He paused in one corridor, finding himself suddenly lost in the area, 
which was a bit of a rat run; a rabbits' warren — whatever the saying 
was. Here, there was just one patient — an elderly lady sitting ina 
wheelchair, looking for the life of her as if her carers had literally 
dumped her here, hoping for the best. Kit couldn't say such things 
didn't happen. What drew his attention to her, however, was what 
she was doing. 


The old woman was singing a song - 


"The faces we imagine 

They're twisted inside 

Their mouths aren't on straight 

We can see their skulls 

And their black hair will strangle us 
We all see them here.” 


Okay, so it wasn't a particularly good song, but it was a curious one. 
We all see them here? See what; how did she know? Kit shrugged it 
off and shuffled past her, contenting himself when he found a 
bookshelf full of donated books, and pulling 'Lord of the Flies’ off the 
shelf. He had read it in school and imagined himself on the island — 


and imagined himself dead like Simon, or Piggy. Starting it again 
sent a certain chill of nostalgia and fear up his spine, as he dreaded 
the part with Piggy the most. Luckily, before he got too far, a bell 
rang that he recognised as the sound for lunch, and he stowed the 
books under some cookery ones in the hopes no-one else would 
find it and read it before he got back. 


Lunch was an entertaining affair if purely for the fact only a handful 
of staff had to control a great number of patients with different 
needs. Those with eating disorders had their own kitchen and eating 
area (Kit had only been shown this to be warned never to go in it) 
but there were still patients who took offence to food, who needed 
pills with their meals, who couldn't sit with the opposite gender, and 
still those patients who just wanted to draw attention for no reason 
Kit could find. 


When it came to his turn, he slowly chose something he knew that 
he could eat — soup and a roll. He managed to find a bench on his 
own and sat huddled over his food, suddenly understanding why 
many patients didn't want to make eye contact and invite more 
craziness into their lives. The food was fine, but with it getting busier 
and busier, he decided to leave with his bread roll — granted by a 
bored-looking orderly just waiting for a fight to bust out — and 
headed outside, still lacking cigarettes to enjoy in the smoking area. 


Standing at the edge of the chicken-wire covered pond at the centre 
of the hospital, Kit took a moment to watch the giant koi swim in their 
tiny world. 


Just looking at the fish reminded him of working at the pet store, 
doing the grunt work. He used to scoop up the dead fish with a net. 
They lay so bonelessly, cold and damp. 


"| hope," Kit thought, breaking parts off his bread roll and tossing 
them into the water, "that my nephew never has to see them do 
that." 


Something about dead fish ruined the magic of childhood. 


He finished feeding the fish, and brushed the crumbs off his hands. 
If he had his direction right, one of the doors would lead to the TV 


Number of Offspring: 257 
Notes: Offspring plants show extreme variation between specimens, 
but have been roughly classified into several broad varieties: 


5-1: “Corn trees,” otherwise normal redcedar specimens that yield 
ears of corn instead of normal cones. Analysis revealed kernels to 
be non-toxic. Test subjects described the taste as “odd, but not 
bad.” 

5-2: “Corn-cone stalks,” otherwise normal corn specimens which 
grow ears enclosed by hard scales. Kernels similar to those from 
5-1. 

5-3: “Corn-cone trees,” otherwise normal redcedar specimens which 
produce small ears of corn enclosed in hard scales instead of 
normal cones or normal ears. Resultant corn was described by test 
subjects as “disgusting.” 

5-4: “Redcedar stalks,” organisms with herbaceous corn-like central 
stems and woody redcedar-like lateral branches. 

5-5: “Variegated redcedar,” redcedar trees which produce both 
green and yellow needles. Yellow needles are in fact heavily 
modified corn kernels, which are not arranged into any flower- or 
cone-like structure. Cornbread made from these needles was 
described by testers as “delicious.” 

5-6: “Hard corn” plants, producing kernels with tough, bark-like 
shells. 

5-7: “Needle corn” plants, producing kernels similar in shape to 
cedar needles, in otherwise conventional ears. Variety 5-7-2 also 
possesses a woody trunk. 


Yearly growth cycles in varieties of Species-889-A-5 have tended to 
mirror those of the more genetically similar parent in each case. 
While all hybrids produced using SCP-889 are sterile, reproduction 
by cuttings and tissue culture is successful. The resulting specimens 
displayed no unusual variation from the mother plant. 
Rehybridization using the first generation offspring of transplanted 
individuals has not yet been attempted. 


Experiments 889-A-9 through -16 were conducted under the 
Farrago Project. Access is restricted. 


