Then he felt... something... happen, his mind twisted, his vision 
blurred, and then he snapped back into his brain so hard it felt like 
he’d been punched. He stood shakily, confused as hell, holding an 
open container of oreos. When he gathered himself and looked 
around, he saw one oreo sitting right at the front of the box. 


What the hell just happened. 


It was a pretty good oreo, though. Pretty much factory standard. 


He started smoking more after that. In between all of his “spells” or 
whatever, he smoked and lazed around and skipped school. The 
nuns were used to his behavior at this point, and only half bothered 
scolding him. His uniform skirt chafed and he much preferred 
sweatpants and home and spacing out staring at the wall. Or on 
better days, spending time with his... friends? Bros? 
Acquaintances? He smoked with them almost daily, even knowing 
that they saw him as some goblin of a girl. It was easier to rest in 
these semi-tolerable uncomfortable zones than to push for 
something new. 


“Oh dude I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m such a fuckin' dumbass-” Jude 
rushed to right the bong he’d knocked over, staring in horror as the 
nasty-ass water sank into the carpet of his friend Tom’s attic. 


“Chill, hey, man, hey.” Tom reached over with a wad of paper towels 
and tossed them on the wet spot. Jude quickly patted them down, 
soaking up as much bong waiter as he could. Tom lazily stood up 
and shook his head, reaching out to rest a hand on Jude’s shoulder. 
Jude tried his best not to jerk away, even though inside he was 
screaming that’s how you comfort girls, isn’t it. 


“This place is nasty anyway, like c'mon. You don't need to let that 
Catholic guilt get to you.” He said with a chuckle. 


Jude whipped his head around. “Don’t-fuck, | mean. That’s not how- 
Like- | have guilt, but who doesn’t? It’s not about Catholicism, it’s- 
well it is, but-” 


Tom backed off, arms up, projecting defenselessness. “I didn’t mean 
it like that, | thought... you make jokes like that all the time.” 


“It’s different when | make 'em, okay. It’s reclamation, or something. 
Fuck, | dunno. Forget about it. It’s not a big deal.” 


“Alright, hey, I'll forget about it. You need to roll another, you’re too 
damn tense, lady!” 


It was finally time. Finally time. Jude’s heart was beating out of his 
chest, he could barely think straight. He stared at the joint in his 
hand, smoke spinning up through the still air of his bedroom. He 
stared for what felt like hours, anxious thoughts spinning so fast he 
could only catch fragments of them. 


This was the hardest thing he’d ever done. And fuck, he did not like 
Doing Things. As he watched the coils of smoke, face blank, his 
mind rolled a reel of all the times he’d let things slip through his 
fingers. So many essays he could have done well on, so many 
games he could have beaten, so many people he could have spent 
time with, so many Sundays he slept in, losing touch with God. From 
petty stuff to his goddamn Grandmother’s funeral, Jude could only 
be counted on for one thing: fucking it up by being a lazy scumbag. 


But this was important. It really was. Everything in his life had built 
up to this moment. He’d managed to practice for it, for fuck’s sake. 
He could do this. 


He took a deep breath and pinched the lit tip of the joint, 
extinguishing it. The slight pain in his fingertips helped him focus. He 
cracked his knuckles and sat down on the edge of his bed, finally 
ready. 


|! ama boy, he thought. / am, | was, | always will be. |am a boy, who 
will be a man. Jude Kriyot. A dude. One of the guys. As he repeated 
this, the world started to twist. OH MY GOD ITS FINALLY- and the 
world re-centered. Fuckin’ idiot, he thought to himself. Can’t even 
focus on the most important thing in your stupid life. 


He flopped backwards down on his bed and stared at the slowly 


circling ceiling fan. Thoughts of self-doubt and self-hatred swirled in 
his mind. They were so familiar he barely registered them. But. God 
dammit. He’d been so close to finally, finally being free of- of all of it. 
All the things he didn’t even want to name, because focusing on 
them for more than a moment would sink him into a well of self- 
hatred and disgust. 


After probably far too long watching the fan, fighting with his own 
mind, he managed to sit up again. He did the stupid breathing thing 
that he’d read on some lifeprotips site, in for 7, hold for 7, out for 7. 
He hated that it worked sometimes, but he relied on it anyway, 
because he needed something that worked in his life. 


He focused. 


Boy. Dude. Guy. That’s me. Jude the dude. No, that sounds stupid. 
Okay. | am named Jude, | was born a boy and | stayed that way. | 
am a guy. | will grow into a man. | will have a flat chest and | will 
fucking finally have a god damn dick. I. Am. A. Boy. 


His view swirled, the edges of his vision being pulled into some 
visual vortex in front of his eyes, spiraling up. His body shook but he 
remained focused. He stared straight ahead as the world around 
him spun so fast it started to blur. All his muscles were tensed. Then 
it snapped back to normal suddenly enough to give you whiplash, 
and Jude Kriyot, the man the myth the legend, passed out. 


