Procedure: D-6272, who suffers from entomophobia, 
was placed in a test chamber containing an activated 
SCP-997 and a terrarium containing a number of 
cockroaches. Subject reported that the terrarium was 
empty, and was then instructed to place his arm in it. 
Subject refused. When asked the reason for his refusal, 
D-6272 was unable to provide a coherent response, 
though he rejected the suggestion that it was because 
the terrarium contained insects. After being threatened 
with termination, D-6272 with evident trepidation placed 
his arm in the terrarium, only to immediately jerk it out as 
video footage confirmed cockroaches crawled onto it. 
Subject's distress continued to mount, despite reporting 
seeing and feeling nothing on his arm, and he was again 
unable to explain the reasons for his behavior. Subject 
removed from test chamber and cockroaches dislodged 
from arm. SCP-997 deactivated. 


Experiment 997-005: 

Date: / / 

Subject: D-class personnel D-75009 

Researcher: Dr. Das 

Procedure: D-75009 was placed in a test chamber 
containing an activated SCP-997 and a one-page paper 
about papayas, with a large portion of the text obscured 
by a high-quality picture of a rat. D-75009 was asked to 


once been a bushy mustache. He was layered in coats and blankets 
to fight off the chill. The blanket across his lap was worn and faded, 
but at one point would have held a beautiful, intricate pattern. The 
man's half-blind eyes stared off into the distance, focused on things 
that were not there. 


He had not spoken the entire time Vladislav had been standing 
there. Occasionally, he would mouth silent words or lick his lips, and 
that was all. 


The crows seemed to have finished collecting the bodies and debris. 
Several of them had begun drawing circles in the mud around the 
battlefield, while others wheeled out barrels of powders and liquids 
and began to spread them in neat symbols. Vladislav had seen this 
sort of thing twice before: once as a child, and once as they taught 
him to kill men with a bit of lead. He had learned then that these 
events were of the kind that, even if one did see it, it was a good 
thing to say that you had not seen it, and a better thing to know that 
you did not see it. 


Vladislav continued to not see the crows setting up their circles and 
stakes and symbols in the mud for several cold, rain-drizzled 
minutes. 


“Ugly, isn’t it?” A cold, quiet voice croaked in accented Russian. 
Vladislav looked to the man in the wheelchair to see him licking his 
lips again. His imagination then, or perhaps it was something that he 
most certainly did not hear. 


No, it was the old man who had spoken. It would be foolish to think 
otherwise. 


“It is what it is,” Vladislav said back to the old man, continuing to not 
see the crows scrawling and chanting on the field. 


“It’s very ugly.” 
“Indeed.” 
Drizzle. Drizzle. Drizzle. 


“In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree...” 


What was this gibberish? He was mad, then. Why bring an old 
madman to this forsaken stretch of forest? 


“There was never a dome,” the old man continued. “Twice | went to 
Xanadu, and | never saw the dome. The Khans never took Xanadu. 
They broke upon its mountain walls over and over again, and they 
never entered.” 


Vladislav didn’t respond. Let the madman ramble. He was too busy 
not watching the horrible images shimmering across the mortar- 
pocked mud and splintered trees. 


“The men of Xanadu thought that they would bring peace to the 
world, that all the hordes of the world would break upon their walls 
until no man had strength for war and then all would share in their 
glory. Their peace died with them, slowly, by disease and 
inbreeding. But the idea remained: For peace, men must die.” 


Vladislav still listened, but the words fell into uncaring ears. A 
wonderful story, old man. You were only late by twenty years and a 
world war for this soldier. 


The old man continued. 


“Certain legions of the Romans would bring with them great beasts, 
who consumed the corpses of the dead and turned them into food 
and water for the troops. In China, | saw a drug that would cause a 
man’s innards to combust when blood was drawn, spraying acid 
strong enough to melt flesh. The peoples near the South Pole fight 
wars with women who, each time they are unchained, will twist all 
creation around them into monsters by their very presence. 


“In the jungles of Africa, | once met a tribe who worshiped a giant 
spider. On the night of the full moon they would feed one of their 
own to it. They stayed where they were, and kept feeding it, every 
full moon, despite the fact that the spider was so fat from its meals 
that it could not leave its pit. 


“And here, I’ve seen dead men shuffling down in the blood and mud 
of the trenches as they rot without death, and | watch as we pick up 
what remains of Durand’s peace and plan for the next war. It’s ugly, 


and it never changes.” 

The old man coughed. It was a horrible, phlegmy noise. 
“At the very least | will not live until the next.” 

He was quiet. 

Drizzle. Drizzle. Drizzle. 


Vladislav went back to not watching the nebulous visions of 
unfolding unfathomable cosmos and impossibilities and the margins 
of worlds worn thin. He didn’t feel like he had anything to say to the 
mad old man. 


