Cassandra retreated, her movement scuffing the markings of the 
scrying spell, and severing the arm of whatever had grabbed her 
colleague. 


Juliette got up and ran back to the van. Engelhardt and Pike 
followed suit, not even bothering to buckle up before the vehicle 
rumbled to life and went down the hill. 


Something landed on the hood of the van with a loud thud. A figure, 
clad completely in black, with rotten-leaf teeth and eyes the color of 
the last light of summer, clung to the hood. Juliette swerved and 
knocked it off, while Cassandra dialed her phone. 


"Claude? | need— | need help. Call the task force." 


"And now, we're in the same place where six members of Sigma-10 
went missing." Fred sighed. "Great." 


"Went missing. We're not sure they're dead,"Juliette reminded him. 
"Last we saw, their vitals were still strong." 


"We need to find a way out." Cassandra ran to the door, opening it— 
only to find a large, black space where the hallway should be. She 
quickly slammed the door. "Okay then." 


The television turned itself on. All three of them stared at it, frozen, 
as the static spoke in a dark voice, whose gender could not be 
determined. "Hello." 


"Jesus Christ what the fuck?" Cassandra stared at the screen. 


"You're with Nina, aren't you? Her snack was most appreciated, but 
I'm still hungry, and this town... I've been stuck here for too long." 

The lights flickered. "Let's play a game. Three people have come in. 
In three hours, two of you will leave." The television screen became 
a digital countdown clock. "One will die. Don't attempt to cheat me." 


"Are you Martha?" Cassandra asked. 


"Martha? Oh, yes, Nina must have misheard my name. The phones 
in this hotel are awful." The voice laughed, and the room shook. "My 
name is Mavra." 


The voice subsided. 


02:51 


The three sat in a room, contemplating what might have been their 
last moments. Dr. Pike had her head in her hands, and Dr. Hobb 
had curled up on her bed. Engelhardt had raided the mini-fridge and 
taken a can of Vanilla Coke out of it. "My favorite," he mused. 
"Service is good in the hotel, at least." 


Cassandra sat up. "I... we need to look at this pragmatically." She 
rubbed her face. "You've got more valuable research. | took half a 
year off, and I've barely gotten back on my old projects since then." 


"That's not a good measure." Engelhardt shook his head. "I'm 
turning seventy in a year. You know what I've accomplished in that 
time?" He knocked back the soda. "Scientifically, my research 
means dick. Same goes for everyone." 


"You don't mean that," Hobb frowned. 


"Let's face it!" Engelhardt slammed his soda on the dresser by the 
TV. "Who is going to read our papers? Other members of the 
Foundation. Who's going to improve on our work? Other members 
of the Foundation. Who's going to give two shits about us after we 
die?" He leaned against the dresser. "Short of a miracle, we're all 
going to die in anonymity, and the autopsy report won't even say 


how we really died. Heart attack for you, aneurysm for you, broken 
neck for him, your father got hit by a car coming home from work, 
she inhaled fumes in the lab, your son died because of an IED 
planted by a militia group in Michigan, I've heard it all, explained to 
grieving parents and children who don't know that their mother or 
father or son or daughter or niece or nephew died protecting them 
from something they can never know about!" He knocked the can to 
the floor. 


"Fred," Cassie stood up. "You need to calm the fuck down. And this 
is me saying this." 


He rubbed his face, and sighed. "It's true, though. When | first 
started this job, in the seventies, they had a form that you could fill 
out if you wanted a plausible cause of death. 'Suicide' was the most 
popular option." 


"On the form?" Hobb asked. 


"On the form, and also as a retirement policy. Jump off a roof, walk 
outside the capsule without a suit, shoot yourself in the head, didn't 
matter. Your family got benefits, you got to stop existing, and we 
were responsible for picking up your mess." He sighed. "Juliette. 
Have you filled out the family declaration forms yet?" 


She shook her head. "As far as Krys knows, I'm working at the EPA. 
Though that's becoming less and less plausible by the day." 


"Tell her the truth. Survive this, and tell her." 


Cassandra rubbed her face. "Don't go being a white knight, Fred. 
None of us want to die." 


"Well, one of us is going to!" Engelhardt glared at the time. "One of 
us is going to die. It should be me. I'm old, | have no family other 
than my cat!" 


Juliette rubbed her forehead. "I... it's my fault that we're here. 
Rationally, | should be the one to get us out." 


"Hell with that." Cassandra pulled at her hair. "That thing. It attacked 
you first. It could have gone after me, but it reached for you first. 


Why?" She paced around the room, and the clock ticked down 
behind them. 


02:21 


"You're wearing a hole in the carpet." Engelhardt looked at Pike as 
she paced. He'd found a pack of cards in the room, and was in the 
process of playing Solitaire. 


"Why did she want you dead?" She had muttered this question to 
herself several times over the past half-hour. She frowned at 
Engelhardt. "You could help!" 


Juliette scratched her hair. "It was probably just because | was the 
first thing we saw. But..." 


