Lord Blackwood: It would be my honour, your highness! 


Lord Blackwood nudges SCP-662 towards Eugenio. Eugenio picks it 
up between his teeth and shakes it. Mr. Deeds enters, carrying a 
lidded silver tray. 


Mr. Deeds: As you requested, your majesty, a piping hot Christmas 
goose, with all the trimmings. 


Mr. Deeds sets the tray on the table and lifts the lid to reveal the 
roasted bird. 


Eugenio: Now eat! Drink! Be merry! Enjoy the spirit of this 
wondrous day! 


Dr. Rights leans over and whispers to Mr. Deeds. He nods and 
produces a piece of mistletoe from his pocket. She takes it and 
holds it over Able's head. 


Dr. Rights: So, Able, how about | cook your Christmas goose? 


Able: Lead me to the beast, woman, and | shall wring its neck 
myself. 


Dr. Rights: | don't think you'll have to worry about wringing your 
own beast's neck tonight. 


Extreme close-up on Able with a comic "SPROING!" sound effect. 


Dr. Bright: Well, folks, that's about all the time we have. On behalf 
of everyone here at the SCP Foundation, I'd like to wish you and 
yours at home... 


Everyone raises their glasses and faces the camera. 
Everyone: MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 


Timmy: And 343 bless us, every one! 


A Kind Of Christmas 


“I-It’s just been so long. Sometimes | wonder if she ever thinks about 
me anymore.” The creature leaned towards the man, its skin 
crinkling. A few scales refracted the harsh light of the containment 
cell as they drifted to the floor. It slowly raised its left arm and 
cupped its hand to the side of its oxygen mask. “Sometimes, | think 
what they tell me, that she’s okay, | don’t think it’s true,” it 
whispered, barely audible over the hum of the life-support machine. 


The man sitting opposite grinned. “Why, you were the most 
important thing in the world to her! Of course she wouldn’t have 
forgotten about you!” he said. His voice echoed across the walls of 
the small cell. 


“You used the past tense. You didn't really answer me. Besides, if 
she still thought about me, would | be so... this?” the creature slowly 
swept an arm over itself. Much of its skin was gone, revealing half- 
formed organs made of dragonfly wings. Its legs were nothing but 
stumps, and the left side of its face was mostly non-existent, save 
for the area around the flower it had for a eye. 


“Oh come now, that’s no attitude to have! If she’d forgotten you, 
would she have made this?” The man revealed a folded piece of 
paper and opened it on the table between them. It was a crayon 
drawing of a girl and a man holding hands. The man was covered in 
what looked like scales and had flowers for eyes. Both of them were 
smiling under the crudely written words “SUZY + BEST FRIEND.” 


The creature looked up from the paper, tears in its functioning eye. 
“Thank...” It saw that the man had vanished “...you?” 


An orderly burst into the containment cell. “SCP-1252, are you 
alright!? We- | don’t know what happened. We were with you, and 
then we, uh we were outside. What happened? Are you okay?” 


The creature hugged the drawing to its partially formed chest, 


causing several butterfly scales to drift lazily to the floor. “I’m fine. 
I’m fine,” it said. 


Adam sang to himself as he sawed the beam. “Que el mundo fue y 
sera...” he began. Suddenly, the saw slipped, and he cried out, 
more from shock than pain, as it sliced into his finger. A split second 
later, the wound began to gush blood. “Fuck!” he shouted at the top 
of his lungs as he patted himself down, hoping to find a kerchief, or 
even just a band-aid. Nothing. He squeezed the finger into his 
armpit, feeling the blood soak through the fabric of the shirt. “Fuck 
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this house, fuck this city, fuck you 
Louisa, fuck fuck fuck!” Adam shouted as he ran from dilapidated 
room to dilapidated room, trying to find something to staunch the 
bleeding. 


He saw a man leaving the pantry, the same one who had been 
snooping around the place before. “Hey, asshole!” he shouted at the 
intruder, “Get out of my house or I’m calling the cops!” The man 
gave a guilty smile and stepped around a corner. Adam followed him 
around the corner, only to find that the man seemed to have 
disappeared. “Weirdo,” Adam muttered as he entered the pantry. 


Sitting on the shelf was a roll of gauze and a can of something 
called “Plum Pudding.” Next to it was a note card reading “Feliz 
Navidad” in thin, neat letters. 


“I’m Jewish,” Adam muttered. He stared at the gauze for a moment. 
"Eh, screw it," he said as he took the gauze and began to wrap it 
around his wounded finger. Before leaving the pantry, he grabbed 
the can of “Plum Pudding.” 


The boy in the Boy Scout outfit paced back and forth in the blank 
room. He must have been in here for at least a year. The last thing 
he remembered was crossing the street holding Mr. Noah. Then the 
sound of tires squealing, then an impact. Then nothing. He obviously 
wasn’t dead, he decided, because he was obviously alive. Still, he 
didn’t recognize anything, and, more importantly, there was no more 
Mr. Noah. 