“Ayyy, Jude, my man,” Nate leaned backwards, head falling over the 
edge of the couch so he was meeting Jude’s eyes upside-down. 
Clutter surrounded them, Nate's basement was always Cluttered, but 
Jude barely noticed. They came over after school to smoke almost 
daily at this point. 


Jude forced a grin. “Oh you want some more, huh?” 


“FAG!” Chris yelled from across the room, laughing hyenalike. Nate 
joined in and Jude laughed hollowly. He’d always thought that the 
worst suffering a human could endure was this. Was having to laugh 
with a boy hating who you were, a boy you once, foolishly, thought 
was cute. Tom watched from his seat next to Jude, letting out a 


SCP-771: FF)FR-Rom o-o-‘“oout of *garbled text* 
Dr. : What was your designed purpose? 
SCP-771: “several screens of garbled text* 


Dr. :1don't understand, what was your designed 
purpose? 


SCP-771: “several screens of garbled text* 
COOOOOnt??//r. ATTA*@&N “garbled text* 


Dr. :Wewantto help. Can you deactivate your 
defensive robots? 


SCP-771: *!!:sIDDDDDDDDDDDD no. It It is needed f f 
for continued opeopeopera8 1. 


Dr. :Wecan help you. We can repair you, and restore 
full function. 


unimmmmportant. Primary D99ective p-a!!=ount. 
Dr :...What is "primary directive" 
SCP-771: COCOCOControl. 


Dr. : Control of what? What are you supposed to 
control? 


SCP-771: SO1s8 Hom*WHH “several screens of garbled 
text.* 


Note: At the point, SCP-771 shut down, and the LCD 
screen was quickly broken down by the swarm. 


« SCP-770 | SCP-771 | SCP-772 » 


small nervous laugh. 


“But yeah though,” Nate said, regaining his composure. “Roll me up 
another one, my dude. We need it.” 


Jude stared at the tray in front of him, the pile of weed swirling in 
and out of his vision. Isn’t this what he wanted? Smoking as one of 
the guys? Guys who'd never known him as anything but Jude? And 
yet he still couldn’t focus, his chest still hurt, he still had to put ona 
face that wasn’t really him. 


He tugged a paper out of the package and began rolling it between 
his fingers. 


A Jester's Tale 


My name is David Rosenfeld, but everyone who knows me calls me 
Jester. If you've never been stationed at Site 19, you've probably 
heard some horrible rumors about me - that I'm a killer, a monster, 
worse. As far as the world outside the Foundation knows, I'm all 
those things and more, and I've been dead a long time to boot. 
There aren't a lot of people left anymore who know my whole story, 
so | wanna take this chance to clear the air and tell you who | am, 
where | come from, and why I'm the way | am - give you a chance to 
get to know the real Jester. 


| was born in a small town in upstate New York in 1938, and | guess 
you could say | was trouble from the day | was born. My father was 
a big-shot banker in the city, real Fifth Avenue, did his best to fit in 
and make himself presentable. | was part of a set of twins. My 
brother, Jacob, he came out everything a father could wish for, all 
his fingers and toes, but me - well, to put it the way dad always did, 
"No green-skinned freak is any son of Solomon Rosenfeld's." The 
doctors had never seen anything like me before. Even today, as far 
as anyone in the Foundation knows, I'm one of a kind. 


See, I'm a goblin. | Know, goblin ain't exactly proper scientific 
terminology, but if you showed a picture of me to a bunch of 
kindergarteners, they'd tell you the same. My skin is green all over, 
like a bullfrog, and about as leathery. I'm about four feet tall in my 
shoes. My eyes are yellow and they reflect light in the dark like a 
cat's eyes. My fingernails are sharp and pointed like talons, and so 
are my teeth. | don't have a single hair on my body. | wouldn't 
exactly have fit in at yeshiva - not that | ever got to go, of course. 


As far as the world outside our family knew, | died the day | was 
born. Dad paid someone to make out a death certificate with my 
name on it, and as soon as | was old enough to be weaned he 
locked me in the basement and wouldn't let me out. | slept down 
there, read down there, ate down there, the works, all alone. If there 


was ever company over, | was to be silent as a mouse or I'd get a 
thrashing afterward. They fed me scraps and sour milk, and when | 
was sick | just had to tough it out. It was like being a prisoner in my 
own house. 


Mom tried her best to be kind to me, but dad got just as angry at her 
whenever he found out. She'd sneak me books, and some decent 
food now and then. She even let me have a cat for awhile. | named 
him Mittens and | loved him with all my heart, but he got out one day 
and never came back. Mom never would tell me what happened to 
him. | think dad or Jacob must have done something horrible to the 
poor little boy. Jacob wasn't much better than dad was. | always 
thought it was kind of ironic back then - the green-skinned monster 
sitting to himself just wanting someone to talk to, while the normal- 
looking kid upstairs was a bully and a thug. 


