He once again crossed the room, over to the staircase. Rather than 
actually climb them, he reached up to the railing on the second floor 
and slowly hopped up. He went into the laundry room and unloaded 
the clothes from the washer, then dumped them into the dryer. He 
was playing with the dials when he heard a knocking from 
downstairs. 


He tried not to panic. 


But some base part of Misser Sticks, within his innermost depths, 
entered a deeper sleep. It dreamed of Things, and They of him, an 
intimate link between what he had once been and what he was now. 
They told him things, of what it meant when you were discovered. 
He saw images of humans in uniforms. The meanings of paranoia 
and of confinement. They let him know now was the time to panic. 


And so he panicked. 


It lanced through his twisted limbs, launching him out of the room 
and over the railing like a coiled spring. He landed in a mass of 
elbows and knees, which coiled up beneath him like a rattlesnake. 
The door hung open, and a half-eaten sandwich lay on the floor in 


the middle of the room. 


Without bothering to untangle himself he crabwalked over to the 
sandwich, scooping it up in one overjointed arm. Limbs snapped 
around as he examined the discarded foodstuff, bringing himself to 
his full height. His back pressed against the ceiling as he looked on 
in horror, his chest expanding and collapsing aside from the need to 
breathe. 


Taking a step forward he gripped the door frame and leaned out, 
taking in the various vehicles in the street with an emblem of a 
golden eagle over a blue disc. At the three men with strange guns. 
At the unconscious child being carried away by a fourth man. 


The contractions in his chest spread until his entire body was 
pulsating, the expansions growing ever stronger than the retractions. 
Misser Sticks shoved himself through the door before he became 
too large to fit. 


Behind the cover of their vehicles, the armed men glanced at each 
other. A broken, black humanoid figure was now standing on the 
house's doorstep. It was large, and quickly getting larger. A 
fuzziness surrounded it, blurring all around it in a dreamy haze. By 
the time its head passed the roof of the house, the agents could 
barely actually see the house through the haze. Instead they could 
faintly see a foreign landscape, dotted by strange entities eying 
them. 


Misser Sticks rose his arms, blooming several more in the process. 
He took a step forward with a foot the size of a coffin. The grass 
around him wavered between its natural lush green and a deep 
purple. A flurry of limbs reached for the man carrying Tiffany, but he 
clambered into the waiting arms of an armored van. 


The Dreamtime creature fell to his knees, and then again, and then 
yet again. The armed men fired their guns, and Misser Sticks 
defended himself with his branching arms. He continued lowering 
himself until he could see within the van, ignoring the needles 
burying themselves in his limbs. 


Within the van, the man was holding a small box of white rocks up to 


Tiffany's face. She stirred and opened her eyes, and the connection 
to Misser Sticks' homeland was severed. Without the aid of his 
friends, he could not hold his larger form, and was unable to fight the 
bite of the injection needles and their payload of adrenaline. 


His mind spinning, he was vaguely aware of the three men guiding 
him into the van. He heard the doors shut, he felt the warmth of a 
small hand in his own, and he caught of a whiff of the smelling salts. 


And then Misser Sticks fell awake. 


Close of Play » 


Lullaby 


“Christ, 204 really did a number on this place.” Agent Williams 
frowned as he surveyed the damage the Keter level SCP caused to 
its containment cell. 


“| concur. The monetary damages caused by this breach easily 
numbers in the millions,” Dr. Gears said in his usual blank, apathetic 
voice. 


Williams sighed. He didn’t exactly enjoy working with Gears but he 
was the doctor on duty and Williams honestly didn’t feel like filling 
out all the paperwork necessary to get this mess sorted out. It was 
quite sad really. He’d rather oversee the operation of Containment 
Protocol 204 than fill out a few forms. 


“How far did it get?” Williams asked. 


“SCP-204-1 managed to break out of its containment cell, made its 
way through several labs, plowed straight through the onsite 
dormitories, and was making its way to the Euclid containment wing. 
Fortunately, it wandered into the hallway leading to SCP-615’s 
enclosure and both SCP-204-1 and SCP-204-2 were incinerated by 
SCP-615’s containment measures.” 


“| suppose Containment Protocol 204 is now under effect.” 
“Correct. The candidates are being gathered as we speak.” 
“And what’s our total body count?” 


“The current tally is sixteen casualties. Nine dead and rest 
wounded.” 


As they traced the line of destruction SCP-204 had wrought, 
Williams frowned. There shouldn’t have been any reason the thing 
could get this far. The EMP generators alone should have been 


enough to keep the SCP contained. 


“Oh, and the EMP generators were never online,” Gears said, as if 
reading Williams’ mind. “They weren’t powered on today and by the 
time they were spooled up, SCP-204 was already contained. The 
staff at fault will be properly reprimanded.” 


Farther down the path of destruction, they finally made their way to 
the ruins of the on-site dormitories. Fortunately, they were mostly 
empty since the majority of the staff was on duty, but as Williams 
and Gears could see, rescue crews were still digging survivors, and 
bodies, out of the wreckage. 


