“So like, how long are we going to let Rachael get away with saying 
she has powers of electricity before we actually test her on it? She 
hasn't done anything to prove it to us, except some car tricks. | could 
see that being faked.” 


“Thank you! We're getting near to the big Bob Ross do-or-die day, 
and we don’t even know if she can do it —” 


“Oh fuck you.” 
“What?” 


“Just fuck you! You would have believed her in a heartbeat as long 
as you were still the group leader, you've never been a skeptic. 
You're the ghosts and goblins guy! You would jump at proof of this 
shit as long as it didn't threaten your bullshit power regime!” 


SCP-589: The Price of Obsession 


Item #: SCP-589 
Object Class: Keter 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-589 must be contained 
within a sealed, reinforced container that is welded shut. Under no 
circumstances is SCP-589 to be removed from its container, 
physically contacted, or even seen. SCP-589 and its container must 
sit on a scale so that it may be continually weighed to confirm 
SCP-589's presence. 


SCP-589's containment cell may only be accessed by level 4 
personnel, and must be guarded by at least two level 4 security 
personnel with twenty four hour surveillance. Under no 
circumstances is SCP-589 allowed to leave its containment cell. Any 
personnel attempting unauthorized entry or removal of SCP-589 will 
be terminated. 


Should containment be breached, then the entire sector SCP-589 is 
held in must be immediately purged via demolition charges or 
incendiary devices. Any personnel assigned to the sector that 
manage to escape must be questioned and then immediately 
detained for psychological screening. 


In the event that SCP-589 must be handled without the protection of 
the container, the only personnel authorized to handle SCP-589 
must be cleared by Foundation psychologists and must have a 
Psionic Resistance Index of 30 or higher. Once their task is 
complete, all personnel that have handled SCP-589 must submit to 
a mandatory psychological screening. 


Description: SCP-589 is a stuffed animal that is able to change its 
appearance based on the subjective desires of the first person to 

come in contact with it. SCP-589 has the ability to create a calming, 
soothing sensation within anybody who sees or comes into physical 


“He’s kind of exactly right, and | concur in the ‘fuck you’ sentiment.” 
“Well. Alright. Fuck me, | guess.” 

“Honestly don’t feel like it.” 

“Oh ha ha.” 

“Me neither.” 

“Oh come on — that’s not even what we’re talking about!” 

“You guys have sex with each other?” 


“Shut your stupid judgemental trap you upstanding ‘too good for gay 
orgies’ heterosexual piece of shit.” 


“Woah.” 


There was a short pause as Ed, red in the face and standing up, 
looked around the room. For a little bit, the only noises were 
Rachael’s shower going and the TV playing some mindless reality 
show on low volume. Ed looked between Jerry on the floor, Jai on 
the stripped chair, and myself lounging on the bed. 


“That was uncalled for.” 

“Agreed.” 

“Thirded.” 

“Fourthed. Sorry.” 

“It’s alright.” 

“Still sorry.” 

“You’re right though. She needs to prove herself.” 
“Doopity goP ty doopity” 


“What the fuck.” 


“Woah was that the TV going ‘doopity doopity doopity’?” 
“What. | mean, yeah, it was.” 
“Woah that’s weird, | bet it will never say ‘I have powers shut it’.” 


“| have Pers shut it.” 


Ed wasn’t even surprised. Just annoyed. He gave Rachael no 
recognition, and collapsed on top of me, releasing a “guuuuuuufir’ 
as he went. His weight kept me from breathing how | wanted to, but | 
just dealt with it and tried to distract myself with the new channel on 
(it was some sort of Spanish news network). This was fine. All of this 
was fine. 


“Hey Rachael?” 

The sound of running water stopped. 
“Yes?” 

“Could you get the flickering to stop?” 


“Actually, I’ve already tried. | can direct electricity however | want, 
but without the wires getting fixed I’d have to focus on it the whole 
time. It’s not like a brain that'll keep itself going once started.” 


“Augh. It’s really annoying.” 


The door opened, and Rachael came out in the same attire we’d 
been wearing for days. 


“| Know.” 
“You take quick showers.” 


“No, I’ve just given up on being clean. These are the same clothes | 
have been wearing for days.” 


“Yeah. Is everyone cool with me getting naked for that very reason?” 


“| would feel —” 


“Sure. What’s this?” 
“Some kind of Spanish news channel. You speak Spanish?” 


“Well | was adopted from Honduras, but no. | took French for my 
second language.” 


“Huh. Can you reverse entropy?” 
“Kinda.” 

“Sweet.” 

“Oh my this feels better.” 

“| retract my previous statement, babe.” 
“Which uh, which uh, which one?” 


“Something about how gruff you're starting to look is doing 
something for me.” 


“Oh?” 

Jerry hid himself under a blanket. 

“Please no.” 

“Agreed.” 

“Oh come on. | have been dry for two days.” 

“And it shall stay that way.” 

Ed groaned and fell on me again. 

“Fucking stop falling on me! This is the second time! Get off!” 
“Nnngggg no...” 

“We can go out in the car, you know?” 