He looked to his left to see the old man reach a trembling skeletal 
hand for a little bell hanging on the arm of his wheelchair. 


Ding-a-ling 


The bell hung in the air a moment, out of place, before Vladislav 
heard footsteps. A man rounded the corner and entered the pavilion. 
He was wearing a crow’s uniform, though he held his mask under 
his arm, revealing the face of a man about forty years old, with a 
little grey around the temples and a pencil-thin mustache. His 
posture was stiff, professional, that of a man ready to serve. 


“I’ve seen enough, Deeds. Take me somewhere warm, please. It’s 
dreadfully cold." 


“Of course, sir.” 


Oceanus, Father to All 


The date is June 15th, 2030, and | am still a good man. 


I'm 31 years old. I've been a Foundation employee for thirteen of 
those. I'd like to make it at least to 36 years old. The first half of my 
life spent being a kid, blissfully ignorant of the reality of our world, 
and the second half spent voluntarily witnessing that reality. It's a 
fair balance. 


That's what | explain to Joyce Peterson, Wilmington resident and 
single mother of three, to distract her from the pain in her spine as | 
pierce the space between two vertebrae with the business end of a 
Mk. IV modified Schulman device. She squeezes my hand, 
wincing and nodding. | still haven't even heard her speak, other than 
the garbled, panicked rambling on the phone. She'd lost a significant 
chunk of basic functions before she realized what was happening; 
notably, how to drive a car, how to chew and swallow, and the fact 
that the metal rack in an oven set to 425 degrees Fahrenheit 
shouldn't be grabbed without a mitt. The civilian paramedics took 
care of that part, thankfully, but they can't fix her memory. 


I'm starting to worry that maybe we can't, either. 


She's the seventeenth civilian I've mnesticized today. Our help 
number has five different lines now. Site-42's statisticians claim that 
the number of callers has doubled in the past two weeks. One of 
them offered to show me the graph, but | declined. | was certain I'd 
just be looking at an exponential curve, and | don't need to reinforce 
what | already know. Not about this, and not at this point. Joyce is 
yet another entry in a list of thousands of names, soon to be buried 
under hundreds more as Site-42 scrambles to help Wilmington 
remember everything 3848 makes them forget. 


The youngest of her boys sticks his head out of the kitchen, wiry 
brown curls hanging in front of his tear-soaked face. He asks me if 
his mom is going to be okay, and | tell him of course she is. He tells 


me that he wants to be like me when he grows up, and | tell him that 
he's very brave. | don't tell him that I'm worried he'll never have a 
chance. Out of gratitude, his mom offers for me to stay and eat 
dinner with them. | tell her that | have work to do, but | appreciate 
the offer; | know that | mean it, because the fact that she offered 
lingers with me for the rest of the day. 


The date is June 16th, 2030, and | am still a good man. 


I'm on-call today: technically off the schedule, but out wearing the 
uniform and driving the car regardless. | manage to make the short 
drive from my townhouse to the grocery store without issue. In the 
parking lot, | step out of my car and am immediately rushed by an 
older man with bloodshot eyes, who grabs hold of me by my vest 
straps and begs me to take him with me. He sobs, his cries drawing 
attention as | walk toward the store, telling me that he's forgotten 
where he lives and wouldn't want to go back anyway if humanity's 
protectors would please just keep him locked away deep under the 
surface of the world that's causing him so much pain. The few 
people in the lot are staring like vultures. 


I'm not allowed to take people anywhere, | inform him, but if he 
needs help with his memories, we're doing our best to provide that 
service. | offer him a card, and he snatches it and hobbles away 
down a near-empty aisle, wiping his face. | walk to the next aisle; 
also barely anything left on the shelves. The same goes for the one 
after that, and the one after that. | settle for a case of beer — one of 
the least popular brands, as the alcohol section is also almost empty 
— and walk back to the front of the store. The cashier doesn't make 
eye contact with me, and the civilian police guarding the door watch 
me the whole way as | walk out of the store and get back in my 
vehicle. 


Date: June 17 2030 12:34 


From: Eric Radford (of.pcs.nimda| 
drofdare#of.pcs.nimda|drofdare) 


To: Mallory Wickerford (of.pcs.ces| 
drofrekciwm#of.pcs.ces|drofrekciwm) 


Message Subject: This is not effective. 
Attachments: none 

Message Body: 

Mallory, 


| have not been able to reach the regional director, the 
Ethics Committee, or even the personnel requisitions 
department in five weeks. To say that something is 
seriously wrong is an understatement. We watched this 
develop, and it is my job to face the music. 3848's effects 
on Wilmington are uncontainable. Lethe Events no 
longer follow a recognizable pattern, and as of early this 
year, appear to affect individual people and specific 
concepts rather than entire areas and the same concept. 
We have no way to track or predict this type of activity, 
and 3848's document hasn't even been updated for it, as 
| have no way of knowing if the rest of the world is 
experiencing the same effects or if this is unique to our 
area. 


