“You know that I’m a busy woman, right?” Iris Dark huffed, as she 
followed Ruprecht Carter out of her office and toward the elevator. It 
was late, and the weather was bad. 


“Of course.” 


“Just making sure. Because coming up here uninvited, and asking 
me to come down and see what you have in the warehouse — it 
seems like something you’d ask someone to do when you thought 
they needed to kill time.” 


“This is important,” Carter whined. “It’s — well, you remember the 
Midas orb?” 


“Yes. | remember telling you it was a waste. Why do we needa 
curse that turns people to gold when we’re making so much money 
on stocks?” 


“Come on. You know it’s a valuable thaumatological component.” 


“And you know | told you it would be a waste. So. What went wrong 
with it?” 


“The curse turned out to be contagious. And incomplete. So, it 
transferred the Midas touch, but turns the Midas partly to gold too. 
And anyone they touch turns to gold, partially, but gains the partial 
Midas touch themselves.” 


Iris sighed. “Sounds like it was a waste. Just send back the orb and 
get a refund. And next time, listen to me in the first place.” 


The elevator opened on the warehouse level. They walked briskly 
through a maze of crates toward the shipping floor. 


“Well. There’s another complication. They sent it to the wrong 
address. The orb ended up at...” 


They stepped onto a balcony overlooking the bare concrete staging 
area. Dozens of crying, partially metallic children clanked and wailed 
below. Some of them staggered blindly, with jewels where their eyes 
had been; others nursed hernias, where internal organs had turned 
suddenly to metal and begun sagging inside. 


“..at an elementary school.” 
“Ruprecht. How did you cover this up?” 


“We had to hire mercenaries to burn down the whole place, 
unfortunately. Disguised it as a gas leak. The whole thing was 
tragic.” 


“And expensive. How are you going to make this right?” 
“Well, we could take them apart and sell the gold —* 


“Think, Ruprecht. All that surgery would cost more than we’d make 
from the pieces.” 


“Maybe we could weaponize them?” 


Iris watched a child beat numb golden hands against the floor in 
frustration. “They don’t look like very good weapons to me.” 


They stood in silence for a minute, watching the cacophony below 
as hazard-suited guards wrangled kids with their stun batons. The 


suits and batons were stored in lockers in the warehouse, in case of 
situations like this; lris was happy to see that the employees were 
using them just as they had drilled. 


“We have to call the Found-“ 
“No,” Iris cut in. “Absolutely not.” 


“Come on, Iris. Doesn’t the Foundation just pay for anomalies? Isn’t 
it, you know, more efficient to wholesale this problem to them rather 
than think up some crazy scheme to profit from it?” 


“Not in this case, Ruprecht, because they’re notorious for never 
buying what they think they can confiscate.” She tapped her foot, 
glaring at the transmuted kindergardeners. “And because I'd rather 
drink poison and die than ask Essie P. for help.” 


“Come on. They’re a practical bunch over there. They can get right 
to the bottom of anything.” 


“Don’t change the subject, Ruprecht.” 


“Even regular researchers over there can take on Eldritch horrors, 
singlehandedly.” 


“You can try to distract me with storytelling all you want, Ruprecht. 
We aren't done with this.” 


“No, no, it’s not a distraction.” Carter loosened his collar. “This 
honestly reminds me of a completely relevant... 


TALE OF RESEARCHER TALLORAN 


Talloran stood in an open field at the bottom of a well, knowing the 
dogs would tear them open and eat them alive. 


Their captor had recently given up on manifesting exotic, impossible 
monsters; the familiar jaws of a Labrador or retriever could deliver 
just as much pain and terror. SCP-3999 went through cycles. 
Eventually, when Talloran was used to regular animals, it would start 
throwing supernatural horrors at them again. 


SCP-762: Immortal Iron Maiden 


SCP-762-1 before being placed in long-term storage. 


Item #: SCP-762 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-762 is held inside a 
storage crate at Site . As SCP-762 does not appear to be 
dangerous to anyone not placed inside of it, no further precautions 
are required. Anyone wishing to experiment with SCP-762 must get 
authorization from Dr. Rights. 


Description: SCP-762-1 is a torture device similar to the infamous 
lron Maiden of Nuremberg. It was recovered in 19 from a box in the 
basement of [DATA EXPUNGED] in , Austria. When opened, 
SCP-762 was found to have a male human in it, now known as 
SCP-762-2. When found inside SCP-762-1, SCP-762-2 had the 
device’s large spikes embedded in his flesh, but when removed from 
SCP-762-1, all of the subject's wounds healed instantly. SCP-762-2 
was found to be completely catatonic, but otherwise in decent health 
except for several rotten teeth and a large scar on his left arm. 
Given the unique properties of SCP-762-1, it may be impossible to 
determine how long SCP-762-2 was in the device. Dating on the 
device shows that it dates back to the late fifteenth century, so it is 
possible that SCP-762-2 has been in the device for centuries. 


