold looked up, distracted from his distraction. "N-no... 
why?" 


"You won't be talking for quite some time, sorry. But it 
proves my machine to be functional, yes?" 


One blink. "H-hey... what the hell are... what're you 
talking about?" 


"Your sister... Gloria, or something similar, the paper 
blurred a bit... she died in an accident sixteen minutes 
ago." 


Behind them, Harold's phone began to ring. 
"That's probably them now. Are you ready for the news?" 


"I... you're fucking lying." Harold backed away, looking 
over his shoulder to the phone ringing off the hook. 


"Here you are now, Harold. Looking over your shoulder 
to the past, once again." 


The phone continued its ringing, but Harold stopped, and 
turned 'round to face the solicitor. "What do you... what 
do you want from me?" 


"| want you to pay the price for my miraculous little 
device!" 


"... What do you want?" 


"You've already given it to me, Harry. Can | call you 
Harry? Your life, your blood, your past-present-future. 
This machine is tied to you, Harry. And so am I." 


When Harold next had regained his faculties, he was 
sitting in his chair. His hand was unmolested, and the 
phone was silent. He breathed a sigh of relief. 


Then, there was a horrid, ghastly noise. 

Over his shoulder, a ticket printed, oily and dark. It read: 
Check the answering machine 

"Eyes Down," by Mann 

| never look up anymore. 


| don't mean that metaphorically. I'm not saying I'm 
pessimistic. Though I'm that, too. | mean, if you were me, 
you wouldn't be flowers and sunshine either. 


But I'm talking literally. | keep my eyes down. It's safer 
that way. They hate being stared at... 


The angels, | mean. 


"A Mile in His Shoes," by Dmatix