Cassy looked up at the corner of the page, then pulled a notepad of 
her own out of one of the pockets of her BDUs. She hastily wrote, 
then held out the pad towards him. He squinted and adjusted his 
glasses, struggling to make out the tiny lettering. 


You tell me. 


Of course. They didn't tell the skips anything. Why should she be 
any different? He scrawled again in the corner of the page. 


Look, I'm SCP-507. He paused a moment. Of course she knew that. 
It was printed several times across the front of his orange jumpsuit. / 
have no idea what's happening, but I'm getting out of here. 
Something is wrong. Do you want to come with me? 


She looked back up at the corner, then immediately nodded her 
head affirmatively. She wrote a quick note on her pad. 


Find Service Elevator B54! 


He nodded, then gingerly picked up the drawing pad and the pen. 
As he looked back up, a figure was before him. A person, impossibly 
pitch black, hovered in the air before him, thrown into stark relief 
against the white wall, as though he were a man-shaped hole. At 
first he appeared to be trembling, but in the next second he could tell 
that the man wasn't moving; everything around him was instead 
flickering and jumping. Terror shot up his spine, and without thought 
he ran back into the hallway, clutching the drawing pad to his chest. 


SCP-507 tore down the hallway, no regard now for his surroundings 
or what may be around the next corner. He looked desperately for 
the telltale hazard stripes denoting a service elevator, heaving for 
breath as he sprinted for all his worth. A set of double doors loomed 
at the end of the hall. He ran for them and hoped they weren't 
locked, lowering his shoulder and preparing to- 


A grassy field. Sunlight blinded him and the sudden feeling of the 
wind on his face made him stop in his tracks. He fumbled for the 


drawing pad, and his stomach dropped as he realized he wasn't 
holding it any more. Had he dropped it? Half-blind, he dropped to 
the ground, combing his fingers through cool grass, the appearance 
of an endless meadow slowly coming into view as his eyes adjusted. 
He spun in circles, manically pawing the ground to find what he had 
dropped. His hand touched a leg, and he froze. 


He looked up at Cassy, living and breathing in the flesh, just as he 
was. She was an incredible likeness of the drawing, still attired in 
security gear, her face a mask of shock, still processing their 
surroundings. She clapped her hands to his shoulders, helping him 
to his feet. She started to haltingly mouth words, tentative sounds of 
uncertainty coming forth as she tested her new environment. Her 
voice cracked as she spoke. 


"C-can...can you hear me?" 
SCP-507 stood dumbstruck, barely nodding his understanding. 


She looked around at the seemingly endless meadow expanse 
surrounding them, the grass rippling in the wind. 


"| can...hear my own voice. But | don't think anyone has ever heard 
me speak." 


Despite the mortal terror that had gripped him just moments before, 
SCP-507 smiled. "Lucky me." 


"What is this place? How is this possible?" 


He frowned, looking out at the distant skyline. "| have this thing 
where | randomly teleport to other dimensions and back. Scientific, | 
know. If I'm touching someone, they come with me. Something 
about being transported into, wherever this is, must have changed 
you somehow. Maybe you were just in a cross-dimensional, er, 
something the whole time." 


Cassy looked now to SCP-507. She studied his face, her hand 
reaching up to her own face, seemingly tracing her own features as 
her eyes took him in. "How long do you usually stay in these 
places?" 


"It changes. Hours sometimes. Days. There's no way to tell. They're 
usually a lot weirder than this place, though." 


"Can we...can we just stay here, for a few minutes? | want to just... 
be like this, here, for a moment." 


SCP-507 looked out over the unchanging landscape. "Yeah, yeah | 
think that's all right. We should get moving soon, though. | want to 
be way the hell out of Site-17 by the time we come back to reality. 
Whenever that is." 


Cassy nodded, and closed her eyes as she held her hands out to 
feel the wind breeze past them. She slowly turned in place, testing 
the strictures of this new, three dimensional existence. SCP-507 
tried not to stare, studiously looking out around his new travelling 
companion. But his eyes occasionally snapped to this incredible 
person, a sketch on a pad of paper not minutes beforehand, 
suddenly transformed. Or freed. 


She looked over her shoulder, back at him, catching his gaze. 
SCP-507 quickly averted his eyes, his cheeks suddenly flushing. 
"We, um, we should, uh, be getting-" 


A hint of a smile crossed her lips. "What's your name? | don't want to 
call you SCP-507." 


"It's, um, uh, well. It's, uh..." 
"You don't know your own name?" 


He cleared his throat, fidgeting awkwardly with his hands. "Well, 
yeah, but it's, um. It's kind of embarrassing." 


Cassy's smile broadened now. "I promise | won't laugh. Honest." 
He pushed up his glasses. "It's uh, John." 


