In the case of one D-class subject, D-980-07, physical 
transformation did not seem to occur. The subject spent 
3 hours in the presence of SCP-980 with no abnormal 
experiences and was suspected immune until prompted 
to leave, at which point the subject wordlessly refused 
and continued to sit in his chair with his eyes closed. 
Subject responded with a silent refusal each time he was 
prompted until he was threatened. The subject shoved 
the table to the side and sprung at SCP-980, embracing 
it. Another threat was issued and subject began sobbing, 
continuing to keep his mouth and eyes shut. Subject was 
removed from containment cell by security after he clung 
to SCP-980 and attempted to claw through his own 
eyelids with the use of his nails. 


Further study of SCP-980's properties has been documented in 
Experiment Log 980-06. 


« SCP-979 | SCP-980 | SCP-981 » 


Connection has been lost 
» 22? 


»Hello!!?? 


Connection re-established 
»my buidng ss hakin g its c omign do wn 
»GET OUT OF THERE NOW 


Connection has been lost 


....Attacks on countless cities have been reported 
worldwide as what appears to be military-grade 
weaponry is being used by an unknown terrorist 
organization to indiscriminately lay waste to civilization 
as we know it. Millions are dying as we speak and global 
authorities are struggling to scrounge up a reasonable 
retaliation.... 


....Nothing seems safe from this sudden assault. World 
leaders and prominent figures are rumored to be taking 
refuge in hidden safe havens as they attempt to gain 
control of the situation. Citizens everywhere are advised 
to leave their homes and find shelter away from 
populous areas.... 


....Within a single day more than half the world's 
population has been exterminated. Efforts to stop this 
mass destruction have had little to no effect. With the 
end seemingly looming over our heads, this may very 
well be our final broadcast... 


Quite frankly, I'm not even sure you'll get this, but I'll feel 


better if | at least try. 


The children and | were able to get to the safe haven you 
told us about. Only about 9 others here, and it's not the 
coziest place, but I'm just glad we're done running. 


It's so strange. Out here, aside from a few bright lights on 
the horizon, you wouldn't even know that everything is 
dying. Complete silence. A sky full of stars. It reminds 
me of the night we first met each other. 


| know | probably won't see you again until all this is 
over, your dedication to others is too strong to allow that. 
I'm not mad, it's one my favorite things about you. Just 
know that we're waiting for you. We always will be, no 
matter what happens. 


| love you. 


we forgive you; 
given choice for now, not forever; 
let us back in 


Transparent 


So yeah, my name is Mister Chameleon. Also known as 'That one 
color guy,’ 'Oh yeah, he's a mister, right?’ or 'Doctor 
Wondertainment's afterthought.’ Sometimes it can be hard to be me. 
After all, when all the other misters just look at you and kind of 
snicker, its hard to feel upbeat about yourself. Sure, I've gone to 
self-help seminars, bought the self esteem books by the dozen, and 
tuned in to every TV guru that there is. It doesn't help when as soon 
as you try out the techniques, people start snickering. 


It's not my fault. | was made this way. I'm just made out of light. 
Maybe it's that | can't do the things the other misters do. | can't 
make you laugh, or do cool stuff with the phases of the moon. You 
can't take me apart and put me back together. And you sure can't 
take off my head to play with it or whatever you do with a severed 
head. | can't do any of that stuff. What do you people want from me 
anyways? For cryin’ out loud I'm made of light! 


But yeah, like | said, its hard to be the least known of the Misters. 
Sometimes | wonder why. Why me? I'm perfectly alright. | can 
change to any color you please, and I'm number one on everybody's 
list! Surely people should be like "Oh Mister Chameleon, he must be 
one cool cat, right? After all, he's number one on the list! Wow! 
That's amazing!" But no, instead of having just a /itt/le bit of the 
fanfare going to the number one person on the list, it all goes to 
Forget, Laugh, and Brass! Why? Laugh doesn't even do anything 
cool! And all Laugh does is make me feel depressed. And | mean, | 
can see why people like using a human tinker-toy set, all he does is 
complain if you use him! Not me! | would never complain about 
hanging out with some of you guys. 


So maybe like, call me sometime or something sometime? | can 
really be available anytime you need me. Even if I'm like, busy or 
something, I'm sure | would be able to make time. After all, there 
isn't really a lot to do over here, y'know? | can maybe come entertain 


at parties and stuff? Lets just hang out sometime. 


Please? 


Trepanning 


November 15 


Migraine again. They always seem to strike at the worst time, 
though | have a pretty good guess what the cause of this one is. The 
F Work pays well, but sometimes shit happens and it's hard to make 
ends meet. Sarah's been sick again and | haven't had a good night's 
sleep in a week. I've got a lot of paperwork to finish up but | don't 
think I'm getting any more done tonight. 