"You were the one who brought us out there in the first place," Pike 
pointed out. "I... Mavra. Is that a Greek word, by any chance?" 


Juliette blinked, and palmed her forehead, reaching into her pocket 
with her other hand and retrieving a list of names, the same ones 
that Hastings had sent them. "I'm an idiot! M. Isimeria! Mavra 
Isimeria! Black Equinox!" 


"The Autumn Equinox." Cassandra's eyes widened, and she looked 
at her colleagues. 


"The Black Autumn!" Fred forgot his game of Solitaire, and grinned. 
"We know its name!" He frowned. "Fat lot of good that'll do us." 


"More than you would think." Cassandra looked in the minifridge, 
taking out a bottle of root beer and taking a swig from it. "Look in the 
drawers, find me some kind of writing utensil, and remind me to 
thank Dr. Sinclair when we get back." 


01:49 


"She seriously gave a seminar for this?" Engelhardt frowned. "How 
to bind demons and spirits?" 


"Considering the weird shit we come up against in town, Fred? It's 
good to have some knowledge outside of your discipline." Cassie 
drew the last part of the sigil, a little horn on top of the symbol for 
mercury, before handing the pencil off to Juliette. "Can you write 
Greek?" 


"Some, yeah. | know enough to write the name." She took the 
pencil, and began carefully writing the name in the seal. 


"And you've... attended how many of these seminars?" 


"Six or seven." Cassie shrugged. "I had to do something while 
getting my clearances reinstated after the whole thing with the 
collar." 


"There we go." Juliette stepped back, having written the name. "Best 
I've managed. You know how to do the rest?" 


"Never practiced it, but | know the theory." Cassandra cracked her 
knuckles, and placed her hand on the edge of the circle. She'd 
never done magic before. She gritted her snaggleteeth, and felt 
something flow through her arm; a soft push from her body, her 
mind's effort to not give into the being keeping them here, to see her 
friends again, to see her friends live. Her Will. 


The pencil lines glowed with an awesome white light, and for a brief 
moment in time, black tendrils seemed to be sucked from the air, 
drawn into the circle, filling in the name on the center. 


Fred grinned, and clapped his hands, looking at the ceiling, 
muttering a silent ‘thank you' to whoever had given them mercy. 
Finally. They were getting out. 


Or it seemed that way, until the light from the circle faded, the name 
only half-full of black essence, like a stuck loading bar on an old 
computer. Mavra Isimeria's name became smeared by an invisible 
hand, and then vanished entirely. 


The voice laughed from all around them. "That actually got a good 
bit of my essence. You'd make a good mage. Gideon would've loved 
you." 


perpendicular to the front and back of SCP-814-1; 
* Slot 2 affects y, defined as the spatial axis 
perpendicular to the sides of SCP-814-1; 
* Slot 3 affects z, defined as the spatial axis 
perpendicular to the top and bottom of SCP-814-1; 
* Slot 4 affects ¢, defined as time. 


The playback of any tone, or tones, that are not a precise 
multiple or factor of 440Hz results in space or time 
distortions. The extent and severity of these distortions 
depends on the amplitude of the cylinder grooves, the 
setting of SCP-814-1's Volume lever, and the degree to 
which the pitch, or pitches, in the source are not 
precisely in-tune with an idealized 440Hz reference. 


Even reference cylinders of a similar type to SCP-814-2 
result in noticeable spacetime distortions when played; 
observers describe a multidirectional "pulsating" effect 
and a perceived distortion of time similar to that induced 
by certain hallucinogens. Any other type of cylinder — 
including conventional music cylinders — induces drastic 
distortions of localized spacetime when played through 
SCP-814-1. Only SCP-814-2 has been found to produce 
tones close enough to the idealized reference to prevent 
such effects. It has been theorized that the SCP-814-1/2 
combination's known effect on human subjects is actually 
a second-order result of its effect on local spacetime. 


Experimentation to discover the full range of 
SCP-814-1's effects is ongoing. 


Addendum: Afier Incident 814-BREAKGLASS, in which 
unauthorized recordings were placed in three of the four slots and 
the Volume setting was set to 6/10, experimentation with SCP-814-1 
is suspended indefinitely. 


Footnotes 

1. 55Hz, 440Hz, 3.52kHz and 14.08kHz, respectively. 

2. This phenomenon has been confirmed from 8-bit/11kHz up to 32- 
bit/192kHz precision. 

3. See Experiment Series SCP-814-A1 through A67. 


"Gideon?" Juliette glared at the walls. "What Gideon?" 


"Richard Gideon. The damn fool who summoned me, trapped me in 
this town, and bound me to this hotel. Traitor." 


The voice then paused, and murmured, vibrations resonating 
through the air, before exploding, "UNBELIEVABLE! You bound 
enough of me that | have to tell you truths!" It laughed. "You're all so 
much more interesting than the snacks Nina sent over." 


All of the researchers recoiled from the volume of the profanity, 
clutching their ears. "We know what you are!" Cassandra yelled. 
"We know your name!" 


