Stillwell poked his head up, slowly, peering through the grimy 
window pane down at the surgical theater below their perch in the 
mezzanine. He sank back down. Coogan was busy tying the sheets 
they had raided from the supply closet into knots. Nechayeva was 
cleaning the scavenged AK-47 from the Foundation crew's 
misadventure earlier in the day. Two weapons, the contents of a 
laundry room, nine rounds of ammunition remaining. And no plan. 


"That was definitely Geissler down there. | can't be certain what he's 
doing, but it sure looks like assisting with whatever they're doing to 
1041. | think we need to move now." 


Nechayeva frowned at the disassembled parts spread out before 
her. She picked up the bolt and carefully dabbed at some unseen 
grit with a rag. "How did he look?" 


"Pretty bruised up." 


She returned the bolt to a larger assembly, picking it up and turning 
it over to inspect it. "So he resisted. That's good news for us." 


"| don't think whatever he's doing down there is going to be good 
news." 


"He thought of 1041 as a colleague. That was one of the reasons he 
kept so much of what we were doing from your command. He 
wouldn't willingly participate in Chernikov's experiment. No, he's 
planning something." 


Stillwell crept up again for another look at the scene below. "You 
seem awfully certain of that." 


Nechayeva slid the bolt carrier assembly back into place, the rifle's 
assembled parts clicking and sliding cleanly. "There is no certainty. 
But there's probability. That's why we're here together, no?" 


Stillwell conceded the point silently. 


Nechayeva continued. "Sometimes things aren't scientific. You have 
to look in a man's heart and make the best guess. What do you see, 
when you look at Herr Doktor Geissler?" 


He lowered himself back down below the window ledge. "I see a 
Nazi war criminal whose expertise we happened to need in 1945," 
said Stillwell. 


Nechayeva continued re-assembling the rifle. "No, you're letting 
emotion cloud your thinking. Look deeper." 


Coogan looked up from his knot-tying. "Geissler's a Nazi?" 


Stillwell thought, working to tamp down his initial revulsion. He 
thought of the scene in front of him, and added the facts. It didn't 
make sense. But then much of what he had seen didn't, either. "He's 
driven. He wouldn't have agreed to sever all ties and come work for 
us if he didn't have something to continue working on. He would 
have just went with the guys from Paperclip." 


The young KGB operative nodded. "He's tied to the work. He sees 
nothing else. That is his loyalty." 


"GRU-P has a purpose in mind for his work. He just wants it to exist. 
But what can he do to stop them?" 


Nechayeva had finished assembling the rifle. "You are aware of 
what SCP-1041 does. But not who she is. And the answer to that is 
that she is the vessel for the souls of dozens of people. She's a 
living laboratory for Dr. Geissler's work. It was in that laboratory that 
he learned how to isolate and manipulate a human soul." 


Coogan had stopped tying sheets together, entranced now in the 
conversation. 


Stillwell was watching the scene below again. "So what is Chernikov 
doing down there?" 


"He is extracting one of those souls. One that he's identified 
specifically for his needs." 


"December," responded Stillwell. 


Nechayeva nodded. "Dr. Geissler is the only one who fully 
understands the process, and it's too complex to just torture out of 
someone and hand off. But there is no way he will willingly do what 
Chernikov is asking. By now, he would have had half a dozen 
opportunities to kill himself with the equipment down there, and no 
one could have stopped him. Something is coming." 


Stillwell kept his eyes on Geissler. He was affixing something to 
SCP-1041's head. "And so we wait." 


Nechayeva slammed home the magazine into the reassembled rifle. 
"And so we wait,” she replied. "You have combat experience?" 


Stillwell nodded. "From Tarawa to Okinawa." 


She considered his answer. She concluded her thoughts by 
reaching into her coat, and retrieving her pistol. She offered it to 
Stillwell, the grip facing him. Stillwell took it, opening it to take a look. 


"Three bullets," he said. "Thank you." His voice was sincere. 


Nechayeva nodded at his sling. "That arm's not of much use to you. 
I'll take the rifle." 


Coogan checked his handiwork. He cracked his knuckles. 


She can only stand by as the energy courses through her. For the 
first time, her movement in this place is not her own. She feels 
pulled, away from the procession of the others. The entirety of this 
place, its rules never clear to begin with, was being thrown into 
disorder. Snippets of other lives so brief as to be snapshots flutter 
past, no sense or context to any of the memories being scattered 
aloft into an endless sky. A birthday cake. Three men in an alley. A 
dog jumping into a river. The scent of aftershave. Bombers over a 
village. 


A dull, red beacon in the darkness. It looks like a person. She floats, 
or runs, or swims or scrabbles to it, and it isn't long before it is clear 
that it's one of her. The one that Chernikov wants. The one that 


should not be let out. 