"Hello there," came a voice behind him. The boy turned to see a 
man standing in what had been an empty spot a few seconds ago. 
"It seems like you're missing something. Mr. Noah, right?" 


The boy tried to respond, but found that he couldn't speak. He tried 
a few more times to vocalize, but finally nodded. 


The man smiled. "| don't think | can get Mr. Noah back for you, but | 
can find you some friends. Children like you, who can understand 
you. Perhaps you could make a new doll, one just like Mr. Noah. 
Does that sound good to you?" 


The idea of replacing of Mr. Noah seemed horrifying, almost 
laughable, to the boy. But it wasn't as though there was any way to 
find Mr. Noah in this room. Besides, the man's offer of friends 
intrigued him. He had never had friends before, at least ones that 
weren't stuffed animals. The boy nodded again. The man smiled. 


"Very good, then. Please, follow me," the man said. He opened a 
door that had not been there a moment ago, and passed through it. 
The boy followed. As he passed over the threshold, he found himself 
wearing an owl mask. "Oh, sorry, | forgot to mention the mask. | 
wouldn't worry about it, though, all of the other children have them 
as well," the man said, motioning around the room. It was then that 
the boy looked around and realized that there were other children, 
also with masks, all around the room. 


They didn't say anything, but he could hear them just the same. Do 
you like dollies? they asked, what was your dolly's name? What 
happened to you? What kinds of dollies do you like to make? My 
name's Zach, my name's Sarah, my name's Nikolai, my name's... 


The voices flooded the boy's head, but he was not afraid. For the 
first time in a long time, he knew he was not alone. He turned to 
thank the man, but saw that he was gone. 


A note to all Foundation personnel: Yesterday, 
12/25/20 , containment for several SCP artifacts, 
including 1252, 1551, and 747 was breached. In all 
instances where the SCP object has been capable of 


speech, the effector of the breach was described as “a 
kind man.” While the breaches were not, in and of 
themselves, severe, the fact that a single individual, 
apparently acting alone, has proven capable of 
bypassing all security measures, and has chosen to do 
so on a day as significant as yesterday, should be 
troubling to all Foundation employees. 


To be clear: as there has been no indication of 
negligence on the part of Foundation employees, no one 
is being punished for this incident. This is only a 
reminder that, despite however human SCP objects may 
appear, we are still interacting with entities far beyond 
our ability to comprehend. It should go without saying 
that all Foundation personnel, of all levels, must maintain 
absolute vigilance at all times. 


else 


A Lesson in Power 


With her right hand pressed against cold steel, Dr. Kowalski guided 
herself through darkness. Steps forward were apprehensive 
shuffles. She had a sleep mask over her eyes, but she found herself 
wishing she had brought a gas mask as well. No one ever told her 
what this thing smelled like. But no one who got this close to it lived 
to tell. 


Once, when Danielle Kowalski was a young child, she was afraid to 
go in the ocean. Her mother had warned her about stingrays, and 
the fear of stepping on one had put her off swimming for more than 
a few years. Her father, though, he believed people should be forced 
to face their fears. He taught her how to shuffle her feet. "Then the 
stingrays will know you're coming, and they'll just swim away." Dr. 
Kowalski wondered if her father would have regretted teaching her 
to be brave if he had ever known the career path that bravery had 
opened up for her. The Foundation killed the last of that hesitant 
child. 


She could hear it now, its labored breath that seemed a mix of a 
whimper and a death rattle. She hoped to not touch it. Another step 
forward. Either Dr. Kowalski was close enough to feel the heat of its 
breath or the tension was setting her blood on fire. The instant 
camera in her left hand was unwieldy. She hoped to not drop it 
because she would dare not try to pick it back up. Snap. But no 
flash. If she could see the flash, then she would be in real danger. 
This kind of stingray doesn't swim away. 


The process was painfully slow. Step forward, step back. Turn the 
camera up, turn it down. One by one, she placed each photograph it 
spat out into her pocket. If she could have pulled off her blinder to 
check the time, she would have known that forty-eight minutes had 
passed between her entering the containment chamber and 
expending the last of her film. Statistically, at least one photograph 
would do the job, but Dr. Kowalski had no safe way to verify that. 


Kowalski's colleagues would have thought her insane if they knew 
what she was doing. Fortunately, their time was occupied. On this 
day, this particular site was receiving its first official visit from the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation. After North Korea, after what the 
Diet in Tokyo had exposed, after the Foundation fell under the 
spotlight of every journalist on the planet - the world was surely 
about to change. Everyone, Kowalski thought, needs something for 
protection now. With no hope of ever having something so useful as 
Dr. Bright's amulet, the photographs she had taken would have to 
suffice. 


