There was silence, broken only by Daniel making a gurgling sound 
through his clenched teeth. He staggered forward slightly onto the 
spear, grasping at it as if unsure that it was real. As he uselessly 
flapped his mouth, a small film of blood and spit stretched between 
his lips. It popped, and the spell was broken. The room was 
suddenly awash with chaos. A jungle of flailing limbs seemed to 
sprout as people fled for the door, for the corner, for away from that 
thing. A dull, insistent pounding rang out as attempts to breach the 
now-locked door were enacted. The hoplite braced a foot against 
Daniel's chest and pulled the spear out. Daniel crumpled to the floor 
as the statue sliced Dr. Willis through the neck. Sarah noticed one of 
Willis' turquoise earrings go sailing through the air still attached to a 
bit of earlobe. 


The hoplite moved methodically through the room, slashing at the 
trapped artists. Sarah stared at her creation, unsure of what to do. 
The hoplite caught her gaze for a split second. She saw herself 
reflected in the clean white porcelain and the dark red blood sprayed 
across its face. She ran. She pushed herself against the cinderblock 
wall and pounded at it, hoping that it would somehow open. To her 
surprise, it did. She tumbled into the cold night and landed on her 
ass in the alleyway. 


The wall closed behind her, muffling the screams and crashing. She 
got up and started to run. She didn't stop running until she reached 
her apartment. Falling onto the bed, she stuffed her face into her 
pillow and screamed. The muffled screams continued even as she 
became hoarse and her throat ached, continued on until she passed 
out from exhaustion two hours later. 


It was two weeks before she could bring herself to go back. But she 
had to be sure. Daniel's parents had called at least a half dozen 
times with increasing distress, but that didn't mean anything. He had 
disappeared before, only to reappear several days or weeks later 
with a new boyfriend. Her missing classmates were harder to 
explain, but most of them were trustafarians who only wanted to 
major in art to shock mommy and daddy. They could have easily 
switched majors once the going got tough. As for the professors, 
well, budgets were tight, and conceptual art wasn't a high priority. 


She had barely eaten or slept since the night, and had only 
answered her phone to stop its ringing. Her mother had called once, 
asking if anything was new. "No," she replied flatly. After all, she 
couldn't really be sure. After that, she had just unplugged her phone 
altogether. 


She came around three A.M., not wanting to be caught breaking and 
entering midday. The door to the back of the theater was locked, but 
she had come prepared. After several minutes of fumbling with the 
hairpin and torque wrench, the lock clicked open. Sarah sucked in 
her breath and braced herself as she opened the door. Darkness, 
interrupted only by the light from the door. She clicked on her 
flashlight and exhaled. There was nothing. No statue, no bodies, no 
emcee, no markers, no goddamn Daniel, no nothing. Just a poured 
concrete floor and interrupted by a few steel pillars. She moved 
towards the light switch and flipped it on. Not a single stain on the 
concrete. 


"Damn it," Sarah muttered to herself as she hunched down to 
inspect the floor. This couldn't be just a dream or a bad trip. It had to 
be real. But there was nothing there. Not so much as a drop of 
blood. 


After several minutes of searching, she turned off the lights and 
prepared to leave. As she stood at the treshhold, she turned towards 
the empty room. "What the fuck?" she yelled at the top of her lungs, 
waving the flashlight for emphasis. Just then, a glimmer of light 
caught her attention. She moved her flashlight back towards the 
glimmer. There it was again. She moved closer, keeping her 
flashlight trained on the object. When she was finally able to make it 
out, she felt her knees go weak. The earring. Willis’ turquoise 


fucking earring. She snatched it from the corner of the room and 
held it up. Had they forgotten to take it too? Left it there as a Rosetta 
stone? Had some kindly worker left it there for the dead woman to 
reclaim? 


It didn't matter. This proved it. She slid down the wall until she was 
sitting, knees to chest. Daniel was really gone. Everyone was really 
gone. And that... thing... was... was... The tears poured from her. It 
was her fault. She had done this. But why had this thing been shown 
at all? To cull artists? She gave a bitter internal laugh. Suddenly, 
she noticed a scrap of paper on the floor where she had seen the 
earring. She wiped her eyes and leaned over to pick it up. In neat 
handwriting, it said "Vous, l'artiste." 


A puzzled look came over her face and she wiped her nose on her 
jacket sleeve. "You, the artist." What the fuck was that supposed to 
mean? Her "art" had done this. She had made something to kill and 
it killed. She had made it, she was responsible for it. Recalling the 
pride she had felt as the hoplite slew its competition, she felt 
nauseous once more. She had seen at least ten people die that 
night at the hands of her creation. The rest were probably murdered 
as she fled. Whatever the gallery had done to the block had just 
given her the tools. The deaths had been her responsibility. Gears 
began to turn in her head. Responsibility. What had the emcee said 
about responsibility? Something about possibility? She thought a 
moment. 


