“| find the idea, pseudo-scientific as it is, to fit neatly into what our 
current understanding of SCPs. Imagine a billion minds all 
broadcasting together at once, all sharing dreams and hopes and 
love and anger. Imagine if those minds had the slightest effects on 
the reality around them.” He smiled wryly. “We already know of a 
select, special few that can personally do so, but perhaps they have 
more access to this power than the rest of us.” He picked up his pen 


once more and began to draw, a small circle that was quickly filled 
with familiar landmasses. Another habit, the doodling. “All of that 
thought, turning and turning, focused so ferociously on survival that 
we become scared of our own shadows. The bogeymen under our 
bed. The creaks as the house settles. It would be less that the SCPs 
are a cause (as many of them like to claim,) but rather an effect. 
This could unify the differing religious anomalies as desperate minds 
scrabbling to describe a metaphysical entity for comfort. It also 
throws up even more interesting questions about those far more 
disturbing monsters and oddities we continue to make.” 


The Research Assistant closed his eyes and ground his palms 
against them, the fagade dropping. Lights were blossoming in his 
optic nerves like a fireworks display. “So you’re- You’re saying its all 
self inflicted?” The pain behind his eyes was worse. Drops of 
something were running down his cheeks. Tears? No. Too thick. 
Too viscous. 


Dr. Wakefield made a small note, watching the Research Assistant. 
“Your eyeballs are melting.” It was a strange sentence to hear. It 
must have been even stranger to say but there was no denying it. A 
sticky, tarry substance hit his own lip and the taste of it was 
comparable to a kick in the teeth. 


“It was always puzzling to my colleagues and myself about where 
you actually came from. It was a small thing to notice at first 
because the team’s resources had been stretched so thin. Why 
would we not want, nay deserve an extra pair of hands? But you 
were too good at your job and not perfect enough, you have to 
understand.” Wakefield continued to talk. He hadn’t moved to alert 
medical staff yet, called for help. For this the Assistant hated him. 
“No? Am | being unclear? Well, we never even gave you a name. 
How can a team of scientists dream up a person and fail to name 
him, | ask you?” 


“|. | don’t.” The fluid was getting into his nose. No, it was his nose, 
his nose was melting. His tongue felt swollen. The thick, black, foul 
tasting mess was dripping from the roof of his mouth and flooding 
his sinuses. It splattered on the table in front of them when he tried 
to talk. “I don’t know.” 


“You have a mild memetic effect, | believe. Why should we question 
the helpful young man with an unassuming demeanour? The weight 
of evidence rests on us to make you seem strange and out of place, 
not the other way around, surely? | took an interest when your mood 
began to drop. I’ve often been told | get far too interested in the well 
being of my staff, but you were a promising young man that would 
have had quite the future in the Foundation. If you had ever existed, 
of course.” 


His teeth were melting. They were running out onto his plate as the 
illusion of life was politely undone before his eyes. The fork in his 
hand clattered to the floor as the Research Assistant groaned 
through lungs rapidly turning into slush. 


“| am very sorry. You mined us too well for an identity. We expected 
you to break under the pressure, to feel the toll an older man feels." 
There was the sound of actual regret in his voice. The Assistant 
without a name hated everything about that voice. "| suspected 
something like this would happen when it was brought to your 
attention. The more you come to understand your own condition the 
less you can maintain it, perhaps? However | have a feeling that 
unless someone actively holds belief in you, you'll cease to exist. 
The other members of the lab volunteered for Class-B Amnesiacs 
and well, | drew the short straw and had to disbelieve. It's much 
easier without your facial features." 


The thing that had once been a human that had once been an 
Assistant in Research could no longer support its head very well. It 
could not see. Its skin was peeling away in great valleys and 
chasms. "| have to ask, before you cease to be... A simple nod or 
shake of the head will suffice. But when we blink, when we close our 
eyes, do you exist?" 


The Assistant tried to stand so he could get help. The bones in his 
legs, his hips and his back were gone. His arms wetly snapped in 
half, his torso landing like a overturned oil barrel on the cafeteria 
table. He retched pathetically, choking in his own gore while begging 
for some sort of life. Before he returned back to being nothing (oh 
god the nothing oh god not the nothing again it was coming for him it 
was going to be him he was going to be it oh god oh god oh god) he 
only had one true regret. 


He'd never get to be a part of the Peer Review for Dr. Wakefield’s 
paper. 


Take On Me 


He was certain of one thing. There was going to be hell to pay. After 
what he'd done, there could be no other result. 


Dr. Christian Morse shifted in his seat uncomfortably as several men 
and women filed in and sat in the chairs opposite him. Each of them 
sat down and cast what seemed like accusatory glances in his 
direction. "Stay calm," he chanted to himself, grasping the armrests 
with force. 


