“Wonderful. Let’s start simple then.” Doctor Galloh cleared her 
throat. “This is Doctor Susan Galloh, conducting an interview with 
Subject Tree Fife Two One. Date and time is...” a quick glance at 
her watch, “14:56, December 12th, 2015.” Her focus shifted to Amy. 
“Ms. Corvin. How have you found your stay at the Site?” 


It took Amy a moment to process the question. “How’s it been? 
What is this, a fucking hotel? What do you expect me to say, ‘Oh, 
thanks for snatching me up and imprisoning me, it’s been a fucking 
carnival of wonder?” 


“Not in so many words,” said Galloh. Another note taken. “When you 
were initially brought in, you showed no awareness of your 
anomalous features. Correct?” 


Amy took a few deep breaths before continuing. “Yeah, that’s right.” 
“How long was it until their nature was brought to your attention?” 


Amy shrugged. “Il dunno. Few days, maybe. This isn’t the easiest 
place to tell time.” 


The doctor made a hmm noise. Her pen continued its stroll across 
the page. “That’s something of a rarity. Most subjects are at least 
partially aware of their abnormality.” 


“Good for them.” 


“Not so much, usually. Before coming to us you were in an inpatient 
psychiatric facility for several months.” She heard Amy’s silence and 
continued. “Tell us about the hallucinations.” 


Amy crossed her arms, pursed her lips. It was the question they 
always asked, and she almost had the answer memorized. “They 
started when | was 16. I’d been having a lot of weird dreams for a 
while, like walking around these weird places I’d never been to, 
weird beaches and like... prisons and libraries and shit. And it 
freaked me out a bit because I’d never been a big dreamer before. 
But then... | was at a party when | had the first one. | was pretty 
drunk, but not high or anything. And | was smoking with some 
friends outside, and | turned to go back to the fridge to grab some 
beers, and the house was gone. The entire neighborhood was gone. 
And in its place was this... fucking thing. This massive, green 
squirming thing the size of the entire block, like some giant fucking 
centipede only covered with slime and with... eyes all across its 
surface. All staring at me.” She broke off, stared at the Doctor. “Do 
you want me to go through all of them? | know you’ve got all the 
records." 


“We'll be getting more detail later. You and Entity Whiskey Lima 13 
have a long and fascinating history together, I’m sure. But what 
we're really interested in...” she fixed her stare on Amy, “is where 
we can find the Warden.” 


Amy’s eyes widened. “How do you-” 


The building rocked as a massive BOOM threw her to the floor. Her 
head cracked against the steel table. She crumpled to her knees, 
clutching her skull. Blood trickled through her fingers. She fought 
down the urge to vomit. Gunfire clattered in the distance. 


“Get rid of her,” said a voice like radio static. Amy looked up. Doctor 
Galloh was slumped against the cell wall, eyes wide with fear. One 
of the guards stood over her. Dark green lines crept down his arm. 
His forearm twisted, like it was fighting to wrench free from the 
socket, until it gave a loud pop, and a third joint appeared in the arm. 
His knuckles scraped the floor now. He lifted the hand. His fingers 
writhed, wormed against each other, until they fused into a single 
spike. Too fast to see, he drove it through the skull of the doctor. 
And a voice in Amy’s head she hadn't heard in five years shouted 
RUN. 


She lunged for the door, but the world was still spinning, and she 


stumbled over her own feet. Before she could rise, cold fingers 
clamped her neck. 


“Stand up,” said her captor. His voice was just as distorted as the 
last one, but something about it was familiar. She rose, knees 
shaking. The man who had stabbed Doctor Galloh stepped into 
view. His arm was normal now, slick with blood to the elbow. A 
lanyard dangled from his fist. Doctor Galloh’s ID. He swiped it 
against a wall panel, and the door opened. 


Amy was shoved forward, almost fell. She glanced back at her 
captor as she steadied herself- and recognized Hurlin. His eyes 
were missing. Black cracks spread from the sockets like broken 
glass. And still, he seemed to be staring through her. “Turn around,” 
he said, in a voice like a grindstone. He pushed her through the 
door. 


In the hallway, the other two agents waited. The one who had killed 

Galloh glared at her. The other talked on a phone in a language she 
didn’t recognize. Gunfire continued in the distance. Amy flinched at 

the sound of a far-off explosion. 


Hurlin grabbed her arm. Even through the jumpsuit, his fingers felt 
like ice. He motioned to the agent on the phone and said something 
in the strange language. The agent glanced up, grunted a reply, 
then slid the phone back into his pocket. 


