“Maybe, but | think this whole lead was stupid. Do our crawlers just 
keyword ‘creepy’ and “art”?” Urooj swiveled his neck around to work 
a kink out. A perceived cramp had been bothering him all day, or so 
he thought. But maybe it wasn’t. He could never be sure when an ail 
wasn't imagined. He eyed the sleeping man’s pasty body over. He 
seemed healthy aside from that fact that he was so thin. He was 
balding at his temples, and had empty gauges in his ears. His face 
was rat-like. Around him were scattered markers and paintbrushes. 
There was crude writing all over his body. Urooj was curious if the 
few prison chic tattoos this Jeremy had weren't applied during a 
similar performance. 


“This is disgusting,” laughed Urooj. “Crazy-ass kids.” 


Jeremy continued to whisper softly among the murmur of the large 
crowd in the small community center. Sherry moved in closer to 


examine him, pulling out a medical flashlight. She gingerly pried 
open the man’s eyelids with her free hand. 


“He’s probably drugged, but | think whether or not we take the art at 
face value is unimportant, we just have to check him. Then we can 
be out of here.” 


“Ladies first? 


The crowd watched in content confusion as Sherry examined the 
body. “Something about the way you say that somehow makes that 
phrase more creepy.” Sherry wasn’t sure if Urooj was actually 
creepy, but it was much easier for her to think of him that way. 


She read each line written on Jeremy for some reassurance that 
their time and risk was of any value. She was not a cryptographer, 
not especially capable of recognizing certain patterns, but she was 
the most level-headed body in Omicron-Rho. She would never think 
too hard about anything, and given the territory, that was for the 
best. 


Across pale folds of skin, in many hands, were written the following: 
Jessica was here! 

quer 

A&M 2014! 

for a good time call Jenny 

insert here 

Too deep for me. 

keep marfa wierd 

the real shadow, Jemal Avery 2016 


“Okay here’s something. ‘The real shadow”. | think that’s worth a 
shot.” Sherry shrugged, scrunching her nose at Urooj. 


“Outstanding.” Urooj began to massage his temples. “Wait, did you 
bring the antipsychotics? If | had to guess I'd say there aren't pretty 
things going on inside this one’s head.” 


“Of course | did. For you.” 


“Eh. Okay.” He turned to the crowd and pulled out a badge, then 
turned back around to Sherry. “Are you sure? Really?” 


“Yeah. Do the thing.” 


“Sometimes | think you enjoy this.” Urooj winced and turned to 
address the crowd. 


“We bring them a carcass, they give us a bone.” 


Urooj shook his head. “Okay kids, show’s over, time to go home. 
Police business or whatever.” 


With little complaint, people began to trickle out of the building and 
onto the dusty desert street. 


Urooj turned off the lights while Sherry dragged Jeremy’s body into a 
storage closet in the basement. She looked down in the dark at the 
man with grim expectation. She pointed her pen-light at his face, her 
gaze fixed on his apathetically. It seemed as if his eyes would open 
at any moment and make a start at her. 


“| hope there is a hell for us,” Urooj said absently as he dead bolted 
the door from the inside. “You know this kind of thing isn’t right. | 
wouldn't wish this on anyone.” 


Sherry gave Urooj a look, shaking her head. She produced a needle 
from her pack, then found a fat vein on the man’s arm. The fountain 
in the canister was a flushed pink for a moment, and the sedative 
was deployed into his bloodstream. 


Sherry sat in the corner of the room and nodded toward Jeremy. 


Urooj swiveled his neck. 


Deathbell heard a shrill, satisfied laugh upon entering Jeremy’s 
subconscious. Deathbell roared back, poisonous seeds escaping 
from his hybrid lungs. The feeling when descending into Jeremy was 
catastrophic. 


“You fools! You've fallen right into my trap!” The mysterious voice 
squealed with delight. “I shall now add you to my collection!” 


“Jeremy? That you?” Deathbell asked. He looked around him, and 
the fleshy globe of the room began to materialize. The walls were 
covered in many curved canvases depicting an eclectic array of 
figures: plants, animals, cryptids, colored shapes, and some things 
that could only be described as noise. They all appeared to be 
twisted in pain, distress - even the nonsense. 


“Welcome to my gallery of Shadows!” The disembodied thing 
cackled. “I do hope you have time to spend!” 


“Umm, okay, guy, are you Jeremy? I’ve actually seen this kind of 
thing before, so, can we just...?” Deathbell whipped his vines all 
around the room, hoping maybe to find an invisible figure. 


“What? Surely you haven’t. A work of this kind...” It faltered, 
seeming to trail away. 


Deathbell began to massage his temples, and the leafy tips of his 
bulbs began to glisten, exuding a purple mist. It carpeted the room, 
and slowly crept up the walls. 


“A work of this kind is unique... It is unique by the very fact that it 
exists inside of a human mind!” It screamed. 