Something clicked, or maybe snapped, in her head. "Vous." Not her. 
She started to chuckle. Artists. Responsibility. Fuck. Art that defied 
reality could define it, giving new contours. Her giggling grew louder. 
All of the theory she had learned, but she had never realized it. This 
had destroyed for catharsis, so she would know. The laughter 
echoed in the concrete room as she doubled over. To redefine 
reality for art, with art, she had to accept her responsibility as the 
artist, maker and unmaker of worlds. Now that she realized it, she 
could embrace it. And wring from it possibility. She couldn't stop 
laughing. 


Dreaming 


|. Praefatio 


These well-lit rooms and stainless halls 
Are host to choruses of fear 

Behind each door a nightmare calls 
Contained by persons without peer 


Another test requires my aid 

| pass the doors and darkened stairs 
I’ve felt the terror, still I've stayed 
I’ve let go of my woes and cares. 


| should have left, and just moved on 
They cautioned me: “Don't linger, please.” 
And still | feel I'm somehow drawn— 

So strange are these anomalies. 


These horrors spin their selfsame song 
Have | been dreaming all along? 


Il. Persisto 


Dark tales of old and stories grim 
Horrors unsheathed, without respite 
Long needles, amputated limbs 

Are not rare sights within these sites. 


Body bags, festering rot 

Things looked upon with such disgrace 
Perhaps it’s best to question not 

How to stay sane within this place. 


This Foundation, these personnel 
With minds so sharp and nerves of steel 
Track the nightmares where they dwell 


And ponder what is truly real. 


Don’t ask them of the better days 
Their laughter wipes the dreams away. 


Ill. Papilio 


You are of trance and mysteries 

Oh, Illusory Butterflies 

| wonder of your memories 

Please weave your wings and show me lies. 


Oh Five five three, a jewel are you 
Whether adult or small larva 

You are a masterpiece, it’s true 
Of calcite, quartz, and silica. 


Poor Weather Bug, you met your end 
No more the air will you explore 

No air pressure will your wings rend 
May you sleep softly evermore. 


Illusions, weather, crystal gleams 
Your beauty is the stuff of dreams. 


Dreams of the Dead Sea 


It is said that in ancient epochs, when the world was closer to the 
stars, that in dreams one could glimpse foretellings of things yet to 
come. Such beliefs are not encouraged in these days, as the 
Temple considers any claim of prophecy to be a form of blasphemy. 
| now know that on this, the priests are incorrect, that the dreaming 
world can reveal things yet to come. Had | known it when | was 
younger, | might have been better prepared for the revelations that | 
have unearthed; but perhaps it is better now, that what was foretold 
has come to pass, that | can relate to you that which it has now 
come time for the world to know. It is likely that merely holding this 
text in your hands has marked you a heretic in the eyes of the 
Temple, but | implore you to hear my tale; and you will learn how the 
promise of St. Azarius has been fulfilled, and how it was foretold in 
my dreams of the Dead Sea. 


The Dead Sea lies in the far east, amidst the barren expanses of the 
Plateau of Leng, far from the coruscant spires of Panopolis and the 
verdant fields of Arcadia. Its shores rest a thousand feet or so below 
the rim of a great pit the likes of which can be found nowhere else in 
the world, which extends at least three hundred miles in diameter. 
The depths of the pit are lost to history, as are its origin. Some 
speculate that it was once some primaeval ocean, or the crater left 
by a meteor of unprecedented size. The great Dr. Elutherius, of the 
Imperial Collegium, attempted to excavate the southwestern bank in 
my grandfather's day; he made it half-a-mile deep before his crew 
abandoned him, driven seemingly to madness when they discovered 
a rock face smooth as glass and beyond the artifice of nature. All 
know of the Dead Sea, and all will find their way to it in due time, but 
few who do so are in any state to tell tales of the place. No man sails 
the Dead Sea, nor does any fish plumb its depths, for it is not water 
that laps upon the shores of that sea, but flesh and bone. All who 
live must die, and it is the law of the church and the state that all 
who die are laid to rest in the charnel-house of the world, the Dead 
Sea. 


128@14:03 


machine with carbide drill bits, a 
number of vacuum tubes, a motor 
rated at approximately 55,000 
watts, an argon gain medium, 
precision lenses and other laser 
components, several hexagonal 
printed wire boards with 
chemically etched circuitry, glass 
vessels of various substances 
including nitroglycerin, acetone, 
FMOC-D-Alanine, and 5 Amino 
1H Tetrazole (5-AT), an 
apparatus apparently used to 
synthesize crystals, a cyclotron, 
and an apparatus resembling a 
microwave telecommunications 
broadcasting tower, with a 
broadcasting antenna pointing 
upward. Chamber is evacuated 
except for the installation of a 
microwave receiver in the 
chamber, tuned to the same 
signal as the presumed 
broadcasting tower. Remains of 
D-334 and D-033 are not 
recovered but DNA analysis 
identifies that many of the objects 
in the room are composed, in 
part, from their remains. 
Microwave receiver in chamber 
receives signals from an unknown 
source. Signal was recorded and 
is undergoing analysis. 