“| would advise you to be cautious,” Gears warned. “This area has 
not yet been completely secured, and there is still a danger of 
catastrophic structural failure.” 


“l’ll keep that in mind- oh damn.” 


Gears and Williams found themselves in what was left of one of the 
dorms. In the corner, there was a woman huddled with her child. 
Williams was slightly disturbed, as the scene reminded him of those 
macabre remains of the people of Pompeii. The woman, apparently 
a junior or assistant researcher judging from her torn and shredded 
lab coat, was clutching a young girl who couldn’t have been more 
than eight or nine years old. It wasn’t completely uncommon for on- 
site personnel to have children here, but it was still a jarring sight. 


“Correction, casualty count has now been increased to twenty 
three,” Gears said dryly. “The cause of her wounds was probably by 
falling debris.” 


“No...” Williams inched closer to examine the bodies. “Her hands... 
the scabs on her knuckles suggest she was fighting something.” 


“Are you implying that she engaged in physical combat with 
SCP-204-1?” Gears asked. 


“The evidence doesn’t lie.” 


“| find that scenario highly unlikely.” 


SCP-903: Tunnel of Infinite Possibility 


Item #: SCP-903 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: Access to either side of 
SCP-903 is to be restricted to authorized research personnel only. 
The entrances must be sealed and kept under surveillance at all 
times. During testing, under no circumstances are personnel to enter 
SCP-903 or attempt to cross it. Any persons attempting 
unauthorized entry will be subject to lethal force. Any test subject or 
item that has passed through or emerges from SCP-903 must be 
immediately destroyed once testing is concluded. 


Description: SCP-903 is an incomplete Site-19 utility tunnel that 
connects the SCP Containment Wing with the Lambda Laboratory 
Wing. The tunnel is three meters in diameter, fifty meters long, and 
buried approximately five meters underground. Because of its 
incomplete nature, SCP-903 is an empty concrete tunnel that 
contains no piping, wiring, or other utility equipment. SCP-903 also 
contains an old rail system that consists of a single monorail that 
spans the entire length of SCP-903. 


SCP-903 was originally used as a discreet and secure method of 
transporting SCPs from the Containment Wing directly to the 
Lambda Laboratory Wing. However, this practice was discontinued 
shortly after Incident 903-1, where the presiding personnel violated 
standard operating procedure and transported several SCPs at 
once, rather than one at a time. The resulting incident is most likely 
what caused SCP-903 to obtain its current anomalous properties. 


At first glance, SCP-903's most obvious feature is the fact that the 
entire tunnel is completely visible, despite the lack of any internal 
lighting. The lighting appears to be emanating from the white line of 
paint spiraling around the tunnel walls. It is unclear how this 
phenomenon works. The monorail systems still functions as normal. 


“Then you haven't seen what a mother defending her child is 
capable of.” Williams shook his head. “I’ve heard stories of women 
lifting cars and tearing doors off their hinges to save their kids. 
Maybe we can add punching out SCP-204-1 to the list?” 


“Well, it’s not like it made any difference. She and the child are still 
both deceased,” Gears droned on. 


“Gears!” Williams cried. 
“| am aware of your tendency to give respect to the dead, but-“ 


“No, it’s not that!” Williams knelt down and checked the girl’s pulse. 
“They're both still alive!” 


“What?” Gears’ eyes widened by several micrometers, and the 
muscles around his mouth tightened ever so slightly. This was 
possibly the closest he ever got to genuine, complete surprise. 


“| think,” Williams leaned even closer, craning his ear against the 
mother’s mouth, “I think she’s singing a lullaby.” 


“So how do you think they survived?” Williams mused as medical 
teams carted Assistant Researcher Ann Wells and her daughter Jill 
Wells away to the infirmary. “SCP-204-1 doesn’t leave jobs half 
finished.” 


“Most likely, SCP-204-1 initiated a cost-benefit analysis and came to 
the conclusion that terminating Dr. Wells and her daughter wasn’t 
beneficial.” 

“Huh, is that so?” 

“Do you have an alternate theory?” 


“Yeah, but you'll just think it’s stupid.” Williams shrugged. 


“How foolish you, making assumptions about me like that. | am 
above that sort of pettiness.” 


“Well, ’'ve got absolutely no evidence to back this up, but maybe, 


just maybe, SCP-204-1 realized that it and Dr. Wells weren't so 
different?” 


“That’s implying that SCP-204-1 possesses a level of intelligence 
that is completely unheard of based on our research of it.” 


“I Know | know, but it’s just a gut feeling.” 


“| find this turn of events highly unusual,” Gears said. 


It had been four days since the SCP-204 containment breach. 
Containment Protocol 204 had been put into effect immediately after 
and it had finally paid off, but with results that nobody had quite 
anticipated. 


“Of all the people, it had to choose Jill.” Williams shook his head. 