The memory-images intensify here. A giant man looming overhead, 
fists on their way to crashing down. A forgotten cell, open to the 
winds of a blizzard. Bloodstained 500 rubles notes spilling from a 
briefcase. A man having stars tattooed on his knees. Guns. Knives. 
Fire. She steps closer, trembling from the feelings of hate pulsating 
from the red apparition, sickening her to her core. The images all 
start to coalesce into the same scene. Frozen earth. Craters. 
Twisted corpses, burned-out tanks. Columns of smoke on the 
horizon, a city block pounded into rubble, the tallest stack three 
meters high. She's close enough to see that she's screaming. 


Of all the connections in this place, this may be the one she wished 
to be rid of before. But that is dwarfed into nothingness by the 
suffusion of terror that she is now feeling, watching herself be ripped 
forcibly from the unknown into the unknowable. The energy that is 
reordering everything is focused on the red woman before her, 
inside her. She is being called elsewhere. She feels like she is being 
held upside down over a cliff. She watches herself, the only thing 
more fearsome than what is happening being the thought of 
touching the faint red specter, radiating its fear-enhanced rage. 


Her chest is hammering, watching the scene. She feels faint. She 
feels as though as she is going to pass out, but reptile impulses fight 
the feeling of consciousness slipping away. She dare not let her 
eyes close, must keep her awareness before it's stolen away forever 
into the dark. She is on her knees, her hands over her ears to block 
out the silent screaming from her identical sister as she is plucked 
away, the darkness swimming before her eyes, feeling drawn up to 
the same place but rooted to the spot that she is in at the same time. 


On the most basic level that living beings can know, she knows that 
this is dying. It is not peaceful. 


The red woman ascends, or descends, or dissipates, and her terror 
at contact evaporates as she claws at the apparition, desperate to 
keep it in place, afraid of the hole that will be left inside her. Her 
hands pass through nothing, the cheerful voice of the hateful man 
echoing now as something in her realm is breached, an opening 
tearing asunder, silent thunder that would shake the hills to pieces if 


it ever struck in the real world. Searing light floods her world, light 
that was never meant to shine here, the light of an alien star 
stripping its worlds of the sky and the ground and everything in 
between. The piece of her that has been chosen expands suddenly, 
her fury turned to a background radiation burning the entirety of this 
interior universe, consuming everything but not killing it, inexplicably. 
If there were any sense to this world her flesh would have been 
blasted away by the energy sustaining this hatred, but here she is, 
watching her own annihilation, and just when all other concepts and 
ideas and anything is overwhelmed by singular, burning animus to 
everything that has ever lived and ever will live, the red woman is 
gone. The world is back. 


She has died. This is the first time one of her has died. She cannot 
comprehend it. All she is able to do is hold her hands to her face, 
her eyes squeezed shut so hard that she does not want to open 
them to see if her palms are covered in tears or blood. All she can 
speak is a hitching, stifled screech when she finds her breath, 
somewhere between a sob and a scream. 


A thought, supplied by one of the others here, the first to recover 
their wits. 


God help whoever is out there. 


EYES ONLY - GRU-P DECEMBER CLEARENCE 
RECOVERED FOOTAGE SUMMARY - SITE-7 INCIDENT 
0113 - MAJ. CHERNIKOV FINISHES INTRO. REMARKS 
0115 - PROCEDURE INITIATED 


0117 - VISIBLE RED HAZE FORMS AROUND RESEARCH 
SUBJECT 


0121 - ARCS OF ELECTRICITY SPORADICALLY APPEAR 
BETWEEN RESEARCH SUBJECT AND TRANSPLANT SUBJECT. 
VOICES OFF-CAMERA ARE HEARD TO STATE THAT ACTIVITY 
IS NORMAL 


Notes: SCP-682 is too large to fit in to the booths, in most forms. In 
addition, the tissue tests have shown that SCP-682 has... 
unpredictable reactions to SCP-914. Finally, SCP-914 is too 
valuable a research tool, and too delicate, for this type of test. It was 
nearly damaged after the incident (CN: 682-119857), and [DATA 
EXPUNGED] be repeated. Should the results be recovered [DATA 
EXPUNGED]. 


Notes: Does this really surprise anyone, given what 914 does to 
normal organics? - Dr. G 


Item: SCP-826, equipped with one (1) copy of "The Generally Nice, 
Friendly Thing That Can And Will Kill SCP-682 Permanently if it So 
Much As Spots That Damn Lizard", a 12-page short story written by 
Dr. , detailing a large, friendly monster that is stated to be 
capable of permanently killing SCP-682, and 1 (one) D-Class 
personnel (D-682-32) equipped with 1 (one) 2010 Ducati Multistrada 
motorcycle for the purpose of evading SCP-682. 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 
Story is put between SCP-826, and placed into large, empty room 
mX mX_ mindimension, with a remotely operated doorway 
large enough to send SCP-682 through. SCP-682 is brought in front 
of the entryway securely. Once researchers clear the area, door is 
remotely opened, exposing a green pasture similar to the one 
described in the story. SCP-682 is reluctant to go through, so 
D-682-32 is sent through as bait. 682 follows through doorway, 
whereupon the doorway closes behind them. 30 minutes later, 
SCP-682 bursts back through the door it was sent through, 
somewhat worse for wear, killing researchers and agents in the 
process. Recovery personnel describe the story's pasture as having 
become a "Battleground", featuring impact craters with enormous 
body parts scattered around. Parts are thought to be from the story's 
"Thing". Recovered story is retitled "The Generally Nice, Friendly 
Thing That Tried To Kill SCP-682 Permanently But Failed", and is 
noticeably thicker, with 209 individual pages that detail an epic battle 
between the two monsters. 


