A man walks slowly through a room, filled with steaming belts and 
pistons. A human eye rolls towards him as a face stretches across a 
belt, locked in a rictus of pain and agony. A human elbow rapidly 
pumps in a nearby machine, forcing an unidentifiable chunk of 
something in and out. A pair of empty eye sockets stare into him. 


He will never look away. 
Make it stop. 


A man sprints into a dead-end room, stopping to stare at the wall. 
He screams and turns, a cry of rage and confusion and hurt, only to 
see the door slam shut behind him. He will never leave. 


Until his flashlight dies. 


¢ An unidentified, indistinguishable feminine voice, most likely 
that of a young adult. Generally agreed to be urgent-sounding. 

* A variety of music played on an instrument that is most likely a 
highly modified piano. Similarities to human singing have been 
noted, but no conventional musical instruments fully account 
for these noises. 

¢ Rustling and scribbling noises, most likely of paper and the 
usage thereof. 


Periodically, SCP-928 will issue commands corresponding to 
movements in a game of Capablanca chess.! In most cases, there 
will be several weeks or months between commands, but intervals 
have ranged from three hours to eight years. Commands are not 
always issued in correspondence with formal chess notation, but are 
comprehensible. 


No link has been firmly established between the status of the match 
SCP-928 is playing and the vocalizations it makes. It is not currently 
believed to be speaking to Foundation personnel. Vocalizations 
deemed not notable are available in Document 928-6. No personal 
information about the entity or entities controlling SCP-928 has been 
noted. 


If ahuman subject comes within three meters of SCP-928, SCP-928 
will vanish and reappear adjacent to the subject several seconds 
later. However, if there is at least one additional human within three 
meters of the subject, SCP-928 will not exhibit this behavior. 
Approximately 65% of subjects exposed to this behavior have left 
Foundation custody through various means within four days of 
exposure, and none have been recovered.2 Of the 35% that remain 
in Foundation custody, none have died or experienced demotion of 
any sort. 


Though technically impossible to confirm, it is generally accepted 
that SCP-928's commands correspond to events that occur in the 
real world, due to the timing of moves made by SCP-928 and the 
placement of [REDACTED]. 


ACCESS SCP-928 SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTATION 


Security memetic: STOLEN AND HIDDEN. 


The pain. 


Deep within the rusted hulk, a woman screams. She has been 
screaming for seconds, for years. She does not know the difference. 
She only knows that she should never have entered this place of 
death and steel and meat. 


She will never correct her mistake. 
No escape. 


Aman stands atop a rusted deck, gaunt and pale from his days 
spent in the darkness, searching for an exit. A spotlight waves over 
him, a boat is sent, and a crew arrives to rescue him. The man, 
overjoyed, moves to jump. 


He does not hit the water. 
Stay with us. 


In the heart of the ship, a thousand voices scream in agony. All are 
lost, many for hundreds of years. Some for days. All are screaming 
the same soul-wrenching scream that only the dying know. 


And they will never stop. 
Team was lost after reporting entry to "central 


navigation." Rescue team lost after reporting the 
investigation of "screaming" in a cargo section. 


Tales S 


Sailing To Gallipoli 


His scarred chin had a single line of saliva running down it, clinging 
to the indented flesh, and | reached forward with my tissue to wipe it 
off. The scar ran from his right cheekbone downwards, just touching 
the corner of his mouth. He was wrapped in a red plaid blanket, 
asleep sitting up. He slept a lot, but at his age, it was normal. | could 
see the wrinkles on the skin around his eyes stretch and contract as 
he tried to squeeze them shut, even in his dreams. 


| work as a caretaker for those elderly that we have decided to keep 
around. Usually something unusual happened to them, or they were 
part of some event and have firsthand knowledge that we want to 
hold on to. Usually they need to stay near whatever caused it, for 
the purpose of research. | live at research site 21. We deal in 
containment of the ones who don't need to. It's pleasant. It has to 
be. 


| was sent here after | got on someone's nerves. Who doesn't 
matter. There's a lot of land between us now, and an ocean. | did 
the same thing there. People willing to do this job are limited in 
number. 


He woke with a start when the tissue touched him, eyes wide in an 
instant. He tried to strike out with his fist, but lacked the strength, 
and was caught by the blanket. I'm used to that by now. 


"Oh... I'm sorry." he said, and he meant it."| was... having a bad 
dream." 


| served him extra soup and soft bread for dinner, because he had 
slept through lunch. It was getting worse. His body had decided that 
a century was enough, and that isn't something we can help with. 
The doctors had said six months to a year. We haven't told him that 
yet, and probably never will. 


| turned on the radio, and the Beatles came on. That's a luxury | get 


when I'm helping him. He is very hard of hearing, nearly deaf, so | 
can listen to what | want. 