November 17 


| felt a lot better this morning. | don't know if it's just the migraine 
medication working, but it's not hurting as much. Funny thing is that 
when | woke up, | could have sworn | heard some weird scraping 
sounds, but it may just be a side effect of the meds. 


Now the problem is that Sarah's in trouble at school again. Talking 
during class, throwing things, generally being belligerent. That she 
takes after her dad is the best and worst part about her. Guess it's 
time for another Lecture from Mom (tm). 


November 18 


Head hurting again. And here, | thought it was starting to get better. 
Lost my keys at work too, had to spend an hour looking for them. 
FML. 


November 19 


And... feeling better again. Heard another scraping sound when | 
woke up, maybe there's a mouse in the walls behind my bed or 
something? Was bleeding a little from my head when | woke up, 


kinda weird but it didn't hurt and stopped pretty quick, so | didn't 
think too much ot it. 


Weekly report is due tomorrow, gotta get cracking. 


November 20 


Ugh. Head hurt. No more writing tonight. 


November 21 


Heard that same scraping sound again when | woke up, but | don't 
really care about that. | don't know what I've been doing different, 
but damn it feels good to be alive. Hell, | don't even care about the 
weird looks Sarah's been giving me. | feel like | can just scrape 
away all the cares in the world and live pressure-free. 


November 22 


Life is awesome. Sarah is fine. Scrape away. 


November 23 


Scrape, scrape, scrape away. 


Autopsy Report: 


Assistant Researcher Dr. Evelyn Winters was found 
dead in her home along with her daughter Sarah Winters 
on 11/24/ after having failed to report to work for 2 
days. Cause of death in both cases was determined to 
be massive cranial trauma; both had holes carved into 
the top of their skulls and were missing all brain tissue. 


Sarah appears to have been restrained and her skull 
penetrated by a corded electric drill using a wood spade 
bit. It is likely that she died from shock and blood loss 


before her brain tissue was removed using a serving 
spoon. All of the tools used were found, cleaned, in the 
kitchen. 


Dr. Winters initially appeared to have died the same way, 
however the hole in her skull does not appear to have 
been caused by a tool. Instead, the wound's edges are 
consistent with having been repeatedly scraped over a 
course of several days by what appears to be extremely 
fine teeth. There is no evidence suggesting how her 
brain was removed at this time. 


No brain tissue was discovered anywhere in the home, 
nor did the response team find evidence of any 
individuals other than the victims having been in the 
house. The front and back doors were both locked from 
the inside. 


Dr. 
Senior Observer 


Triskaidekaphobia 


| met Death for the second time in the basement of Site-19. 


Before | entered the room where | was to meet Death, | took out my 
phone. The email from my Site Director was two days old and read: 


Claire, 


Apologies for the short notice. O5 wants a meeting so 
please be at EB17 Wed. 9 AM. You are meeting O5-13, 
which is Death. 


Regards, 
M 


| checked twice to make sure that | had the right room. When the 
time turned to 8:59, | turned off my phone and tucked it into my pant 
pocket. | gave myself a moment to close my eyes, before pushing 
the door open and stepping inside. 


There was a table for two, with a swivel chair on one side for me. 
Connie was sitting on the other side. 


She looked up and regarded me in exactly the same way | 
remembered—angling her eyes to avoid mine and tilting her head 
downwards to let her bangs veil her expression. Everything about 
this situation was familiar: | could never grow distant from the 
sensation of looking into Connie’s face and seeing my own round 
cheeks, my thin eyebrows, my eyes. 


“Why are you looking so closely at me?” she asked. 


| sat down in the swivel chair, the slight buckling of my knees under 
me making me fall into the seat. | couldn’t answer. 


“You’re thinking that I’m your sister. I’m not. Don’t you know that, 


Claire?” 
Slowly, | nodded at Death. 
“Okay,” | said. 


There was a short silence. Then, | reached out my hand. “Claire Ma. 
Senior researcher, cultural anomalies.” 


“| Know. I’m Death,” she said, taking the handshake. Her skin was 
soft, and | could feel a pulse coursing beneath the surface. 


“Why...this?” | asked. 


“It's how you know me best,” Death said. She shifted in her seat. 
“I’m sorry it had to be like this.” 


“| don’t—stop it. Stop apologizing. | came here to talk to O5-13, not 
my teenage sister. Be someone else.” 


Death scrunched her nose. “I told you,” she said, “I’m not your sister. 
She is gone and Death took her place. I’m just me and | can’t do 
anything about that. The only thing either of us can do is for you to 
deal with me.” 


“How do | do that?” 
“Like | know.” 


| leaned back into my seat. Death started chewing her nails, and | bit 
back the urge to tell her to cut it out, do you want Ma to yell at you 
again for it? 


“Why did you want to talk to me?” | asked. 