0123 - RED HAZE APPEARS TO MOVE FROM RESEARCH 
SUBJECT TO TRANSPLANT SUBJECT 


0124 - TRANSPLANT SUBJECT EXPLODES 
0125 - FOOTAGE ENDS 


0126 to approx. 0230 - REMAINDER OF SITE-7 INCIDENT 
PRESUMABLY TRANSPIRES 


END 


| am showered in human blood. The whole theater is painted red by 
the intended recipient. He was an unsuitable vessel for the 
experiment. Or Geissler sabotaged the experiment. Impossible for 
me to find out now. | don't need to reach into him to know that he's 
dead. The ring of bodies around the Foundation's freak is assurance 
of that. 


The Major needs my protection. He is still alive. That | did need to 
confirm. Not sure what | would have done. Terrible thoughts. 
Suppress them. 


| am a political officer of the people of the Soviet Union. | must 
protect the people who would protect them from themselves. | must 
endure if we are to endure. 


Better. There is a flap of skin stuck to my boot. | will remove it. 


| am holding the Major. | cannot carry him the way he carried me 
out, but | can move him away from this. Consequences of this failure 
are terrible thoughts. Zherdev will be angry. Suppress them. 


The Major must survive. That is my duty. | will allow these thoughts 
because they help me to do my duty. Several people in the back are 
still alive. They are in great distress. Screaming. Attacking each 
other. Bleeding. They have given their lives to the people, one way 
or another. | will honor them later. | must get the Major out. 


He is not heavy like the dead are heavy. | am grateful for that as | 
drag him to the exit. 


Glass is breaking. An entire window is breaking. Two...no, three 
people. Guns. Scaling ropes. They mean harm. The Major will not 
be harmed. | will harm them. | will do my- 


Coogan hit the ground, letting go of the improvised ropes made of 
tied bed sheets. His shoes crunched on broken glass. He did not 
remember how he got here. 


"What the hell was that? Who's the Major, why am I-" 


"Stay close! Stay focused!" Stillwell barked to make himself heard 
over the horrific din. The people who had survived were shrieking, or 
screaming, or growling like animals as they tore at each other with 
their bare hands. A man missing his eyes was making ungodly 
noises that stood out above the fray. 


"Right, right! Yes sir!" Coogan moved closer to Stillwell, Nechayeva 
on his other side, guns in their hands. 


"Remember! Keep the mission in your head! What's your job?" 
"Grab 1041!" 

"Even if?" 

"Even if | don't remember why! Even if I'm somebody else!" 


Nechayeva barked now. "Until we're out of here, there aren't any 
boundaries between minds! We have to concentrate!" 


The word "concentrate" started to echo in Coogan's mind. A ruined 
church appeared in his mind. He was a little girl now, an older man, 
someone he trusted, yelling the word "concentrate" at him, over and 
over. The memory passed to Stillwell, who recognized the church. 
The Cathedral of Saints Boris and Gleb, destroyed in the Siege of 
Leningrad. The memory kindled fear in him, a kind he had not felt in 
a long time. He tried to keep the images from coming back. 


Nechayeva clapped Coogan on the back as the signal to go. She 
saw Stillwell hesitate. She nudged him gently. Even in the midst of 
death she knew what he had just remembered; she was 


sympathetic. He stirred, refocused, and advanced. She moved aside 
and covered the other line of site. The commissar was dragging 
Chernikov away. Perfect. She lined up her rifle and took aim. 


Suddenly she was in the jungle. The cold instantly replaced by 
sweltering, crushing heat, creatures buzzing and hissing in the trees. 
Her sights were a scope now. A man's head, facing away, dead in 
her sights. What was she waiting for? 


Couldn't do it. Not in the back of the head. The act was treacherous 
enough, she needed to see his face. He was her commanding 
officer. It was what she owed him. The man turned around, talking to 
someone unseen. The bars on his collar identified him as an 
American lieutenant. She could tell that independently of the 
memory holder. She caught herself again as she felt the memory 
squeeze the trigger, and she was back in the present. 


Suddenly she was aiming at nothing. Out of the corner of her vision 
she saw that Coogan had freed 1041, who was not conscious. 
Please let her not be dead. The large Foundation operative had 
hoisted her over his shoulder and making his way out. She could not 
see where Stillwell went. She looked over-