- still unresponsive to questioning or other stimuli. Subject was 
led quite easily when gloved personnel moved SCP-596. Subject 
unable to take food or water, so IV may be required. Will observe 
the effects of starvation first, however. 

03/10/ : 

Three weeks after arrivaland - shows no effects of starvation 
or dehydration. Subject has maintained motion and constant 
screaming without sleep for the entire period. The means by which 
SCP-596 sustains the subject may be of use, provided the other 
side effects can be eliminated. Otherwise suggest that SCP-596 be 
scheduled for destruction. 


hell do you want with them?” His eyes darted around the room. He 
clicked his teeth together. “Man, | should have known something like 
that was up with you, the way you showed up. Look, | can't have 
anything to do with that stuff, L.S's whole group is fucking crazy...” 
he trailed off. 


L.S. The name sounded familiar. She'd heard it before, rumors of an 
ever elusive figure within the Hand. She sighed. “Then why bother?” 
She turned to walk off. 


“Excuse me,” said a voice. Alison looked and saw a short, blonde 
woman approaching. “I heard you expressing you interest in the 
Hand?” 


“Can you help me get to them?” said Alison. 


“| can do better than that,” said the woman, smiling. “I'm a member. | 
can answer any questions you might have. But first, let's get a 
burger.” 


The burgers weren't terrible, for something cooked by an alien 
tentacle monster. Juicy and well-seasoned, with just the right 
amount of cheese. Alison ate it quickly, taking stock of the beings 
around her as she did. She'd seen a few non-humans in her travels: 
the waste spirit, aliens captured in a Foundation facility, a demon 
summoned when a spell backfired, but nothing like these, and never 
so many. There was something that looked like a miniature animate 
tree, a man with wings that shone in the light, a woman whose face 
always seemed to be hidden in shadow. 


There were talking animals, and a robot that looked like it had come 
out of an Asimov novel. Only a few meters from her, a mass of 
floating bubbles was talking to a woman with a birdcage on her head 
(complete with parakeet). From what she could tell, they were 
discussing the physics behind divine intervention. There were a few 
humans too, but not many. She wasn't sure what she had expected 
coming here, but it hadn't been this. 


The blonde woman walked up. She had a plate with three burgers, a 
pile of fries, and a large can of beer. At least, Alison was pretty sure 
it was beer. The label didn't seem to be in English, or any other 


human language she'd seen. 


“Alright,” said the woman. “First thing's first, my name's Meredith. 
You are?” 


“Alison,” she said. 


“Nice name,” said the woman, taking a large sip of beer. “So, Alison, 
what do you want with us? Not often someone just shows up on our 
doorstep like this.” 


Alison thought about this. She didn't know this woman. For all that 
she knew, Meredith was completely lying about being a member of 
the Hand. She could be a plant, she could be an angry spirit, she 
could be a buddy looking to avenge Diligem. “I'm looking for a friend. 
He vanished a few months ago, but before he did, he was talking 
about you guys, and coming here.” 


Meredith nodded. “And you think the Foundation might have 
something to do with him going missing, right?” She took another 
swig of beer, then crumpled up the can and placed it by her feet. 


“He thought they were watching him. He was... different, and said 
they would come after him for it. The night before he disappeared, 
he called me to say he needed to leave as soon as possible. That 
was the last | heard of him.” It wasn't a great lie, but it would work. 
Probably. At the least it would hold up until she decided if it was 
alright to tell the truth. 


Meredith nodded. “What was his name? We get a lot of people 
looking for refuge.” 


Alison bit her lip. “Jonathan Bell. He had black hair, green eyes, was 
about this tall,” she motioned with her hand, “and always looked real 
nervous.” 


“Il can't say I've seen him, sorry,” said Meredith. “Though there's 
dozens of groups of us around the Library. It's entirely possible he's 
with one of them.” She took a bite of cheeseburger and thought as 
she chewed. “But you're doing more than just looking for him.” 


Alison started. “What do you mean?” 


“If you were just looking for your friend, you wouldn't need 
information on the Foundation,” said Meredith, staring into Alison's 
eyes. There was something disconcerting about her glare. Alison 
fought back the urge to squirm. “You're planning something against 
them. Or at least, you want to.” 


“It's not like that,” said Alison. 


“Look,” said Meredith. “Why you're here is not my business. If you 
want it private, fine, it's private. But moving against the Foundation 
is different. They're dangerous, and that's not something you hear 
often around here. If you're in their way, you're finished. Three of my 
friends have been killed by them. Two more were captured, and 
there's absolutely nothing | could do about it. So, are you sure you're 
up to making an enemy of them?” 