The agent stepped to the wall. He pulled a plastic baggie from inside 
his jacket- inside were several lumps of charcoal. He took one, 
pocketed the rest, and drew a circle on the wall. To this he added 
runes, reaching from and surrounding it. He worked quickly, 
efficiently, as if he had practiced it a thousand times, and in less 
than 90 seconds, he had covered a six foot section of the wall. Then 
he plunged his hand into the glyphs 


The wall around the circle shimmered rippled as fingers sunk 
through. As his hand sunk deeper, the ripples spread outward, 
swelling until each was thicker around than the man’s arm. And the 
wall began to change. The white paint faded into an image of a 
large, red-lit cavern. The image grew more solid, until the white filter 
of the wall was gone completely. Runes still hung in the air, 


undisturbed. Amy felt a rush of cold wind, smelled moss and damp 
rock. A look of intense concentration crossed the creature’s face. It 
didn’t move. 


“Come,” said Hurlin, jerking Amy forward. She struggled against his 
grip, but he dragged her anyway, unnoticing. They were only a few 
feet from the cavern when his head exploded. 


Amy let out a yell as blood splattered her. Hurlin’s body crumpled. 
She turned, and saw Ed approaching. His pistol was drawn, aimed 
at the remaining two creatures. “Don’t mo-” 


The creature moved so fast it seemed to stand in two places. As Ed 
began to speak, it was by the portal-opener. Before he could finish, 
it was behind him, one scythe-like arm pressed against to his throat, 
the other claw piercing his palm. It flicked its wrist, and Ed’s hand 
flew through the air, smacking into the wall. 


Amy didn’t wait to see the rest. She turned and began to run. 
Through the gate, said the voice in her head, and she listened, 
leaping past the portal-opener into the cavern. She rolled across the 
rock, felt something in her arm pop, and came to a stop staring at 
rocky wall. Frantically, she looked around. The portal was nowhere 
to be seen. 


You broke the seal, coming through early. They will open it 
again soon. | suggest you continue running. Calmly. |t was hard 
to identify anything about the voice. Not low enough to definitely be 
a man's, not high enough to definitely be a woman. It spoke with no 
discernible accent, and if the creature behind it felt any emotion, 
none of it showed. 


| AM calm. She pushed herself to her feet. Pain shot through her 
right shoulder as she did so- it hung limply at her side. The cavern 
sloped upward from the wall. Glowing red crystals lined rough stone, 
continuing up and then disappearing into a downward slope. The 
rocks were damp, the air not quite cold enough to make her shiver- 
yet. /s it safe? 


lam still attempting to determine that, said the voice. However, 
had you remained in their hands, your chance of escape would 


has ordered them to do in order to contain SCP-684 (or at least 
keep it in a stable state), and Assumed Actual Role is what the 
Foundation believes the station's actual role to SCP-684 is. 


Station 
Designation 


Alpha 


Beta 


lota 


Crew 


Six 


Twelve 


[DATA 


False 
Ordered 
Task 
Push 
corrupted 
sealife 


Assumed 
Actual Role 


Transport of 
carcasses to 
‘mouths' of 


carcasses to SCP-684 


extraplanar 
disposal 
facility 
(SCP-684) 
Contain and 


Waste 


destroy "toxicremovali / 


non- 
newtonian 
fluid" 
emanating 
from 
SCP-684 
[DATA 


hygiene 


Immune 


REDACTED] REDACTED] system 
Scouting arid Demarcating 


Four 


Twenty-Four 


marking 
suitable 
locations for 
new 
SCP-684 
observation 
posts 
Collect and 
ship 
SCP-684-1 
to Stable 
Onet4 


SCP-684-1 
growing 
locations 


Unknown, 
potential 
benefit and 
reward for 
caretaking 
SCP-684 


have been zero. |t paused, then added. / strongly urge you to 
begin running. 


She did, though not as fast as she would have liked- the floor was 
slippery, and the shoes they’d given her had no traction. By the time 
she had reached the top of the tunnel, the soles were soaked 
through. The bottoms of her feet were beginning to feel numb. 


Talk to me, Goose. What the fuck were those things? She asked, 
looking down the hill. The tunnel continued down a few hundred 
feet, then split off into multiple paths. It felt weird, to actually 
converse with the voice. For so long, before they’d taken her, she’d 
done everything to ignore it. 


There are... multiple possibilities. Every step made her arm flash 
with pain. Still, she darted towards the end of the tunnel as fast as 
possible. 


The response almost made her stumble. Since when do you talk 
about possibilities? The situation might have been funny, if she 
hadn’t been living it. For four years she’d wanted nothing else but for 
the Witness to disappear. And it had, when they’d taken her. Now 
that it was back, she felt nothing but relief. 


|! have missed much in the past five years. Most likely, they are 
Bookburners, or perhaps a splinter cult of the Serpent's Hand. 
Amy neared the end of the tunnel, and before she could ask, the 
voice said Third from the right. 


The crystals down this tunnel took on a blue glow. She was barely a 
dozen yards from the end when she heard a crackling noise behind, 
and a distant snarl. She began to run faster. The pain in her arm 
surged, and she barely stopped herself from screaming. Jesus 
FUCK! Okay. File that one away, | guess. Where the hell are we, 
and why am | running this way? 