Her hands flew up to her mouth, trying to cover the involuntary 
giggle that escaped her lips. 


"Hey, you promised,” John said, laughing as well. 


"I'm sorry, | just...what's so embarrassing about 'John'?" 


"It's just so boring, you know? Like there's a thousand other people 
named ‘John’ within a hundred feet of you, wherever you go." He put 
his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit. "And I've just, never really 
liked the idea of being boring.” 


Cassy laughed again. "I don't think being boring is a problem either 
of us needs to worry about." 


John smiled. "| guess not. We should probably get moving." 


"Right." Cassy began walking toward the setting sun, in what was 
presumably the easterly direction in this plane. John followed behind 
quickly. He tentatively touched her arm. 


"Oh, uh, there's one other thing. | have to be touching the person I'm 
with, or they, uh, don't come back when | do." John cleared his 
throat. "There was, uh. An accident, one time." 


Cassy stopped momentarily, and with a smile, took John's hand. His 
face went crimson. 


They walked ahead in a companionable silence, the fear 
momentarily pushed back, this place a respite from whatever was 
happening in Site-17. The sun touched the horizon, and shadows 
began to dance among the blades of grass, the wind starting to bite 
as it brushed their faces, just a little. The unchanging nature of the 
landscape seemed to make time flow differently, as though each 
step covered the same ground while twilight gradually spread over 
all of it. Their focus became covering distance, as much as possible, 
enough to hopefully place them anywhere but within the confines of 
Site-17 when they returned. 


When the sun had almost sank entirely, Cassy paused, still hand-in- 
hand with John. She turned to him. 


"I'll be like | always was when | return, won't |?" 


John mulled the question. His heart sank. "I'm not really sure. But it's 
always the same reality when | return. I'm guessing so." 


It was too dark for him to see her expression. A silence descended 
on them. Both of them remained still. 


"I'm...I'm going to really miss this. It's almost cruel, to get a taste of 
what it must be like to be normal, and then to have it taken away." 


John thought the situation over. He suddenly squeezed Cassy's 
hand. "What if | kept you with me? You know, maybe it's like this 
every time. | mean you being, um...you, | guess. It wouldn't be the 
same as being a full-time, um...human, but at least we could visit 
occasionally. If, you'd um, like that, | mean." 


Even in the encroaching darkness, he could see the flash of a smile. 
"You would do that for me?" 


"Well, yeah, of course! But, um, | have to warn you, it gets kind of 
uh, scary at times. Also really, really weird, too." 


Cassy embraced him, holding him close as though she'd been 
welcoming back a friend who had been gone for years. 


"So what else is new," she said, genuine warmth suffusing her 
voice. "Now, let's see if we can't put another few miles between us 
and it, hm?" 


With renewed energy, the two walked on, hand in hand. 
Night fell. 


In the deepening darkness, they walked more slowly, carefully 
picking their steps, avoiding unseen ruts in the ground or small 
mounds to trip them up. The wind had intensified, and now they 
walked more closely together, holding their arms close to 
themselves for warmth, suppressing the occasional shiver. 


As John picked his next step, he felt his foot bump into a hard 
barrier. A wall? He looked up. Only darkness, nothing resembling a 
structure. He felt out in front of his face, and his hand brushed the 
same invisible barrier. Except now it felt like it was pushing back. 
And in a few moments, he and Cassy felt themselves being pressed 
backward by an implacable, unseen force. And then he saw it. 


A clear, sharp outline of a man, so black that it was easily 
distinguished against the faint light of the rising moon. Panic gripped 
him, and taking Cassy's hand he spun around and started to run. In 
five steps, he slammed into another barrier, pushing back against 
him. The black figure was there, bits of grass and dirt floating away 
from it, as though they were underwater. Ripples pulsed through the 
detritus accumulating around the man-shaped hole in the night. 


"| had to search you out. You are outliers, passing between worlds. 
You were hazy in my sight. But not now." The figure's voice was 
deep, scratchy. Echoing unnaturally in the short space between it 
and them. It floated closer, the barrier in front of it pushing them 
back. "Your existence invites infinite suffering. Any pain you may 
feel now is nothing compared to what you bring with you." 


They spun back around to run in the other direction, only to be met 
by the same figure. Two of them now. The same voice spoke from 
their left, indicating a third. 


"You must atone. You will atone." 


The barrier was a circle now, pushing them in from all directions, 
more and more of the figures appearing around them, surrounding 
them. 


"Get us of out of here!" screamed Cassy. 
"| can't! | c-c-can't control it!" John yelled. 


The barrier pressed inexorably inward. It was beginning to crush 
them. 


"| Know you can, John! | know it!" Cassy held tight to him, her eyes 
wide in terror at the force that was about to kill them. 