« SCP-830 | SCP-831 | SCP-832 » 


The beginnings of the Dead Sea are lost to history. It was already in 
use in the first century after the Triumph of the Church and the 
proclamation of the Blessed Empire. Archaeologists have found 
remnants of lesser such accumulations around the world, which 
must have at some point been abandoned when the Temple ordered 
all the dead to be discarded in one place. It is said that ten thousand 
years ago or more, before St. Azarius promised eternal life in the 
hereafter to all who believed in Him, that the bodies of the dead 
were revered; they were cleaned and dressed, displayed for public 
viewing, and buried in the earth in the lands in which they lived. 
Such practices are now considered blasphemy, as the Great 
Scriptures proclaim; 


"Do not lavish honours upon the bodies of the dead, for the body is 
but a carriage for the soul. The body rots and turns to dust, but the 
soul, which Our Lord knows and treasures, takes its leave for life 
eternal. Therefore, do not let the dead lie among the living as the 
heathens do, for they have had their reward in full; but take them 
away from your lands instead and cast them into the deepest hole, 
and let them be forgotten." 


And so it has always been done; in every corner of the world, the 
dead are loaded onto lorries and trains and air-coaches, by the 
hundreds of thousands each day, and hauled hundreds or 
thousands of miles to the Dead Sea, to be dumped onto its surface. 
New bodies are unceremoniously piled atop the old, to be 
submerged in turn by the next crop of decedents, to sink and sink 
until they crumble away and rejoin the earth. A terrible miasma 
engulfs the land, and it is said that at night, the sea glows with 
corpse-lanterns fueled by the gaseous emissions of the 
decomposing millions. Few of the living set foot on its shores, save 
the high priests of the Temple, the carrion-haulers, and, it is said, 
those who illicitly dig to the lower layers of the sea and harvest the 
rich corpse-soil, to be sold as fertilizer. (This libel is a favorite of 
farmers to levy against their rivals; for who would buy their crops, 
knowing they were grown from the dead?) The last class of the living 
who glimpse the Dead Sea's shores are not spoken of in polite 
company. On the northern shore of the sea, where the drop from the 
edge of the pit to the sea's surface is much sharper than the gentle 
descent of the southwest, there stands the Long Walk; a causeway 


extending several miles from the edge, along which those convicted 
of the most abominable crimes against the church and the state are 
condemned to walk before casting themselves into the depths. 


| have dreamt of the Dead Sea since | was a child. The dream does 
not come often, but it is always the same; | awake to find myself 
lying atop the surface of the sea, and as | surveil the horizon | can 
espy no hint of the shore; there is nothing on any side but the dead, 
baking and rotting below the blood-orange sun. | can find no steady 
footing, for with every step | sink knee-deep into flesh. | call for help, 
but there are no living ears to hear me. Thousands of feet above, 
the air-coaches glide silently overhead, barely slowing to discharge 
their rain of carrion unto the gory mass. | find myself sinking into the 
ichorous loam, fearing that soon | shall no longer be an unwelcome 
guest among the dead, when | awake. 


Oft have | shared my dreams with the Temple priests during the 
Rites of Expurgation. | dared never speak my silent fear that | was 
being given visions of what was yet to come, for to be known to 
even be harbouring the thought might label me suspect. The priests 
nonetheless assured me that | need not fear any such fate befalling 
me; no man is marked for disposal until the hospitallers have 
declared that he is truly and irreversibly dead and his soul has left 
his body. They often suggested that the dreams evinced a defect in 
my faith; that perhaps | doubted the truth that my soul will depart 
when my body expires, and that | will be left to pass away into 
nothing along with my body. It was also suggested that, though St. 
Azarius would never deem to speak His Word to a living soul if the 
prophetic signs were not present, that perhaps He was testing my 
faith in a way; by showing me a vision of what my eternal self might 
suffer if my temporal self failed in its devotions, He might encourage 
me to more fervently follow the right path. 


These words provided me little comfort during my adolescence, but 
as | came of age, | began to find more comfort in the admonitions of 
the priesthood. | committed myself to the study of the Great 
Scriptures and sought to live in word and deed as St. Azarius had 
commanded. In time the dreams grew less frequent, and had 
stopped altogether by the time | came of my thirtieth year. | had 
been successful to a fault in my career, and took full advantage of