He ate quietly, lost in thought, until he finished. As | moved to take 
away the dishes, he at last spoke. "You remind me of..." he said, 
pausing with what sounded like confusion towards the end."Of..." he 
repeated, and after a second's pause, let out a breath that wheezed 
like wind in the sails of an old wooden boat. "Of my nurse. Her 
name... | can't remember her name. She was... pretty. She looked 
like you. She..." 


He seemed to be searching for something- her name, perhaps. 
Perhaps not. | turned down the music to listen. That's part of the job, 
listening. Many of the old ones like it, like to feel noticed, especially 
when so may have spent so long here. They always seem to talk 
about their families, their childhoods- never about the reasons that 
they're here. 


"It was on my second day, I, I... | was hit by a shell. Shrapnel, | 
mean. In the leg, just a cut. But it wasn't healing right. It wasn't... | 
was never in the front lines, | was meant to look ahead for places we 
could use. Places we could defend near the beach." 


He seemed focused for the first time | could remember, staring 
straight at me with steel eyes and that glaring scar. He was not 
telling me anything | did not already know, and he knew it. He knew 
that | knew why the cut wouldn't heal, and what that meant. 


"They... the Turks had us pinned. They were tossing bombs and 
bullets at anyone who got close, and no one knew what to do but 
keep throwing ourselves back in and hope. Cally and Jenkers... they 
were the boys I'd come with. We were in the 6th Dublins. They got 
put in the trenches then they got put on top afterward. | didn't find 
out 'till later, of course." 


We hadn't taken sides in that battle. There was something we had to 
keep them away from. It was a chaotic time for everyone, I've 
learned. The reins had slipped out of our hands, and the idiots once 
off their leashes were much harder to steer. So, they went for 
Gaillipoli. They went because it would make a clear route to Russia, 
and the Turks who owned the peninsula rallied to keep it. We were 


caught in the middle, trying to keep anyone from finding us in our 
underground bunker, there underneath a rock that they called the 
"Sphinx." It was a biohazard containment site. 


"| only had to spend one day there, before that little cut got so bad 
that they pulled me back out. | was lucky, of course. We weren't 
near the heavy fighting. That's when | met the nurse. She really did 
look just like you." 


We didn't have much to work with. HQ was trying to get through, but 
it was a war zone. What were we supposed to do? We had a few 
guns and bombs we'd gotten from an agent with the Turks. Our 
orders were to keep ourselves hidden at all costs. Things were crazy 
back then. We'd lost two of our best researchers when they defected 
to Germany, and when the gas started spraying out in panicked 
clouds over the trenches, it was all we could do to keep it explained. 
One small site out of many, we were. 


"She seemed to know what was happening. At least, she seemed... 
confident. Took off my leg at the knee, opened up the bottom half 
and took something out, something that looked like a mouse with fur 
made of fucking veins, veins and little squirming things with 
fishhooks and, and she stabbed me with something when | tried to 
scream, and... and... and then | woke up." 


He paused, and then seemed to relax, eyes unfocused. | took his 
bowl. 


"Bad dream," | said. 
"Yeah," he said. 


What was | supposed to do? Back there, with shells falling like glass 
and nails every day and people dying at your doorstep because 
that's what you had to do...no matter what, that was what you had to 
do... 


All we had was a little food and a couple guns and a couple shells 
and one Petri dish, and when it broke it changed things in us so 
what am | supposed to do? The others didn't live like | did, like | 
keep doing. | knew that | couldn't leave him, not with that thing 


inside, and HQ still couldn't get through with pickup, and he 
couldn't... | couldn't let him remember either because that might give 
us away. When they got to us two days later, he was so fucked up in 
the head that he couldn't remember who he was because that's 
what | had to do, and that scar, and... and no matter what... 


After HQ finally got itself picked up and decided who should win and 
what should happen to the assholes who tried to leave us, they tried 
to fix him up, but | had done too much. He didn't know what was real 
and what wasn't, and he doesn't, and | do, and | can't tell him 
because he already knows even if he... 


No matter what. 
Six months to a year. 


Six months to a year. 


Salt the Slug, Sheepdog 


SITE-12 DEEP STORAGE PROTOCOL 
Removing Items from Storage 


@ Items are to be removed only with plurality consent of 
the Overseer Council. 

@ Items are to be removed only under the supervision 
of a containment specialist. 

@ Items are to be removed only after screening by the 
supervising specialist. 

@ Items are never to be removed during ongoing 
emergency conditions. 