"You should relax Dr. Morse," the man seated directly across from 
him said, in a surprisingly soft voice, "No decisions have been made 
on the appropriateness of a disciplinary hearing." The man was 
lying. Or being willfully ignorant. 


No one, not a site director, and certainly not a project director like 
himself could get away with an unauthorized decommission. He was 
going to be crucified, the only thing his bosses needed to figure out 
were if he'd get out of this with a decent memory, job, or pension. 


"Of course," he said, willing himself to relax the death grip he'd 
inflicted on the armrest, "But if | may ask, what is the point of this 
inquest then?" 


"Consider this a debriefing. You successfully decommissioned 
SCP-1548. We need to know how, why, and what happened." 


"Where should | start?" He had asked the room, though the man in 
the middle answered for everyone. 


"Wherever you want." 


"Alright. | guess | can start with my motivations. | started working 
with SCP-1548 in 1995." 


December 23rd, 1995: 


Dr. Christian Morse looked up at the security guard, who looked 
unusually cheerful. The guard carefully looked over the credentials, 
checking them against his books. 


"This says you're a new hire?" 
"Yes sir," Morse said, still slightly nervous. 


"No need to call me sir. Your credentials check out. You should be 
looking for Building 12. Take the first left there, then take the next 
two rights. You'll see the building number out front." The guard 
handed Morse his security credentials back and waved him on, 
before heading back into his guard post. 


"Thank you, sir," Morse called after the guard as he pulled off. 


Dr. Morse drove ahead a bit, noting the somewhat sterile look of the 
concrete and steel buildings. He followed the guard's directions and 
found himself outside Building 12. A large placard lined the wall in 
front of one of the parking spaces, labeled "Christian Morse". 


Morse pulled his car in and turned off the engine. He sat there fora 
moment, glad that he'd showed up early enough to take this in. 
Inside those doors lay a future he couldn't quite imagine, but he was 
trying anyway. 


He'd had to tell his roommate that this was a government job as part 
of his cover, but the government shutdown had her incredulous. She 
couldn't believe his luck, but since she'd been furloughed, they were 
both happy to have another steady paycheck coming in. 


When he'd left that morning she was slouching around the 
apartment in her pajamas while eating cereal and blasting Hungry 
Like a Wolf over the stereo. Of course she was beautiful in anything, 
but he'd never been able to say that. 


Maybe, he thought, having a job this important would be good for his 
self confidence. They'd recruited him before he had even finished 
college, and they wanted him specifically. Not his much smarter 
roommate, not his more creative brother. These people had sought 


him out and now he was here in the belly of the beast. 


If this place was the whale, and he was Jonah, then he could take 
solace in the fact that even today people know the man's name. 
Being swallowed whole is not always a terrible thing, he thought. 


He sighed once before opening the car door. He grabbed his packed 
lunch and headed inside Building 12. 


Now: 


"Perhaps | misspoke,” the man in front of him interrupted, "we've all 
read your personnel file. We're aware you spent 5 years working 
with 1548 before you moved onto your current project." 


"Right. Sorry. | should still explain what | found while working on the 
project." 


"That's fine." 


February 8th, 2001: 


"| can't believe you thought this would be a prestige posting. You 
went through all the same security checks | did, right?" his research 
partner Dr. Lewis Malcolm started laughing loudly. 


Morse turned slightly red. "Shut up. You know what it's like. I'd just 
finished my Astrophysics degree and the stupid fucks seemed like 
the men in black or something. | thought | was important," 


Dr. Malcolm's smile came back broadly, "Wow. Had you actually 
seen that movie?" 


"Nah, that was before it came out." 


"Fair enough." Malcolm copied over some more information from the 
terminal in front of him. "You hear they're making a sequel?" 


"| did. Thus confirming my belief that Hollywood is running out of 
original ideas." 


"Hey. That's not fair! Dungeons and Dragons was pretty good." 
"First of all that wasn't original. Second of all you are dead to me." 


"Fine. How is Leslie?" Malcolm looked at the terminal and copied 
more information to a piece of paper. 


"Better. The chemo seems to be helping,” Morse said, trailing off. 
"That's good man. She's gonna beat it again. Easy as pie." 


Morse didn't have a response to that. The last two years had been 
hell. He could've blamed the cancer, but he knew better. Morse 
wasn't a good boyfriend. He couldn't keep count of the number of 
doctor's appointments he'd had to miss due to his work. But the 
work was more important than anything he could ever do for her. 


Even the most beautiful girl in the world would be at the mercy of 
1548 if the thing decided it wasn't going to wait for 5000 years. So 
they kept monitoring. Malcolm would receive the coded messages 
and translate them. Morse would check the signal's blue shift to 
determine if the thing was accelerating further. Then he'd recheck it. 
And recheck it again. All day. 