Any person placed inside SCP-762-1 appears to enter a state of 
suspended animation. Subjects no longer need food, water, or even 
air when inside SCP-762-1. Subjects also appear to be immune to 
the effects of disease or injury when inside SCP-762-1, including the 
large wounds inflicted by SCP-762-1 itself. Subjects do, however, 
remain conscious, and the experience is described as being very 
painful. Once subject is removed from SCP-762-1, all wounds 
inflicted by the device are instantly healed. Since all physiological 
processes except for cognition are suspended while in SCP-762-1, it 


It was rats this time. Talloran had long ago learned not to struggle — 
that only prolonged the moment. 


It was impossible not to scream, though, as their chisel teeth and 
ripped into Talloran’s chest and their needle claws burrowed inside. 
They shrieked their last breath and closed their eyes 


And opened them in the kitchen of their childhood home. Their 
brother lay on the floor, blood pooling underneath him. Thunder 
cracked outside. 


Talloran was holding a knife. The blood crusted the handle and ran 
down their wrist, drops tapping relentlessly on the tile. 


“James, no! What have you done?” their mother sobbed, rushing to 
cradle her fallen son. / didn’t do this. Why did | do this? “You killed 
him!” 


The knife dropped from their fingers and clattered to the ground. The 
blood kept dripping, somehow. 


“You killed him, James.” Their mother stood, glaring down at them. 
“You killed us all. Everyone, all of us, gone. Never coming back to 
you.” She picked up the knife. 


“And if we'd lived, we’d only have been disappointed anyway.” She 
jammed the blade underneath her chin, twisting it in deep, still 
talking as the blade scraped against the roof of her mouth. 


“Everything you’ve done has only ever made things worse.” Her 
tongue flopped out of the hole above her throat and twisted as she 
spoke. “If you’re lucky, history will be generous and forget your 
whole pathetic story ever happened at all. You sniveling Mary Sue.” 


“I'll tell you what my story is,” Talloran hissed, unflinching. “Once, 
there was a kid who was alone way too much. So they grew into a 
person who was alone all the time. They knew there must be other 
people who saw things like they did — they knew they weren't 
special- but they gave up hope of ever finding those others. Let 
alone getting to be one of them. But then they did. Those people 
had been out there the whole time, and they’d found - they'd built - 


the place they needed. And they, we, faced the unknown and 
studied it and fought it and learned what we could about it all. 
Together. That’s my story, and you haven't won yet, because we’re 
still fucking telling it.” 


The flopping tongue lay still. The dripping stopped. Their brother's 
corpse was gone. The apparition of their mother withdrew, silently, 
and Talloran was once again alone. 


They knew what to do with that. 


It could always be worse. | can think of a way this could be worse. 
They started to pace. Things are worse than this for Sam Michaels. | 
wonder what poor Sam Michaels is doing right now... 


A TALE OF POOR SAM MICHAELS 
Sam paced endlessly in his cell, pulled in many directions at once. 


“The words are getting away. Got to hold on to the words. Got to get 
them back.” 


The whitecoats kept him away from books — from anything written — 
but it didn’t stop the bleeding. Nothing stopped the bleeding. 
However clean they made the room, Sam was still bleeding 
everywhere. Into everything. 


“The words are me. Are all of us. Got to take them back. Hold on 
somehow.” 


Last week, the day before they clipped his nails, Sam bit one down 
to the quick and saved it. The sliver of himself was tiny and ragged, 
but it was sharp enough and stiff enough to write with. A spot of 
grime around the edge of the toilet fixture was dark enough to make 
ink, when he mixed it with a little spit. 


“Got to do what | got to do. God, it hurts. They need me to do it, 
though. Hurts.” 


He needed to take the words back to himself. Suck the bleeding 
back in, somehow. Call the bits and pieces back from wherever 
they’d gone. But he couldn’t remember how they, how he, had been 


put together before. 


“Come on, just have to keep it going. Have to. Hurts, but they need 
me to. Stop the bleeding.” 


He folded his leg into his lap and rolled up his pant cuff, and settled 
in to write. 


SCP-1893 had breached, he scratched. Whether it had somehow 
dragged them into its narrative, or broken out into their own, the 
Minotaur was among them. Doctor Sharra Hassad huddled in the 
dark with five other personnel... 


10:30 A.M. 