Experiment-889-A- 10 


room — maybe it would be quieter with people eating lunch and he 
could watch something mind-numbing. He headed back inside, but 
was surprised to find that the hospital was plunged into darkness. 


Kit frowned, trying the switch - 
Click 


The lights flickered and hummed for a moment, then strobbed on, 
off, on, off, on.... off. 


When that happened, kit's lucid mind — aided by a maximum 
strength anti-psychotic — concluded a fuse must have blown, and 
that the staff, if they could be trusted to, would fix it. 


He couldn't see anyone, but figured with it being lunchtime, staff 
might have had their hands full in the canteen. As instructed earlier, 
he wandered through the dark towards the nurses' station. 


That was when he began to see it. Him? Her? The gender was 
certainly indistinct and unimaginable. Later, he would figure that 
pronouns didn't matter. As he walked past the 'calm down' room with 
its large windows, he caught sight of it for the first time. 


A skull; long, black hair. 
Just like the old woman had been singing about earlier. 


Seeing this, he thought maybe it was his imagination; a brain glitch. 
After all, his mobile phone — some years’ out of date model he 
purchased in a pawn shop — had been sending him photos, right 
before he came here. And this... thing looked a lot similar to what 
had been revealed in the photos. It was always in the distance, it 
was always looking on at him, mainly in his flat but also sometimes 
the coffee shop where he got his morning gingerbread latte, the park 
where he smoked joints by the river so his flat didn't stink of it. 


It was unnerving, when his phone blipped at him for the first time. Kit 
wasn't known to get text messages. Maybe if his brother was feeling 
particularly guilty, or angry, he would take his time to key a message 
in and chide Kit. But that was a rarity in itself. So, when he saw that 
the text message contained well, no text, but instead a photo, he 


was more than a little bemused. 


‘Never settle for those awkward feelings of being alone ever again.’ 


If he had friends, he probably would have chalked it up to a bizarre 
joke. "Ha ha ha guys, good costume.” All that jazz. But friends 
weren't exactly something Kit had in abundance. He turned the 
phone this way and that, trying to figure out what was going on, 
before he recognised the location of the local A&E Department, with 
the curious creature placed near the reception desk, where he had 
been standing only a month ago, bleeding copiously from his arm. 


Kit spent a while after that just sitting in the semi-dark of his 
bedroom, his thoughts spiralling. He was used to insane shit. But he 
was mainly used to dealing with that insane shit in person. Mobile 
Madness was a new thing, in his vast experience of butterfly girls 
and men with flashlights for eyes. 


The text messages kept coming. Even for Kit, it was an unnerving 
experience. But, after a while, he came to look forward to these 
photos. It was like getting photos of a friend, enjoying themselves in 
places familiar to him — it was like someone sharing their life with 
him. 


",..you will soon forget all about those painful emotions of disappointment." 


He became practically addicted to the experience, quick to grasp his 
phone as soon as it made a noise, finding them frequent but not 
overwhelming. Occasionally, he visited the places seen in the 
photos, mere minutes after he received a text, shoes not a matching 
pair and with his fly undone in his haste to leave the flat and go to 
these public places. But he had never seen his photo friend in 
person, not until now. 


Although, to be fair, the thing wasn't here right now. It was a 
reflection. Kit looked behind himself, into the darkness of the 
corridor, and saw no-one; nothing. He moved forward towards the 
window, and gently placed a hand upon it. His friend lifted a hand 
too, as if it stood on the other side of the glass. The skull tilted 
sideways, as bemused about the lack of contact as Kit was. He 
expected to feel a cold hand, feel a pulse in the wrist, but instead, it 


was just the smooth glass. 


Kit took a breath. This was all in his brain. It had to be. His brain 
faulting was part of the reason why he had ended up in here, and 
the anti-psychotic was helping putting things in perspective. The 
darkness may be real but the being wasn't real. He had to accept 
that the text messages were never real, either, and they were just 
preying on a life that was far too insular. 


‘The anxiety of social situations can be nerve-racking...' 


He licked his lips and spun on his heel. No. Keep walking. 


His footsteps echoed in the building as though it was abandoned, 
although everything looked as it had on his tour. Apart from lack of 
people, of course, which was increasingly confusing him, and, as he 
started walking again, it became apparent the lights were out 
everywhere — in all of the building as far as he could tell. 


Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the thing, trailing behind him like 
a ghost. His breath quickened as did his steps. At home, his phone 
rang with a message — another photo sent, this time of Kit in the 
half-light of the hospital, with his ghost coming closer and closer. Kit 
closed his eyes so he couldn't see the being, but then he couldn't 
see anything at all, and he didn't know the layout of the hospital very 
well. 