Dhole stood in a vault buried deep in the bowels of the world. There 
were countless more down there, all sunk under what must have 
been leagues of earth and stone, all locked away behind massive 
metal shutters. The Overseer only cared about this one though, and 
the towering wall of safes contained within. Something faint fouled 
the air around them, and the yellow lights overhead flickered 
intermittently. 


"It's been a long time since I've been down here," said Overseer-6 
as she entered numbers into a keypad on the wall. "I got 
complacent. Built myself up, built us all up, and then | let it all get 
torn down." She laughed loudly, then coughed louder still. Dnole had 
only seen her in person a few times before, but this frailty was 
something new. Her body trembled, her dark skin lacked luster, and 
her breaths rasped. If she died, would their contract be voided? It 
was hard to say. 


One of the many doors along the wall beeped and opened with a 
long, slow hiss. The tiny chamber behind it held only one thing: a 
clear cylinder full of something dark and squirming. It was warm in 
Dhole's hands as she lifted it out of a metal cradle. 


"You've served me well, these few years," said the Overseer. She 
pulled rings from her fingers as she spoke, alternating from brass to 
silver. "You and Egret." 


"Save the scraps for your dog. They taste empty to me." 


The Overseer grabbed Dhole's free hand and pushed the rings into 
it. They were heavy and cold. "I'll be locked in a cell soon. 
Somewhere secret and safe. And dark, certainly dark." The 
Overseer's hand was trembling as she pulled it away. 


Dhole shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the canister in the crook of 
one arm. "Speak your will, then.” 


"Tend to that," she said, gesturing to the tube and its black contents. 
"Find me once it's grown. Bring it to me. Bring me my rings. I'm 
trusting you with this, Dhole. Don't fail me." 


Such a foolish statement deserved a reply with teeth. Something 
about how such trust was misplaced, or how the houndmaster 
should have made a leash if she expected to be followed after. The 
world around Dhole vanished as she struggled to form cutting 
words, color and light sliding away from her, and moments later she 
found herself standing in the middle of a junkyard. A full moon shone 
over stacks of butchered cars, and beasts howled in the distance. 


For the first time in years, Dhole was well and truly alone. 


She sat on the rusted hood of a car for a long time. It might have 
been a day, or two, or longer. She ate the emergency rations in her 
bag, drank bottled water, and stared at the canister perched on her 
lap. The darkness inside was contiguous and flowing, like a worm 
twisting inward on itself. It did not speak to her, did not demand of 
her, but was insistent all the same. It would grow. The sun passed 
from one horizon to another. It would grow. Clouds filled the sky, 
disgorged rain, and passed again. It would grow. It would grow. 


Yes, it would grow, but Dhole couldn't sit around waiting. She had 
obligations now, as the contract she signed with the Overseer would 
attest. The only question was how to go about finding her. Egret 
would have already formed a vile plot, but it quickly became 


apparent that the Overseer's hound would not be coming. Dhole 
would not mourn the woman. Dogs deserve dogs' deaths. Following 
after her had become customary though, and the world around her 
remained alien. That she was so hesitant to act on her own was not 
a pleasing realization. It could only be so long before her nature 
matched her canine mask, and her death would shift in kind. 


Dhole rolled the canister back and forth across her lap as the sun 
sank again. She couldn't stay there, but couldn't decide what she 
should do instead. Finally mourn fallen friends, maybe. She could 
spend the rest of her life doing that, with who had been lost. Find the 
money needed to finish her mission, maybe. Except she wasn't sure 
she could still wring silver from stone. It had a long time since she 
last wore a sheep's face. 


All that, and her strongest obligation was still to visit her family. To 
show them that she persisted, in one form or another. It was not an 
obligation she relished. All the same, she had other business to 
complete there, and could no longer excuse herself from it with the 
Ongoing engagement of the Overseer's dirty work. Dhole carefully 
stowed the canister of night in her satchel, alongside the remains of 
her meals, her old mask, and Egret's only gift to her. If she had 
endured the last few years, she could endure this. 


The trip home was not a pleasant one. Spanning the gap felt like 
years of life compressed into a single moment of potent clarity, but 
one without meaning. It was to be on the cusp of realization, to 
grasp at the flowing strands of thought, only to fill her hands with 
dirt. Going the other way had been easier, when it was a shared 
discomfort. 


The sky over Dhole's homeland was high and gray, unaware or 
uncaring of anything that happened below. The Howling Pillar rose 
in the far distance, her home located somewhere in its shadow. Her 
boots left deep prints in the path's dust, but it was not hard to follow. 
They all led to the same place in the end, no matter how much it had 
been reclaimed by nature, or how many guideposts were missing.