He studied the numbers. Buried his head in his work. As the hateful 
star came closer and closer, the most beautiful girl in his world 
drifted further and further away. When she came home from the 
hospital last month, she decided to stay with her parents. Said she 
didn't think he'd mind. 


He did mind. But he was never good with his emotions. He kept it 
inside. She needed to spend her last weeks with the people who 
loved her and could show it. He kept his distance, half out of instinct, 
half out of fear of how he'd react if he had to see her in her final 
moments. He'd made another promise to come by this evening. 


He didn't feel like telling his friend. Malcolm's good mood was part of 
what kept him sane. There was no way that the truth wouldn't bring 
his friend down. There was no way that wouldn't make Malcolm look 
at Morse the way Morse looked at himself in the mirror. 


So instead of telling him what was going on, Morse rechecked the 


blueshift calculations. 


Now: 


"On February 8th 2001, the blueshift calculations changed. 1548 
began to accelerate. It should be noted that given the object's 
capacity for superluminal messaging, we have no reason to believe 
that the speed of light is any sort of barrier for this thing." 


"Your file says that after your findings you were transferred out of 
the 1548 project?" 


Morse nodded, "Yeah. | got kicked upstairs. On the one hand they 
agreed that the acceleration was a problem, but the vast majority of 
1548 staff were of the opinion that the star would adhere to normal 
physical laws. | disagreed, rather strongly." 


"That's how you came to be the project head of SCP-4531 ?" 


"Yes sir." 


August 4th, 2002: 
Morse raised his eyebrow, "Just check the numbers again." 


"| did," his research assistant protested, "I've found seven fake stars 
so far. We could turn off 4531, but then someone will notice. Five of 
them are possible supernova candidates, and we can manipulate 
the data to get rid of them that way over time. Two are yellow 
dwarves in the earliest part of their lives. Astronomers would figure 
that out. These seven are actually the only ones we can confirm 
anyway. There could be a lot more." 


"This doesn't make any sense. Why would the Babylonians create a 
fake star generator?" 


"Dr. Mekem doesn't think this is Babylonian. The carvings suggest 
that Babylonians definitely found this and then buried it, but the 
design doesn't seem like their work." 


"Alright. Tell her to keep working on it. I'll file the report." Morse 
looked back down at his desk, and the Research Assistant, at this 
point used to Morse's habits, left the room, shutting the door on his 
way out. 


Morse stopped, turned and pressed play on the stereo behind him. 
The tape was old and worn at this point, but he knew a Fleetwood 
Mac song when he heard it. Little Lies started playing and Morse's 
pen dropped to the table. 


He looked up, raised an eyebrow and hit the intercom button, 
"Frank, could you get the rest of the team together at 5 o'clock 
today? | have something to discuss with them." 


Now: 


The man at the center of the table raised his hand to stop Morse, 
"This was the point where you came up with the plan to 
decommission 1548?" 


"Yes sir." 


"What has the rest of my colleagues questioning your judgement 
here, is that you didn't tell anyone outside of your team, or even 
attempt to coordinate with the 1548 team." 


"That is not, strictly speaking, entirely true." 


March 13th, 2004: 


Morse stirred his drink absentmindedly. Leslie had recovered from 
both the cancer and him. After the break up Malcolm had invited him 
out for drinks. Though with how he'd left the 1548 team, he didn't 
feel like talking to his old research partner. 7 months later, he'd 
called Malcolm up and took him up on the offer. 


"Dude, congrats." a voice from behind Morse offered. Morse craned 
his neck and put his hand out to shake Malcolm's before he sat 
down. His old friend moved in for a hug instead, before sitting down. 


consistently maintain a cheerful attitude despite the situation, even 
when being dissected or otherwise injured. 


Several advertisements for SCP's currently in containment are 
present in the form of posters or souvenirs. SCP's depicted in these 
advertisements include, but are not limited to, [DATA EXPUNGED]. 
All SCP's depicted appear to be related to the individual or 
organisation known as 'Dr. Wondertainment'. This, together, with the 
name of the amusement park, suggests that it is the creation of this 
entity. 


Interview 949-1 -1 


Interviewer: D-94923 (Reading questions from Dr. __) 
Interviewee: Instance of SCP-949-1: 'Sammy the 
Salamander’ 


Notes: Interview took place during exploration of 
SCP-949-1 by D-94923. 


<Begin Interview> 

D-94923: Um, hello, SCP-949-1 - 
SCP-949-1: Hiya, | 

D-94923: Wha - how do you know my name? 
(SCP-949-1 appears uneasy at this point.)