He managed a few steps, his hands curling into fists, before he 
walked into a shut door. Grumbling and rubbing his forehead, he 
opened his eyes and tried to ignore the vision hovering far too out of 
reach to be conclusive in its design. He pushed at the door and, to 
his surprise, found it locked. This was supposed to be how to get to 
the nurses' station, more or less in the middle of the hospital, but 
there was no way in from here. In his heart, he knew this door 
wasn't supposed to be locked, and through the glass panels he saw 
the lights off there, too, and no people there. 


He didn't want to turn around. Desperately, he thumped at the door. 
If there was a mistake, the noise would send the nurses running — 
hopefully. But nothing happened. Kit caught his breathing increasing 
and tried to back himself out of a panic attack. Yes, he may have 


once thought the creature behind him as a friend, but that was 
before he knew, before he realised he was totally and utterly nuts, 
and before he was locked in a dark corridor with this figure, and no 
way of knowing what it wanted. 


Kit slowly turned on his heel. He closed his eyes whilst doing it, not 
wanting to come face to face with the oddity once more. But, when 
he opened them, the figure was nowhere to be found. Kit blinked, 
confused. It had been right behind him. Hallucination, friend, 
creature, whichever — he had been certain of its presence behind 
him. 


He took a few faltering steps. The curiosity in him made him want to 
check the nearby games room and smoking area, because it was 
plausible — if not unlikely — that the figure had ducked in there. But 
what did he hope to gain by searching? The touch they nearly 
exchanged, hand to hand, could have been a symbol of friendship, 
or the creature trying to gain some sort of trust to do... something 
nefarious, Kit was sure. 


As he started towards the games room, he saw it again, flickering in 
the corner of his eye. This time, it presented itself behind the glass 
that lead to the nurses' station. Whatever impossible way it was 
getting around — and Kit was, despite his delusions, increasingly 
sure this was as real as the being with many tongues and no hands 
— meant it could ignore locked doors. He turned around, again, steps 
away from the door, and stared at the being. 


"...What do you..." His voice croaked, despite himself. "...What do 
you want?" 


"| want nothing." 


It said nothing, but its hands moved, placed on the glass once more, 
its head tilted — almost like a curious puppy, or someone trying to 
claim innocence in a situation. Kit stepped forward again. 


"...Why come here? Why... with me?" Because Kit felt certain now 
that the hospital hadn't caused this figure to arrive — he had dragged 
it here with him. In some ways, the being was as trapped as him, if 
its penchant for following Kit meant anything. 


"You're lonely." 


Again, silence greeted him. This time, the creature seemed almost 
frustrated in its body language — head down, hands curling into fists, 
shaking slightly in a mixture of annoyance and almost sadness. It 
couldn't tell Kit what it wanted. Kit, despite his exploration into a 
world no human should ever grace, just didn't understand it. No 
human ever did. It was really desperately lonely — often times, 
moreso than the people it visited upon. 


"Free me." 


Kit was staring, blankly. The creature bared its teeth, but it came 
across more as an eerie smile than it was anything threatening, 
despite its dog-like skull. Kit took a breath. The answer was here, if 
he wanted it. To free his friend, and to get to the nurses' station. He 
turned away, but only to duck into the TV room and retrieve one of 
the cumbersome pleather chairs. Not everything was bolted down, 
after all. 


"Mind out the way," he found himself saying, as if the creature were 
real, as if it could understand him. It didn't move back, but Kit used 
the heaviness of the chair, and two of its legs, to bust through the 
window panel. Glass shattered around him, cutting through the 
hospital slippers he was wearing and into his feet, cutting his cheeks 
and just missing his eyes, which he closed tight. 


When he opened them again, the lights were on and there was a 
buzzing in his ears that was somewhat familiar. The being was 
gone, and Kit looked around quickly when he realised there was no 
reflection, and no creature in his peripheral vision. Where had it 
gone?! The dual purpose of freeing the being and getting help in the 
dark seemed to have gone wrong - 'insanely wrong’, Kit thought 
dully, as he realised the pain. 


Everything, then, seemed to burst into action. Patients were looking 
out of the rooms nearby, and staff were quickly surrounding him. He 
heard firm voices telling him to put down the chair, and felt someone 
hold a towel up to one of the worst cuts on his cheek. Numbly, he 
dropped the chair. Words escaped him. How did he tell them about 
this without sounding, well, even more crazy than he probably was? 


He was spared that task, however, when he felt a sharp jab in his 
arm, and everything went hazy as the sedative ploughed through his 
system. For now, Kit's horror story was over.