Alison wasn't sure what to say at first. Of course she was. That's 
what she'd come all this way for. She just hadn't expected it to be 
put so bluntly. “l am.” 


Meredith smiled. It wasn't a cheerful expression. “We'll see.” 


After they ate, Meredith took Alison to another room, filled with beds. 
“There are things | have to take care of,” she said. “It should take a 
week or so. In the meantime, take a look around the place. Explore 
the Library, see what you find. Just be careful where you go.” 


That had been three days ago. Since then, Alison had spent most of 
her time wandering the stacks. She'd kept to herself, mostly, and the 
few times someone had tried to approach her she'd been able to 
brush them off. 


Searching the stacks had yielded little information about the Hand or 
Foundation. The organization behind the shelves, if there was one, 
was completely beyond her. Books were arranged with no regards 
to content, condition, author, publication date, even language. A 
copy of “The Complete Harper Lee” (over a thousand pages long 
and with text almost too small to read) would be right next to a user 
manual for a 1959 Austin Mini. It was maddening. 


After the first two days of searching, all she'd manage to scrounge 


up was a book of poetry, “Oh, That Spiteful Snake”. Calling what 
was inside “information” would have been like calling Goodnight 
Moon an epic. Questioning the people she lived with didn't give her 
much else. Most of them preferred to be left alone to their reading. 
The few who cared to answer did so in the vaguest possible terms. 
Still, it wasn't a total loss. Even if the books weren't what she was 
looking for, they were fascinating, and by the third day she had 
developed a hefty stack of reading material. 


It was the evening (according to her watch) of the third day. The last 
time she'd seen another person had been seven hours ago. The 
flow of people around the Library, she'd noticed, was similar to 
people grouping around a coastline. Most tended to stay near where 
resources were plentiful, by the common areas and living halls. Go 
even a few hundred meters deeper “inland”, and the amount of 
people quartered. Go a few hundred more, and you'd only find one 
or two people browsing each shelf. A kilometer or more, and you 
would be searching alone. She'd wandered at least five. 


Which was why she was so shocked to see someone else. She 
turned the corner to a shelf (REMUNERATION, read a small gold 
placard on the side. They all had signs like that. As far as she could 
tell, it was irrelevant to anything) and the woman was standing at the 
end, reading a book. She was short, and blonde, wearing a long 
black coat, and green fleece cap. Anything else was too far away to 
see. 


Curious as the sight was, Alison ignored her. She walked down the 

aisle, running a finger across spines, pulling out and flipping through 
any books that looked useful. None were. A few seemed interesting 
at least. She slipped those into her bag. 


Her finger stopped when she felt something warm. It was resting on 
the spine of a thin, white book with no text. As she pressed her 
finger to it, it pulsed, like a heartbeat, and began to warm. Curious. 
This was the first thing of its kind she'd seen here. She pulled it from 
the bookshelves, and it squirmed in her palm. At least, it felt like it 
did. The book itself didn't move. The cover felt like it was made of 
leather, and seemed heavier than it should have. In gold emboss, a 
complicated tetragram had been placed on the front cover. She 
flipped it open. 


Sand erupted from the pages, slamming into her stomach. The 
world spun around her as she was launched into the air, and came 
slamming back down into the ground. The book spun out of her 
hands, landing at the other ends of the shelves. A geyser of sand 
spewed from the pages, spreading across the floor. She lay ina 
small pile of the stuff. 


Her head was pounding. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead. 
She wiped it away and tried to stand, but her foot caught on 
something, and she fell back. Something tightened around her 
ankle. Sand covered her foot, creeping up across her leg. She tried 
to tear it away, but the sand clamped down. 


There was a hissing noise. The sand around her was beginning to 
vibrate. It rattled against her, grains leaping into the air, showering 
her. A trail of it was snaking across the floor, moving across the 
carpet from her to the book like a worm. The hissing grew louder. It 
almost sounded like a voice. 


Sand wrapped around her arms and other leg. The pile underneath 
her was shifting, spreading out around her. The edges rose in the 
corner of her vision. They seemed to tower over her, like a tidal 
wave of dust. The hissing was even louder now, a screaming in her 
ear. Piercing through it was a voice. | wondered how long it would 
be until you came. It sounded like someone speaking through an 
avalanche. How long you would be able to deny your sin. Does it 
pain you, Mikhal, to remember what you have done to me? | hope it 
did. 


The sand rushed down towards her. She sucked in a breath of air 
and began to count seconds. The wave crashed into her. Soon, she 
was cocooned in it. | see her face in my mind every day. The way it 
looked when she realized you had left, when she knew you had 
damned us. You couldn't even stay to see that. You wouldn't even 
look us in the face when you seal our fate. Coward. The sand was 
tightening around her. Already, she could feel herself beginning to 
give, to buckle under the pressure. It was hard to think of anything 
past the pain, but she forced herself to think, to Keep counting time. 