15 Months Later 


"You've wasted an hour of my time already, Dr. Kowalski. In your 
former line of work, I'm sure you know what the next part of an 
interrogation consists of. So | would think it to be in your best 
interest if you would stop feigning ignorance and tell me where the 
SCP-610 specimens were stored. You were the senior researcher 
on that project - you know." 


The uninvited man who spoke these words inside Dr. Kowalski's 
apartment had burnt through three cigarettes since the interrogation 
had begun. Yes, her life was in danger, but she couldn't help feel 
most upset about the fact that the smell of his smokes was going to 
sink right into her furniture and carpet. Her eyes had been turned 
downward through most of this; it wasn't that she couldn't look a 
man in his eyes and lie - she was quite effective at doing that well. 
She didn't think he was worthy of it. 


This man, who introduced himself as Agent O'Brien, liked to smile. 
He carried the demeanor of a battle-hardened general and looked 
the part: short grey hair, a square jaw, and a tall build. His patience 
for the former Foundation researcher was waning, too - though the 
two masked lackeys he brought along kept as still as statues, 
waiting and watching. 


"Let me ask you, Agent O'Brien," Kowalski began, gaze still affixed 
on the floor. "Have you been so busy trying to find me that you 
haven't even kept up with the news? Does 'The Berlin Accords 
Against Weaponized Anomalies’ ring a bell for you, asshole?" 
Kowalski met his eyes on that last word, her youthful face grimacing 


in stern defiance. 


O'Brien stared past her glasses, pass her icy blue eyes; he stared 
straight through her. 


"Hold her arm," he commanded one of his underlings. The masked 
man moved forward and grabbed Kowalski's wrist. O'Brien seized 
the middle finger of her right hand at the base and drove the thinnest 
knife he had under her polished fingernail. Kowalski flailed a bit, 
trying not to scream. But she did, and her heart raced as she knew 
this would get much, much worse. 


"The Kremlin hasn't ratified it yet - so | don't think the Senate will be 
too keen on doing that either," O'Brien said with a bit of chuckle. The 
researcher's blood trickled out onto his black, leather glove. He 
wiped it off on her cheek. "Let me be clear - the Russians have 
everything they need to fuck with that skin disease, all around Lake 
Baikal. You don't think it's reasonable for the United States 
government to want to understand what could be used against us? 
Hell, | don't care what you think we're going to do with it. | want 
those specimens." 


When Kowalski had finally caught her breath and stifled her urge to 
scream out in pain again, she pointed to her bedroom with her 
unharmed hand and said "Bottom left drawer, manila envelope. 
Something | kept with me since leaving the Foundation. I'm sure 
you'll find it interesting.” 


"Go check," O'Brien commanded his men, who in less than a minute 
had noisily ransacked the room and returned with a manila envelope 
just as the researcher promised. O'Brien grabbed the envelope for a 
look inside. His satisfaction faded quickly. 


"The fuck are these?" he asked as he began littering the floor with 
photographs. Now Kowalski would definitely keep her eyes turned 
up. O'Brien paused before discarding one, just long enough to have 
a good, long look before stating "| don't think this ugly motherfucker 
with the fucked up jaw has anything to do with what | asked you for." 
Angry, he put out his latest cigarette on Kowalski's neck. She 
gasped as the agonizing burn momentarily left her breathless. 


"Let me tell you a story," said O'Brien. "Because | think your 
Foundation sure thought they were powerful hiding in the shadows. 
But I'd like to explain to you why you're wrong." 


He pulled up a chair from her kitchen table and sat down across 
from her. Kowalski would endure whatever tale this prick wanted to 
spew - she only needed to wait now. 


"When | was up and coming, | was a DEA agent in Colombia in the 
late 80's, part of the team hunting down Pablo Escobar. | had a 
narco in custody, and this little spick was every bit uncooperative as 
you are now. He kept repeating 'Do you know who you're fucking 
with?" 


"He thought his cartel was hot shit. He insisted they owned all the 
law enforcement in Colombia, that they were the ones who ran 
Medellin. So | asked him, ‘If you run this city, why do you bury your 
money, why do you have to smuggle your coke? Surely’, | said, ‘if 
you're in charge, you'd peddle your coke out in the open. You 
wouldn't tuck your guns.' | pulled out mine and shot him in his 
kneecap. ‘That's power. | don't hide my gun, it's right here for you to 
see,'| said as he bled all over the police station floor. 


"Your Foundation hid in the shadows, doctor. But let me make it 
abundantly clear for you. The power was always ours. Your 
‘anomalies' belong to us. Your research belongs to us. Your life 
belongs to us, and if I'm so inclined your ass belongs to me before 
I'm done with you. So one more time, I'm going to ask you what you 
did with the six-ten specimens because the next finger of yours | 
take my knife to is coming off." 


"Sir," one of O'Brien's lackeys said. "I think there's something 
outside."