“Need | remind you, that Jill is merely aname on a piece of paper 
that no longer exists. She’s an SCP now.” Gears coldly reminded 
him. 


“What’s going to happen to the mother?” Williams asked. 


“Dr. Wells will be given a rigorous amnesiac treatment and then be 
transferred to another facility.” 


“So, it'll be as if Jill never existed, then.” 


“The Foundation has no place for sentimentality, Agent Williams. I’m 
not quite sure why you're expressing so much concern over two 
individuals you have never met.” 


“I’m pretty sure explaining the reasons would make your head 
explode.” Williams shook his head and walked away. 


Gears, however, opted to stay in the monitoring room and stared at 
the security screens for what seemed to be a very long time. If the 
man was thinking of anything, none of the personnel present could 
even begin to guess what it was. They merely tried to pretend he 
wasn't there and continued with their duties. There, sitting in the 
middle of the newly reconstructed containment cell sat Dr. Wells, or 


at least something that resembled her, watching over Jill as she 
slept. 


Meanwhile, the sound recording equipment inside the cell began to 
pick up something odd and faint. The sound engineer on duty was 
about to disregard it as random interference, but thought sounded 
vaguely familiar, like a lullaby. 


Lust in the Time of Anomalous Cholera 


"Hello? Little weak people, what's wrong? Oh, all doubled over in 
agony from a little something? Unable to guard the containment 
chambers while your bowels empty? Hahaha! Oh, | will get my 
revenge on each and every one of you, once Montezuma is done! 
Hm? Oh, hello, there. Nice mask." 


"Hello." 


"Oh my, what a lovely voice you have. | do believe I'm getting a 
fever. |am Vector, Madam of Malaise, Damsel of Disease. And you, 
my mysterious masked malcontent?" 


"|... am the cure for you, baby." 

"We'll see about that." 

"My cure is most effective." 

"Is this your doing?" 

"No, they all suffer from The Disease." 

"Let me guess, voélitjie, the Bubonic Plague?" 

"No, crab-stuffed mushroom day at the cafeteria." 

"Well, that gives us time to get to know each other, doesn't it?" 


"| already know plenty about you, dear. | sense... all the diseases in 
you." 


"Wait just a second, sweetie, | need to sample this new infection." 
"Did you just lick that man's anus?" 


"Best gotten at the source. And I'm going to lick more than that on 


you. 
"You'll be at it a while. My bag is quite full." 

"Oh my, your bag is so huge! Is that real [DATA EXPUNGED]?" 
"The finest Corinthian [DATA EXPUNGED]." 

"| must touch your bag." 


"Touch all you like, my dear. But be careful, the contents may... 
jostle." 


"Oh, when | get inside you, you'll swell in places you never expect." 


"It will take more than a simple palpitation to give me the tremors. 
But my touch will cure your ailment." 


"| carry over a thousand diseases. Do you honestly think a single 
touch will get my juices flowing?" 


"| have a surgeon's hands, cutie, we have all night, and when | 
administer my cure, you will so desperately need it." 


"Oh! That lovely black robe... isn't a robe, is it? You're totally 
naked." 


"Il see your glands flush and pulsate in antici... pation. | will relieve 
the pressure with my scalpels." 


"Mmm, show me what you can do with a little sharp pain." 
"| do believe I've caught your virus." 
"| leave myself in your capable hands, doctor." 


"This... | am afraid the constant sounds of vomit and gastric distress 
do ruin the mood some." 


"It's not exactly Beethoven." 


"Perhaps | should administer my cure to a few of these researchers, 
so that we could have some peace." 


"Well... I've always wanted to make love under a fountain..." 


"| say, doctor, you are a genius. Your zombies hold their place and 
let their stomachs empty in a quiet, compliant manner." 


"And without your mastery of disease, we would not be able to 
maintain the cafeteria infection in place after | administered my 
cure." 


"Now let us return to make love under the fountain of our own 
design." 


"This effluvium makes a most wondrous lube." 
"Uh... Excuse me?" 
"What? Another doctor? Who are you?" 


"They call me the Rocket Surgeon. I'm looking to fix Steely Dan." 


Tales M 


M13 Personnel Memorabilia Log 


Accessing Personal Personnel Miscellaneous Memorabilia and 
Records Log 


Compiled by Manu Thirteen (Artificial Intelligence System, MTF 
Rho-19) 


Loading database entries... 


Compilation Sweep 3 (Mission Elapsed Time: 12 days ETA 
Venusian Colony: 350 days) 
Rho-19 Individuals Observed Today: 


¢ Dr. Suhas Muthu Kumaran. Head of the MTF. Astrophysicist, 
still associated with Indian Space Agency. 


© "He knows his stuff." 
© "I'm fairly sure he could convince you to eat your socks, 
even if you aren't wearing any." 


¢ Dr. Amannisa Qasim. Higher command officer. Psychologist, 
assigned due to expertise in psychological evaluation of non- 
human intelligent entities. 


© "Does anyone know what that talisman is for?"