Deathbell was too busy concentrating to correct him. Soon the entire 
room was filled with the toxic mist, and walls began to burn and hiss. 
The frames of the painting began to corrode, and Deathbell was 
overwhelmed with the toxic smell of burning paint. The smoke was 
beginning to fill his lungs, and he began to tingle from the inside. He 
knew that in time this would turn into a sharp burning, and he would 
not be able to concentrate on disconnecting from Jeremy. He had to 
leave. 


“What is that accent of yours, fella?” The voice asked earnestly. 


Deathbell closed his eyes, and disappeared. 


Sherry slapped Urooj hard in the face, and quickly retreated outside. 
It was a necessary precaution, especially given how long it took 
Urooj to finish, and his habit of stabbing researchers with writing 
implements upon waking. 


“Relax,” Urooj groaned. “It wasn’t crazy in there. I’m not gonna have 
an episode. It’s fine,” He said calmly, and then suddenly, “I’m 
fucking fine!” 


Urooj let a guttural noise loose through his clenched teeth, and 
repeatedly banged his head on an aluminum locker. Not hard 
enough to cause any damage, but just enough pain to focus on. 


“So what’s up? Do you need pills?” Sherry paused and looked to the 
door with a tired look in her eye. “Are you lying to me right now? 
Yeah?” 


“Listen... You shit.” Urooj bit his knuckle, drawing blood. “It’s the 
artist, | think he’s living in there.” He pointed at Jeremy, so as to 
show her through the wall. "| couldn't find Jeremy. | think he killed 
everyone who got in range of Jeremy. Why... why is this even 
important?” He hissed. 


“But they all walked out...?” she said, some annoyance in her voice. 


“You know what | mean. The gallery visitors are zombies now. | 
killed their shadows. Paintings. You know, like in the stupid book we 
had to read. P-Zombies.” 


“Ah. Right. So what do you recommend?” Sherry said, slowly 
opening the door. 


“It’s not a threat.” Urooj swiveled out of the room and banged his fist 
on the wall repeatedly. “According to Cicada we don’t have to do 
anything, but | think this Jeremy should be put out of his misery if we 
can’t find him.” 


Sherry nodded. “I'll go too this time...” She punched Urooj hard in 
the shoulder. “Urooj.” 


Urooj shook his head and turned around to look at her. 


“Let’s not kill each other when we come to, kay?” 


Sci-Fi descended from between the folds of flesh, entering the 
gallery with Deathbell notably absent. The tight, rubbery walls forced 
them out through a series of claustrophobic channels. 


“See, | just manifest in the middle of the room, | didn’t do the whole 
squeezing through the meat thing. What the fuck is wrong with you 
lady?” Deathbell said from somewhere in the flesh. 


“Focus...” said Sci-Fi, descending slowly and quietly through the 
maze with her foot thrusters. 


They wormed through the mass for what might have been minutes 
or hours, and, finally, Sci-Fi’s head emerged with a wet pop. A tall, 
skeletal figure with a long blonde mohawk sulked in the middle of 
the flesh globe. His protests echoed all around them. The paintings 
were all gone now, dissolved in black streaks all over the walls. 


“Okay, do you guys even know how long this took to do? This was 
for my fucking residency!” The figure shrieked, grasping its thin 
head. It began to dance around in a fit, its movements were 
cartoonish. 


“Is Jeremy still alive? Can he wake up?” said Sci-Fl. She aimed her 
palm in the man’s direction. 


“Okay, what are you the dream police?” 


Deathbell finally emerged from the ceiling, floating down in an 
undignified seesaw motion. 


“| guess so. Where’s your body, Jemal? You’re nowhere to be found 
topside.” 


The tall man ground his teeth, producing a noise like a freight train 


coming to a stop. He began to grow in size until he could just place 
his boney palms and the bottoms of his feet all around the globe. “I 
have no body! There is no ‘Jeremy’!” 


Deathbell looked up at the man without amusement. “Okay, explain 
now.” He looked at the digital clock on Sci-Fi’s back impatiently. 


“lam Oneiroi, | left my body long ago. Jeremy is my creation. He 
has no body... He is not human. He is not Oneiroi. He is biofact!” 


“Okay, you found a homeless guy and overpowered his psyche. 
Congratulations, really hard to do.” 


Jemal began running in place, causing the globe to turn like a giant 
hamster ball. The sounds of tendons ripping and fleshy balloons 
popping echoed behind the membrane wall. Sci-Fi engaged her foot 
thrusters and floated in place while Deathbell tumbled around lazily. 


“Fools!” He screamed. 


A giant metallic banging suddenly shook the arena, causing Jemal 
to fall on his rear and begin cartwheeling along the spinning meat 
globe. His sharp hands impaled the walls, causing him to be stuck in 
place. 


Police, open up. 
“Oh shit, Urooj, we gotta get outta here.” Sci-Fi gasped. 
“What have you idiots done? You called the cops? Dude!” 


Deathbell stammered. “Hey, is this Jeremy you found a homeless 
guy? Is that it? Did you just travel to his mind and inhabit it? 
Overpower his subconscious somehow? Help us help you. We can 
get you out of this situation. We just gotta know how you did it.” 


This is the last time I’m gonna ask. This is Marfa Sherrif. | get off 
work in one hour. 