We appear to be in another universe. 


What? Even before her containment, she’d never been much of an 
athlete. Her calves were beginning to beg for mercy. She kept 
running. 


A small one, most likely of artificial construction. It appears to 

link to a large network of ‘natural’ universes. Interesting. | had 
heard of such things, but never witnessed one for myself. The 

chill in the air was deepening. Her feet ached from the cold and and 
stone. 


I’m really happy you got this opportunity. \t looked like the tunnel 
opened ahead. Green light shone from above. 


It’s pleasing to see five years in captivity has not dulled your 
wit. Try not to fall. 


Huh? she thought, and skidded to a halt just before she ran off the 
ledge. Her foot slipped on the rock. She dropped to the ground. Pain 
shot up her tailbone. FUCK! She could swear the voice was 
chuckling. 


Mist coated her face. She looked down. The green light reflected off 
dark water, a few yards below. A river. Probably about ten feet to the 
far wall, and the water was moving at such a languid pace it looked 
frozen. Poking from the wall beneath her was a small ledge that ran 
alongside the river. A bitter- but not unpleasant- smell like dried 
spices hung in the air. Climb down, said the voice. 


She looked closer. Small grooves marked the wall, just big enough 
to support the edge of a foot, making a path straight down. Shivering 
as another blast of cold air swept through, she turned and began to 
lower herself down. It was slow work- she wanted to hurry, but her 
right arm still hung useless. Her foot clawed at air, and for a second 
she imagined her grip slipping, cracking her back across the stone. 
But her foot found the groove, and her breath returned. She made 
her way to the bottom. 


At the instant she touched solid ground, another shriek filled the 
tunnel. Closer, this time. She glanced around. The path was only a 
few feet wide. Nothing visible in either direction but darkness. From 
the tunnels, the sound of claws raking against stone. Now would be 
a really great time to get me the fuck out of here. 


Go left, said the voice, and she obliged. The stone of the ledge was 
more deliberately carved than the tunnels. She was able to move 


quickly without worrying about slipping. Her breathing grew ragged, 
rapid. Her vision was going fuzzy from exertion. She wanted to fall to 
her knees and rest, to close her eyes and fall into a sleep deeper 
than any she had felt before. But she kept running. 


Until she couldn’t. She took one final step, and it was if her legs 
disappeared from under her. She was standing, then falling, and the 
water rose to meet her. It drove all breath, all feeling, from her body 
as she crashed into it... then sudden, screaming cold, worse than 
anything she had ever felt, swallowing her. And then, again, 
numbness. She was drifting beneath the water, eyes open, staring 
at a pulsing green light. 


Move, said a voice that sounded miles away. Swim. They are 
almost here. She ignored it. Why would she want to swim? That 
would take so much effort. It was so nice here. Warm. Floating. 
Maybe she could stay here forever, free from the rest of the world. 


It was not meant to be. A rough hand grabbed her arm and yanked 
her from the water. It held her limply in the air. She heard voices that 
didn’t sound human. 


“Is she breathing?” 
“Yes.” 
“Good. Hurry. Time moves against us.” 


The hand threw her up, and she landed on something hard. She 
cracked her eyes open, and saw that she was slung across the back 
of a large, lizard-like biped. Huh. That was something you didn’t see 
every day. 


She closed her eyes again and let the warmth overtake her. 


« | Hub | Rites of Passage » 


Rites of Passage 


For the first time in five years, Amy slept peacefully. No nightmares. 
No panic attacks in the middle of the night. She woke, and there was 
no aching in her joints, no cramped muscles. A comforter swathed 
her. She opened her eyes. The room was dim, lit only by a small 
lamp in the corner. The bed she lay in was big enough for two 
people, with blankets the color of bright lipstick. A nightstand beside 
held a silver tray piled with food. Looking at it made her stomach 
rumble. She tossed the covers to the side, propped herself up, and 
reached for the tray. Her hand stopped just before touching the food. 


Where the hell was she? The last thing she remembered was 
running through the caves, being chased by... whatever those 
fucking things were. She glanced around the room, but it didn’t offer 
any answers. The walls were bare, aside from the single window. 
Other than the bed and nightstand, there was no furniture. A closet 
on the wall opposite was open, bare. 


Amy rolled to the edge of the bed and as she did, glanced down at 
herself. The white jumpsuit that had been her uniform for the past 
five years was gone. It had been replaced by a set of cashmere 
pajamas, the fabric so dark it threatened to spill out to any surface it 
touched. The pain in her shoulder was gone. She lifted her feet, 
stared at the soles. They were free of any marks. 


Okay. Time to consult the expert. You there? she thought. 
The reply came an instant later. Yes. 


Any idea what’s going on? Amy lifted herself from the bed, stepped 
over to the window. Two chords hung from the top of it. 


Most likely, we are being held prisoner. | lack information to 
guess further than that. 


The blinds snapped up as she yanked one of the chords. Her eyes