Okay people, sit your asses down and shut your pie holes. I’ve got 
places to go and people more important than you to see, because | 
happen to be a scientist and we scientists have a tendency to be 
very busy and important people. \f you’re out there in the folding 
chairs, that means that you're the new guys. Bottom of the totem 
pole. But, it also means that you passed the entrance exams. 
Welcome to the SPC. From this moment onward, your job is very, 
very simple: you are going to punch sharks. 


In the face. 


You will punch sharks. When not punching sharks, you will be 
planning on punching sharks. You will be developing new ways to 
punch sharks. You will read about punching sharks. You will write 
about punching sharks. You will study punching sharks. You will 
dream about punching sharks. You will jump the shark. You will 
collect and contain paranormal objects, and then use them to beat 
up sharks. 


Punching sharks is your /ife. 


You may be asking yourself “Self, how am | to punch these sharks?” 
With your fists. 


And you may ask yourself “Self, what if | am bitten by a shark? | am 
unsure of what to do.” Go see an alchemist. 


And you may say to yourself “Self, my teeth have become shark- 
like, in the sense that they have all turned into sharks!” Good, now 
start punching them. 


It's an important job, mark my words. There are people out there, 
many people who just don’t understand why. They don’t realize how 
important our job is. You will be challenged, you will be mocked, you 
will be insulted, but you cannot lose sight of the goal: your fist in a 


shark's face. 


Several years ago, a former employee asked me “Why do we punch 
sharks?” You know what | said to him? 


“Sir, do you hate science? Are you a science-hating shark-hugger? 
Do you approve of the non-science shark agenda?" He said no, he 
wasn't. 


| punched him in the face anyway, because he was clearly a closet 
shark. Because that’s what we fucking do at the SPC. 


When you all came in here, there was a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art 
of Punching Sharks on your chair. You are all to have read that by 
the time you report in tomorrow morning. Now get out of here. Those 
sharks aren't going to punch themselves. 


Because they don’t have hands. 


100 Feet of ROPE! 


“Yo Rashaun, | know you always like the weird shit, check this out!” 


It had been a long day at the Foundation, and Agent Rashaun 
Washington just wanted to see what his friends—his normal friends, 
the ones who still live normal lives—were up to. He was kind of up to 
his ears in weird shit. But... always on the lookout for anomalies, he 
let on that he “likes the weird shit” just in case they run across 
anything. So James sent him a YouTube video. Okay, fine, let’s see 
what this is about. 


He looked at the thumbnail. A cute teenage white brunette girl, 
smiling that innocent brave slightly-smug smile of adolescents about 
to complete a dare on camera, holding up a big pile of white rope. 
The video was called, “100 Feet of ROPE!” WTF, James, are you 
sending me creeper shit? On your feed where everyone can see it? 
I’m not into that shit and now everyone’s going to think | am. I’m 
going to be flagged in some database somewhere. What the heck. 
Just... why, James, why? 


Rashaun shook his head and sighed. Welp, nothing to it. He waited 
until he got back to his apartment, stuck in his earbuds, and tapped 
the link. ’m not into this. I’m not into this. 


The video opened. Typical webcam, girl’s bedroom. The teenager 
adjusted the camera and stared into it a moment to make sure it was 
working. She doesn’t even know how to edit these things, 
apparently. Then she spoke. “Hi! I’m Maci. So | figured out | can do 
this thing, and Kelsey said | should show everyone on YouTube. So 
| stopped by the store and got... this rope.” She held up a large clear 
plastic bag. “100 feet of white cotton braided rope. | got cotton 
because it was that or polyester, which, ew.” She tore open the bag, 
and pulled out the pile in a long, semi-tangled mess. “One moment, 
let me find the end of this thing.” She picked through the loops, 
loosely wrapping herself up. /’m not into this. She’s got My Little 
Pony on her bed, still. Not cool, James, not cool. She grabbed the 


end, triumphantly displayed it to the camera, and replied, “Got it! 
Now watch this!” 


Maci gamely looked into the camera, wiggled her eyebrows a couple 
times, and stuck the end of the rope in her mouth. She started 
chewing and sucking it in like a giant spaghetti. 


What. The. Actual. Fuck. 


So this was the weird shit James was talking about. She was eating 
the rope. Sucking it down. And she wasn’t stopping. She awkwardly 
disentangled herself from the ropes as they tightened around her 
and disappeared down her throat. How the hell was she doing that? 
It clearly took effort. She was grimacing and squinting. She slapped 
her chair’s armrest a couple times. But she kept going. A hundred 
feet? Really? 


Wait, is this even possible? There are sword-swallowers, but this 
isn’t that, is it? James, you bastard, thank you. | gotta tell the 
Foundation.