We cannot support the Wilmington population — let 
alone the human population — with one-on-one, small- 
scale treatment. We do not have enough field agents 
and we do not have enough mnestic devices. Agent 
Trauss alone had 65 hours on the clock this week, and 
he is only one of five people in the job position. If your 
research department does not deliver a wide-scale 
application method, it is unlikely we will succeed at all. 


This is my fourth attempt at communicating with you this 
week. | have checked in-person at your office twice and 
have not found you. Please respond immediately. | will 
help you and your team however | can. 


With utmost urgency, 


Eric Radford 
Director of Site-42 


Date: June 17 2030 12:36 


From: Internal Autoreply (of.pcs.krowten| 
ylperotua#of.pcs.krowten|ylperotua) 


To: Eric Radford (of.pcs.nimda|drofdare#of.pcs.nimda| 
drofdare) 


Message Subject: Failed Delivery 
Attachments: none 
Message Body: 


Your message to the following recipient(s) could not be 
delivered: 
Mallory Wickerford (of.pcs.ces/drofrekciwm#of.pcs.ces/ 
drofrekciwm) 


Reason(s): 
gateway timeout error 
Servers are not responding. Please try again in one (1) 
hour while network maintenance is performed. 


This is an automated message. Do not reply. 


The date is June 17th, 2030, and | am still a good man. 


Today is Cleo Palazzi's 21st birthday. She tries to make small talk 
with me, and we discover that we went to the same high school, 
albeit ten years apart. 


She awoke this morning with a screaming pain behind her eyes; 
there was a white light, she said, and then burning in her skull. She 
called to tell us that her brain felt as though it was being split open, 
and that she had a hole in the head. It was a recognizable pattern — 
| had the augenlappen recall script saved as one of the first presets 
on the Schulman device due to how common a case this is — but 
Cleo is dead in my arms only minutes into the procedure. | wait for 
the sheriff and coroner to arrive before | let go of her body, and as | 
drive away, I'm bothered by the potential chance that the spinal tap 


is what killed her. 


| relay my concerns to the dispatcher. He tells me that there's 
nothing | could have done. | drive back across town, past my house, 
and into Site-42's gate to spend the night in my office, finding some 
semblance of comfort in knowing that I'm behind three perimeter 
fences and a few dozen meters of concrete and earth when | close 
my eyes. 


The date is June 18th, 2030, and | am still a good man. 


At 9:30 in the morning, a timid, young researcher named Thomas is 
my first subject. 


"| hope I'm in the right office. They told me you could do it." He 
lingers in the doorway, lanky fingers gripping the handle for several 
seconds after he's turned it. "| work just down the hall. If you need 
me to go to someone else, | can." 


| motion him in, trying to brush the night's wrinkles out of my shirt. 
"You're fine. You need the compliance script, | take it?" 


He nods and bites his lip as he steps inside. "It's mandatory now, 
right?" 


"Yes, but you won't have a problem with it once it is in effect." 
He shudders. "I really wish it was called something else." 

"It's not the most marketable name. But it's safe." 

"Are you sure?" 

"I'm the first person they tested it on. Believe me, it's safe." 


| remember my hesitation when Wickerford showed me the first 
developed ED-K+ script on the first Foundation-approved 
programmable mnestic device; anything based on a Marshall, Carter 
and Dark design was not an object | wanted half-anomalously 
transferring information into my brain via my spinal fluid. | remember 
not being able to read and understand the code on the screen, and | 
remember how inexplicably violating it felt to have a synthetic 


thought pattern wedged into my core behavioral traits and made to 
look like it was natural. A Foundation researcher constructed what is 
now a permanent part of who | am, and | would be lying if | said that 
isn't disconcerting. 


But we need it. There's no question about that. | know for a fact that 
if | hadn't let Wickerford program unquestioning dedication to the 
Foundation into my brain, | would probably be dead or worse by this 
point. There are plenty of things the former me wouldn't have done 
which needed to happen nonetheless, and in hindsight, I'm glad the 
Foundation put me to better use that | would have. We adapt to what 
the universe throws at us; when the anomalous world fights dirty, the 
O5s and Ethics Committee typically aren't opposed to throwing 
some of that dirt right back. Not when it's in the interest of 
humanity's protection. If all of that means getting my hand in the 
mud every now and then, so be it. We can't afford to act otherwise. 


"The lead researcher in my lab said that there was supposed to be a 
bigger version of this. Something that did it to hundreds of people at 
once." The young man seats himself on the couch as | snap on latex 
gloves and change out the syringe bracket.