“| didn’t,” Death said. “You’re being moved to work with the O5, and 
we uSually sit down and chat with people before they start. The job 
got passed on to me, which is a hassle, but it’s fine, because you'd 
have to meet with me eventually.” 


Death took her fingers out of her mouth and examined her reddened 
fingertips. 


Experiment Log 980-06 


Subject D-980-07 was treated for abrasions on the face and 
remained in stable condition for weeks after Incident 980-04. 
Though it is suspected that his vision was impaired, the subject has 
not opened his eyes or mouth since. Testing has shown that while 
he is physically able to open and presumably use his sensory 
organs, D-980-07 consciously chooses not to. He has not 
responded to sounds or smells of any sort, including a handgun fired 
nearby. Subject did not show any surprise, though later tests 
showed that his ears did sustain significant damage. 


SCP-980 has been questioned about D-980-07's actions and claims 
not to know of his intentions. It has little knowledge of its effects on 
human beings but found his response unusual. It agreed with the 
interviewer on the tendency of its victims to react with physical 
changes rather than behavioral ones in later stages of development. 


Testing to examine SCP-980's effects on humans has resumed. 


Subject D-980-15: Facial changes, slight height gain, 
severe memory loss, vision loss, kidney failure, heart 
chamber fusion 


Subject D-980-16: Severe facial changes, suspected 
personality changes, slight skin changes, lung and heart 
simplification 


Subject D-980-17: Slight build changes, slight facial 
changes, memory loss, deafness, stomach and intestine 
fusion, slight heart chamber fusion, slight liver function 
loss, blindness 


SCP-980 itself has stated that it does not, and has never intended to 
induce such transformations in organic beings and inanimate objects 
alike. The validity of such statements is unverified, though the fact 
that similar results are found in all things within a certain distance of 


“Should probably stop,” she said. 


My head pulsed. I’d barely had the patience to deal with Connie 
when we were children, and | had even less now. “Was there 
anything in particular that you wanted to talk about?” 


“Well,” Death said, “I wanted to get to know you.” 


Ma always told us to be careful when neither of us were in any 
immediate danger. Both Connie and | were competent in the 
kitchen, but Ma still felt the need to hover over us when we cooked. 
When we started dicing a carrot—caretul, it’s sharp. When we 
reached for a pot that had been over the stove for a while—careful, 
it’s hot. 


What made Ma’s constant worry even more ironic was that this was 
the safest she’d been in her entire life. | had an uncle that Ma never 
knew—all she had of him was a small, black-and-white photo of a 
smiling boy, around ten, in a school uniform. Grandfather was a 
doctor, with knowledge of both Western thaumatology and the 
traditional occult arts. If a Chinese solider survived an ISAMEA 
attack, grandfather treated them when no other doctor could, so 
IJAMEA came after him. He and his infant daughter survived; my 
uncle did not. 


The rest of Ma’s life went similarly. Until she was ten our family was 
on the run, first from the Japanese and then the Communists. She 
remembered few of the details, but when pressed, she’d cough up 
what she could. The way the air rippled when a Green manipulated 
reality. The snapping and snarling of monsters in the night. 


While there was no war in Taipei, Ma still worked a factory job that 
ended up killing or seriously injuring at least two of her young 
coworkers. Eventually, she made it out on government scholarships, 
before finding herself in America. 


| had trouble reconciling this image of Ma’s childhood with the 
woman who now worried over knives and pots while we lived in the 
shelter of suburban Los Angeles. | didn’t realize that Ma did so not in 
spite of her past, but because of it. 


Ma worried about our academic futures, too. Successful applicants 
to the top ICSUT campuses excelled in studies on both sides of the 
masquerade, so Connie and | took normal classes during the day 
while Ma tutored us in the occult at night. For me, Ma’s worries were 
over A-‘s and the occasional slip-up in one of her quizzes, but it was 
worse for Connie. Unlike our other Chinese friends’ parents, Ma 
didn’t beat us. She just yelled and yelled. 


The day Connie got her seventh grade mid-term report card, | tried 
holing myself up in my room with a book. 


“What’s wrong with you, huh? You know how hard your mother 
works so we can live here, so you can go to this school. This is how 
you repay me?” 


| could hear Ma’s voice through both the thin walls and my hands 
over my ears. 


“You think | don’t see you being lazy? Not doing your work, not 
studying, just doodling, wasting your time?” 


There was a short silence, and | thought, for a moment, that Ma was 
just running out of steam. Then a loud bang: Ma’s hand striking the 
dinner table, followed by the sound of ceramic bowls jumping 
against the wood and a muffled yelp from Connie. 


Ma’s yell: “Answer me!” 

| threw my book against the wall and jumped out of bed, heading 
straight for the dining room. | closed my door, hard, and stomped my 
feet so they’d both know | was coming. 


“Jesus, Ma,” | shouted, “can’t you just give it a rest?”