They took her from me. | never knew her final fate. | hope they killed 
her quickly. | don't know how long they kept me alive. | don't 


remember anything but the pain, and hoping that you would return. 
But you never did. 


Thirty seconds. She released her breath, bringing the words to her 
mind. Nothing happened. Her stomach sank. Had it failed? Had her 
timing been off? She'd only cast this spell a few times before. Had it- 


A wave of wind burst from her, ripping the sand away. She pushed 
herself to her feet as it began reforming. A whip of sand lashed at 

her, but she rolled out of the way. As she did, she saw the woman 
from before, standing at the end of the shelves, only a few meters 

from the book. Her arms were crossed, and she wasn't moving. 


“Hey!” yelled Alison, “Help! Close the damn book!” 


The woman didn't move. Another bludgeon of sand rushed at Alison. 
She ducked under and sprinted towards the book. The woman didn't 
move. 


Something slammed into Alison's foot, sending her tumbling to the 
ground. As soon as she hit the floor, sand wrapped around her arm. 
It threw her up, pinning her to the wall. More ropes of sand sprouted 
from the ground, moving towards her. The woman was nowhere to 
be seen. 


Alison tried to wrench her arm away, but the sand gripped it too 
tight. Another tendril collided with her leg. She kicked at it. Her feet 
hit the side of the sand and burst through. It reformed in seconds. 
Still, it was better than nothing. With her free hand, she groped at 
the shelves behind her. Her fingers wrapped around a thick volume, 
and she ripped it from the shelf, swinging it at the sand holding her 
arm. It sliced through and she fell, pinned to the shelf only by her 
foot, hanging upside down. 


She wound up and threw the book as hard as she could. It hurtled 
through the sand, and she crumpled to the ground. There was a 
crunch, and pain shot through her side, but she ignored it. Already, 
she could see the sand reforming and rushing towards her. 


Clutching her arm, she sprinted forward. Tendrils of sand batted at 
her legs, but she danced around them. She could hear the voice 


behind her, screaming. You dare? it cried. You dare try to flee? To 
run from this fate, when we could not? Turn around, coward, and 
face me with some dignity. She ignored it. Sand smacked into her 
back. She stumbled, but kept running. 


The book only a few meters from her. She dove, arm outstretched. 
As she did, the fountain of sand sprouting from it turned and 
slammed into her shoulder. She tumbled down. The stream of sand 
twisted in the air, rocketing towards her. She pushed herself 
forward, rolling under it. Reaching an arm out, she snatched the 
cover of the book and threw it shut. 


The voice stopped mid-sentence. The sand fell to floor. The Library 
became quiet. Panting, she rose to her feet. The world seemed to 
spinning around her. There was a buzzing noise in her ear, and her 
vision was blurry. Her knees buckled. She reached out and steadied 
herself against the shelf before she could fall any further. 


It was thirty minutes before she could stop shaking and begin 
walking back to the common areas. 


Meredith was sitting by her bed, reading a book. She looked up as 
Alison limped near. “Well,” she said, “don't you look like a woman 
who's just had an experience?” 


Alison grunted a reply and collapsed onto the bed. “What the hell 
was that?” she managed to say after several minutes. 


“What was what?” said Meredith. 
Alison sighed. “What do you want?” 


Meredith stood and stretched. “So, I've talked to some people. 
They'd be interested in meeting you.” 


Just like that, the pain disappeared. Alison sat up. “What? Who? 
When?” 


“Now, if you're up to it,” said Meredith. 


Alison nodded. 


“Follow me,” said Meredith. They began walking, out of the common 
area and into the Library. A few people stared at Alison, bruised and 
limping, but she ignored them. They wound through the shelves, 
moving back and forth between them until she'd lost any idea of 
where they were. Then they kept walking. Every time she tried to 
question where they were going, she was met with silence. 


It was 45 minutes before they stopped, in a shelf that look like every 
other (MENDACITY, read the plaque on the side). Meredith knelt 
down and rapped against the rug three times. She stood, took five 
steps back, and stomped twice. Then she took four steps to the left 
and stomped another six times. 


A hole appeared in the floor. It didn't slide open, or open like a door. 
It just appeared, as if it had always been there. Leaning against the 
side was a ladder. The floor below was made of wood, and well lit. 
Meredith began climbing down. Alison followed. 


They descended into a short corridor. At the end was a red door. 
Lining the roof were several fluorescent lights. On the sides were 
paintings depicting a variety of scenes, from what looked like the 
birth of Christ to a man floating in space.