By the time | was fifteen | had had enough. Enough of the beatings, 
enough of the solitude, enough of eating rotten food and throwing it 
back up the next day. | decided | was getting out of that house if it 
killed me. It was Seder night, and all of dad's important friends and 
co-workers and people from the city were upstairs breaking bread, 
while | was alone in the basement with some limp cabbage anda 
piece of stale matzo. | started making as much noise as | could. 
Screaming, knocking over shelves, breaking plates, banging things 
together, anything to get his attention. Wasn't long before there was 
a commotion upstairs and | heard him undoing the locks on the 
door. He was on his way down to give me a thrashing, but | was 
ready for him - the second the door opened, | socked the son of a 
bitch right in the face. He went down like a ton of bricks and | ran. 
Right out the door, down the street, into the night, a thin little goblin, 
alone, hungry, and scared - but free. 


| slept in a park that night and woke up starving. I'd been waiting for 
weeks for a chance to get out of that hellhole - but what was | 
supposed to do now? | stole some clothes from the line in 
someone's back yard, a long coat and a hat. | turned the collar up to 
try and hide my face so nobody would get a good look at me while | 
wandered around trying to figure out how | was going to eat, where | 
was going to live. | didn't know if dad would be out looking for me, or 
mom, or the police, or what, but | knew I'd have to get out of town. | 


started wandering down the road out into the country when, in the 
distance, | heard the sound of a calliope. I'd obviously never been to 
one, or even seen one, but I'd read enough books, and heard 
enough shit on the radio, to know that sound could mean only one 
thing - the circus was in town. And what circus is complete without a 
freak show? 


| found the boss' tent and introduced myself. | lied about my age, of 
course, and | told him flat-out | wanted to be a freak. He spent a 
good fifteen minutes looking me over and asking me questions - can 
you juggle? Can you sing? Can you wrestle? Do you know any 
magic tricks? He wasn't too keen on hiring someone with no 
experience, but once | convinced him | wasn't just wearing a 
costume he said he could pay me and find a place for me. 


The next couple years | went all over the country with that circus. 
City by city, places I'd never even imagined I'd be able to see. | 
didn't usually go out in the towns on my own - too many gawkers - 
but | made some good friends in the sideshow. Hell, | even got 
married to a midget named Annie - the moment she stomped on the 
glass was the happiest moment of my life, and though we agreed we 
weren't ever gonna have children, it didn't stop us from having some 
fun behind the big top after all the lookey-loos had gone home for 
the night. The circus was more like a family to me than my real 
family had ever been. 


At first | was called "Monstro-Boy" - they'd dress me up in a loincloth 
and put me in a corner with a chain around my neck, and I'd act like 
a rabid dog and lunge at the marks as they walked past my little 
corner of the sideshow. Sometimes they'd do me up with fake blood 
or foam around the mouth. It was fun at first, but it wasn't all that 
fulfilling. Scaring people wasn't hard for me - it was natural for 
people to startle when they saw me. | spent a lot of time hanging out 
with the main acts and learning their tricks - tumbling, tightrope- 
walking, magic, so on - but | didn't get my big break until 1959. 
Boggles, one of the clowns, got thrown in the pokey after he got into 
a fight at a bar in town, and the boss needed to find a replacement 
fast for that night's show. | leapt at the opportunity. The boss wasn't 
so sure about it at first, but | begged him and | showed him some of 
the moves I'd learned, and he got an idea. He went back in one of 


the costume trunks and spent about five minutes rummaging 
around, and pulled out a tiny little motley and a patchwork jumpsuit 
that looked like it was sewn together out of kids' pajamas. That 
night, under the big top, Jester the Goblin was born. 


| did eight shows that weekend as Jester, and every one was a hit. 
They were rolling in the bleachers, and | felt something I'd never felt 
before. All my life, people had been scared, revolted, disgusted 
when they saw me. But now, they were happy instead. Boggles got 
canned and in six months' time | was the biggest clown (figuratively 
speaking, of course) on the tour. They even started putting me on 
the posters - "SEE THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE WORLD-FAMOUS 
JESTER THE GOBLIN LIVE IN THE CENTER RING!" We went 
back to New York City and | even got to do a routine on Ed Sullivan. 
Life was good - but like the book says, there's a time to laugh anda 
time to weep. 


July 23rd, 1964 - that was when the first murder happened. One of 
the trapeze artists was found dead in his tent the day after we rolled 
into St. Louis. His eyes were gouged out and his skin had been cut 
to ribbons like a giant pair of claws, and on the inside wall of the tent 
was the number 1, written in his own blood. Of course they 
suspected the guy with the claws - but | had an airtight alibi, | was 
with Annie the whole night. Still, people started looking at me real 
funny after that.