"Shit, shit, I'm trying!" John tried desperately to push away the 
paralyzing fear and concentrate. He had tried to will himself on his 
travels, both away from reality and back to it. All he had to show for 
his efforts in the past was a headache. He tried to clear his mind and 
focus. 


Home. Home. Home. 


<Begin Log> 
LeChatlier: Hello down there? 


SCP-828: Angakkug’, are you here to 
consume my flesh and make my power yours? 
Do you speak for the Mother of the Sea come 
to collect her due? Am | to serve you? To offer 
my bones as your tupilaq? Tell me so that | 
may know and we may be without pretense. 


LeChatlier: What? No. | just wanted to talk to 
you in case your mother decided to cut things 
short. | want to know why you didn't take the 
child. 


SCP-828: This is a trick. 


LeChatlier: No, I'm being serious. | work for 
people who want to meet things like you. 


SCP-828: So you serve another master, then. 
What do they want with me? 


LeChatlier: Mostly to stare at you and ask you 
questions. Are you comfortable down there? 


SCP-828: [SCP-828 stares at LeChatlier 
incredulously] | will speak with your masters, 
Angakkuq. 


LeChatlier: Just thought I'd ask. 


<End Log> 


Closing Statement: SCP-828 remained 
unresponsive for the remainder of the voyage. 


Interviewed: SCP-828 


Interviewers: Agent Scout Fullbrush and Teriaq 
LeChatlier 


He struggled to breathe as air was forced from his lungs. 
Home. Home. Home. 


Cassy struggled in vain to move her arms, and was pressed further 
into him. He started to feel his joints creaking. 


Home. Home. Home. 


He was pressed so tightly he could no longer draw breath. He felt 
the veins start to bulge out in his neck. This was it, this was how it 
was going to- 


He was suddenly elsewhere. He fell to his knees and gasped for air, 
rolling to his side and looking for Cassy. She was nowhere to be 
seen. He reached to the pockets of his jumpsuit, and to his 
incredible relief felt the pad of drawing paper. He quickly pulled it 
out. 


Blank. 


His guts turned to ice, and he frantically looked about his new 
surroundings. He was in an old warehouse, from the looks of it. The 
dusty wooden floorboards creaked as he paced about quickly, taking 
the measure of the place and trying to work out where he should 
start looking. The building was dimly lit, the air still and close. In 
contrast to the cool breeze of the endless meadow, this place felt 
oppressively warm and stuffy. The air smelled of wood shavings and 
ink. 


Suddenly, a bare light bulb flickered on in front of him, illuminating a 
patch of wall. The walls appeared to be circular. Beneath the light 
bulb was a large canvas. Cassy's face looked back at him, the same 
clean, precise strokes of the unknown artist's hand, this time 
conveying frozen, mortal terror. 


The voice sounded from above him, unseen as he looked skyward. 


"SCP-085 was the result of an experiment conducted between 
SCP-067 and SCP-914. Both objects have been decommissioned." 


More light bulbs flickered on, one in sequence after another, 


traveling quickly around the circular room. Each one illuminated 
another canvas, each one the same frozen, terrified face. John was 
surrounded with the fear of his closest friend. 


"SCP-085 preferred to be called 'Cassy.' She was completely 
sentient." 


The walls lurched into motion, spinning around John as he stood 
rooted to the spot, helpless. Each canvas flashed by him, faster and 
faster, until his eyes could only make out one face, one Cassy. Her 
face started to move, and she mouthed something, words he could 
not understand, her speech rendered once more to silence. 


"SCP-085 demonstrated the ability to transfer from one sheet or 
image to another." 


The viewpoint of the canvas expanded, affording John a full view of 
Cassy, her arms and legs splayed out. Her fingers looked like they 
were starting to extend and stretch out. 


"SCP-085 can only exist in a degraded universal narrative." 


John gasped as Cassy's hands and arms distended unnaturally, her 
face now contorted in a scream. Her fingers seemed to unravel now, 
the clean black lines fraying and twitching, coming apart and flowing 
messily in the white spaces of the canvas. Her arms continued to 
unravel, as her legs started to distend as well. She was being taken 
apart. 


"Prior to today, SCP-085 was unaware of its status as a threat to 
any chance of survival of life in this universe. SCP-085 was made 
aware, and then unmade." 


John turned away from the horrifying sight before him, only to see 
the same sight reflected a dozen times all around him. Cassy's body 
was now a mad tangle of twisted, writhing lines slashed across each 
canvas, the only recognizable feature being her agonized face in a 
sea of abstract, haphazard strokes of a pen. The lines started to 
flicker as her face faded into decoherence, breaking apart into 
segments and dashes, hand drawn static splashing all over each 
canvas, engulfing the last identifiable representation to John's eyes. 


A mouth, wide open with untold and unknowable suffering.