"Yes, and names have power. But you don't have my fu// name, and 
even then, most of my essence is contained in that damnable 
fairground. Now then, as to the matter of your time..." 


The volume on the TV grew louder. they all turned, and saw that 
almost two hours had turned into twenty minutes. "What the fuck?!" 
Juliette screamed. "That's cheating!" 


"You've angered me." Mavra intoned. "I'd like to see one of you die 
quicker than before. Now, one of you has twenty minutes to live. 
Make your peace, write your wills." 


The voice faded, and the three of them were left, more alone than 
before. 


00:15 


The next several minutes were filled with silence. Death, let alone 
execution like Mavra was offering, was not something that a human 
being faced lightly. The three at least had the luxury of knowing 
something awaited them beyond the pain and the fade to white. The 
next great mystery, one they'd never be able to report on. Maybe 
they'd be ghosts, maybe they'd go to Nirvana, maybe Mekhane 
would take them into her metal bosom. 


"I'm doing it," Frederick stood up. 


"No," Cassie stood, trying to bring him back down. "You can't." 


"I've spent over forty years here. | don't have anyone who's going to 
come calling for me." He looked at Cassandra. "| want you to take 
care my cat. Her name's Moxie, she's a Russian Blue. She refuses 
to eat chicken, and won't have baking soda in her litter box." 


"Fred—" Cassie began. 


Juliette Hobb stood, and put a hand on her shoulder, before 
stepping forward with him. "We'll turn away for when... when she 
does it." 


"Report all this back to Mattings, Hennessy... whoever has a vested 
interest in this." He stood before the TV. "We've made our choice. 
I'm ready to die." Frederick Engelhardt stood proud, his entire form 
shaking. "I'm giving myself to you so my colleagues may live." 


"Oh?" Mavra snickered, and then chuckled, and then laughed. "I 
said that two of you would live, and one would die. | never said you 
got to choose who died. But it was so, so amusing seeing you bicker 
and beg." 


"No!" Juliette rushed forward and punched the TV. An ultimately 
pointless gesture, as the plastic cracked and did nothing other than 
make her knuckles bleed. "You fucking bitch!" 


"lam the Black Autumn." The room turned dark. "And winter has 
come for Cassandra Pike." 


There was a loud, wet sound from behind them, and they turned to 
find Cassandra Pike's shin perforated by a long, black knife, held by 
a being veiled in black. Cassie screamed, and fell down to the 
ground, the entity twisting the knife in her leg. She should have been 
out from the pain, but something kept her awake. 


"You aren't unconscious yet?" Mavra asked, her voice dripping with 
sadism. "Oh, this is delicious. You're awake to feel every last beat of 
your heart. You don't even get to die in your sleep!" The knife 
twisted in Pike's leg, and blood sprayed into Mavra's mouth. She 
licked her lips. 


"C-Claude," she gasped. "Claude..." 


Engelhardt lunged for Mavra, letting out a scream of incoherent 
rage. He found himself blocked by another knife, this one aimed by 
his throat. "Ah-ah-ah." Mavra tsked. "I'm giving you mercy. You 
should leave, lest | decide to take it back." The knife stabbed her 
again, and Mavra lapped at Cassandra's blood. "You managed to 
bind me. Something as pathetic as you, binding me." 


Cassandra Pike snarled, grabbing the knife with her palm. "Y-you 
don't know pathetic." She gasped, pain shooting through her 
"Pathetic is. Pathetic is... g-going to a containment cell, every night, 
to p-play with the ghost of your d-dead cat." She started drawing 
something with her blood, staining the carpet. "Pat... pathetic is... 
wanting to run away... because you're so scared, so utterly 
frightened of some... one you loved, w... who seemed to turn 
against you, because..." she closed a circle with her blood. 
"Because you're both angry, awful people AAAH!" She screamed 
when she felt the knife nick her artery. 


"Feel that?" Mavra taunted. "That's a bone spur, traveling up your 
arteries, straight to your heart. You're dead, Cassandra Pike. Alone, 
unloved, pathetic." 


Cassandra's eyes filled with tears. She saw the world start to fade to 
white, her eyes cloud over, her heart slow down. Then, something 
came from the light. It was the form of a cat, a grey tortoiseshell with 
a white bib on its chest, one of its sides a little wonky from a broken 
rid someone had given it with a kick to the side. 


"No," Cassandra spat, as the cat started to nuzzle against her. She 
gripped his fur with a bloody hand and held him tight. "I'm not dying 
here. I'm not pathetic anymore." 


One hand scratched her cat around the ears, while the other pushed 
Will into the circle she had made with her blood. "You have my 
blood on you, Mavra," she panted. Sinclair told her this needed an 
incantation. The best she could come up with was her cat's name, 
repeated over and over. "Oliver. Oliver. Oliver." 


Mavra was hit with energy from the circle, forced back against the 


wall, where she screeched. Cassandra Pike, in that moment, wasn't 
sure the cat that had appeared before her was real, but it leaped 
over her, and she heard something clawing at the Black Autumn.