“lam not Jemal! | am Skeletal Banana Ham, and Jeremy was 
created with my ten skeleton fingers!” 


“He is an artifact.” 

“He alive?” Deathbell asked. 

Alright, clear away from the door. Tried to be polite. 

The room began to rattle, the reality around them began to dissolve. 


“Fuck, it’s too late. We gotta get out! He’s waking up! Get the fuck 
out!” 


The sheriff arrived at the hospital in critical condition. He had been 
severely beaten by two druggies in the basement of the community 
center. That’s what the newspaper said, and for once the 
disinformation was mostly true. They left out Jeremy, and the bits 
about Sherry attempting to restrain a 240 sack of psychotic rage 
while in a state of stupor. 


Jeremy was a new man, in the truest sense. Skeletal Banana Ham 
was his preferred name, Ham for short. He would later be 
transferred to a very large room full of bodies. While he was 
sleeping he would be coated in a telekill shield, but for the majority 
of his life he would be wide awake. 


Sherry sat in a sterile room with Ham as Ham piloted Jeremy’s body. 
Urooj was off in the White Room stabilizing, and afterward he was 
likely to get the most severe ass-kicking of his life. Luckily, he’d 
forget the whole thing by tomorrow. 


Sherry put her finger to her temple while the man behind the glass 
interviewed them. 


“| will say nothing! Nothing of my purpose or my sinister plans!” said 
Ham. His excitement never seemed to end. 


“| believe the body is a reality construct, somehow this Oneiroi was 
capable of materializing a human body. I’ve never seen this before. 
That’s just a hunch though. | could be wrong. You guys could have 
already run a DNA test on it and it might just be a homeless guy. 
You don’t tell me anything, so | don’t know. Anything else Mr. 
Glass?” 


motion picture "The Matrix", exact disc format unknown. 
As well as possessing the high resistance of the first 
"Fine" output, the "Extras" section of this disc was found 
to contain twenty thousand times more material than 
present on the market product, of which SCP-914's 
version included (but was not limited to): all footage shot 
for behind-the-scenes featurettes; complete footage of 
every actor and actress auditions by film's directors, 
regardless of final employment; all raw unedited footage 
shot by main cameras for "The Matrix"; all 3D models 
and 2D assets used to create visual effects for "The 
Matrix"; every sound effect and musical cue in isolated 
audio files, including all unused material, with full 
Hollywood orchestration for concepts scrapped or 
forgotten by the film's composer, plus dozens of remixes 
for licensed tracks. 


Note: 08/10/09 - After multiple tests to ensure minimal 
levels of danger, disc was included in carefully- 
constructed anonymous package designated for delivery 
to household of oneL W . Due to last second 
discovery of sensitive production notes on disc that could 
jeopardize stability of film's parent production company, 
package was intercepted halfway to destination on 
08/12/09. 


Input: One (1) Blu-Ray drive readable copy of 1999 
motion picture "The Matrix", exact disc format unknown 
Setting: Fine 
Output: One (1) -readable physical storage 
medium. Object initially unreadable. However, after eight 
months of development, a prototype for a new kind of 
storage reader ( ) was built by Foundation 
researchers. Upon successful reading, researchers 
found object to contain a bewildering array of data. Dr. 
estimated that 99.999926% of content is entire raw, 
non-anomalous dating back to 
roughly 1877. The new unit of storage also features a 
30-hour-long documentary series ("A History Tinted 
Green") which explores how "The Matrix" fits into this 


“No,” said the doctor warmly. “I know you went through a lot of 
trouble with this one. You'll be commended.” 


“Wow thanks.” Sherry spoke under her breath. 


“Ah! The enigmatic SCP Foundation! So that is where | have been 
taken!” roared Ham, struggling against his restraints. “I will share 
this information with my brothers and there is no way you can stop 
me!” 


“Actually,” said the doctor, adjusting his glasses. “I’m interested in 
these Oneiroi. Are they all like this? Characters?” 


“Not that I’ve seen. They’re like people, | guess. They just tend to 
lean in different extremes. This guy is a cartoon. That’s just what he 
is, or... Maybe that’s how he wants to be. Maybe he just can’t help 
it, you know?” 


Ham looked at Sherry with some confusion. Glass smiled at him 
from behind the mirror. 


Oneirophrenia 


“We. Us, the rest of us. We stepped outside, into the night dream. 
Probably a bad idea in retrospect, but you understand. We didn’t 
understand, but you said it was like the moon landing, and we did all 
the training, right? We’re fuckin’ famous, yeah?” 


A gaunt man in plain clothes paced back and forth in a white 
soundproof room. He directed his story to a thick, clear plate of 
glass which separated him from the observation chamber. 


"Hey why can't we just set down at a table or somethin’, boss? This 


is kinda strange, ya know? It's like I'm right back in jail or somethin’. 


"It's a necessary precaution. People who have done what you've 
done have had delusional fits, they get angry, confused. It's hard to 
tell when that's going to happen, and, well, you've just returned. | 
really don't mean to be insulting." 


The man tilted his head at the doctor, showing the teeth in the 
corner of his mouth.