“Yeah okay you guys can go out in the car if you must.” 


“Don’t use any heat. We can’t afford to waste gas.” 
“Yay yay yay! Let’s go!” 


Ed didn’t bother to cover himself as he lunged out the door, anda 
half embarrassed (and fully clothed) Jai followed him out into the 
night. As they closed the door, Rachael half laid half sat on the other 
side of the bed — as far away from me as she possibly could be — 
and started switching the channels without using the remote. Jerry 
stared, confused, at the door, and then turned to me. 


“You’re not going to go join them?” 


“Unlike Ed, my end goals aren't always sex, drugs, and power. They 
are fun sometimes, but | am more layback. Lower energy.” 


“Except that you work at — er, sorry, worked at a Subway and had 
dropped out of school.” 


“Uh, yeah. As | said, more layback. He’s much higher energy. He 
has to be doing something. | am content sitting around and enjoying 
myself.” 


“Huh.” 
“What?” 


“You’d think that someone with the goals of sex, power and drugs 
would be more inclined to drop out of school than someone who 
liked a more stable life.” 


“Huh. | guess.” 


We settled on some mindless cartoons, and the three of us sat and 
watched for an hour or so. | waved my hands in front of the light, 
and saw my movements look unreal and odd. After a while of 
Rachael looking a little irked at my childish fidgeting, the light 
suddenly went off and the TV was the only glow. Although | couldn’t 
see Jerry from my position anymore, | imagined that he had fallen 
asleep on his makeshift mattress. Soon after | had taken off my shirt 
— it was pretty hot, you know? — and rolled over, falling asleep. 


Once in the night | woke up, and the TV was off. Apparently | had 
turned over in my sleep, because | could see Rachael, still sitting up, 
silhouetted by the moonlight swimming from the window. 


9: Shit Goes Down 


Bob Ross was dead. 


Holy shit, Bob Ross was dead. | mean, we could tell. Jai had always 
wanted to meet the great star that he was, but him being dead was a 
bit odd. Poking and prodding at Bob Ross was not the intended first 
interaction, but for absolute certain, he was dead. Oh, right, how did 
we acquire the body? Well, Rachael said not to worry about it, but 
that the place really wasn’t well guarded. After he was dead, getting 
the body out of the coffin really wasn’t hard. The hard part was 
making sure we did this before anybody realized the body was gone, 
which might have already happened, so really the time span was 
from now until they found out we were the ones responsible. It was 
stressful, because Bob Ross couldn't just... be revived. A body had 
to be possible to live in for Rachael to do her magic, and our dear 
old Bob was riddled with tumors. It wasn’t a pretty sight, poor old 
Bob was pretty indisputably dead, and he was trying his damnedest 
to remain so. 


Rachael was panicked. Well, we were all panicked. To save you the 
details, there was a lot of yelling, many slurs were said — and | 
mean, you couldn’t really blame any of us. This was the moment, 
this was supposed to be the big break. The big next step. We had 
gotten to the point where we could try and do what we set out to do, 
which was get Bob Ross back alive and well, and if we didn’t... Well, 
best case scenario was jail. We didn’t even know what worst case 
scenario would be. Point is, one thing in a high stakes situation led 
to another, and uh, Rachael killed Jerry. 


| mean, he just... he just had a heart attack, then and there. Reeled 
over, and died. Ed went mad. He lunged at Rachael, and she 
reminded him and the rest of us that she could do the same to us. | 
guess we were all just realizing how much Rachael was to be 
feared. Sure, we had hailed her as the leader for her reasons of 


being leader, but we never truly felt that she had absolute control 
until that point. It was terrifying. You know what it feels like to have 
someone be angry at you who can kill you in — literally — a heart 
beat? Not something dodgeable, you can even react to a gun being 
pulled, no, she could just make you keel over and die. Sitting behind 
that gas station at midnight and having this sudden realization of the 
power she possessed was, and continues to be, the most frightening 
experience of my entire life. For what it felt like, Rachael could have 
made the stars go out and that would have been indicative of 
nothing we didn’t already think. 


“Just shut your god damn mouths for two seconds and let me 
explain to you how this is going to work. Jerry is dead, but Jerry is 
dead for a fucking reason and you won’t even let me spit it out! Jerry 
is dead because we need a host. Bob Ross ain't coming back, | can 
tell you that. We may be medical students, but we can’t just make 
him not a cancerous wreck. He’s dead. For certain.” 


The sound of sirens in the distance fucked with us. It could have 
been coming for us, it could not have. If there ever needed to be 
another thing to induce stress, the sirens were ready to fill that role. 
Bob Ross’s corpse lay across the back seats of the car, and Jerry 
lay slumped against the wall. Jai held Ed back, and | just stood in 
awe at what | perceived to be a god of our world standing before us. 
The angrier she got, the more the lights flickered and threatened to 
burst. Ed was threatening to burst a vein, but Jai was right with me. 
All sense of anger at Jerry’s death was replaced with paralyzing 
fear. 


“Jerry died for a reason, okay? He’s a host. Bob Ross can’t come 
back, but we can imitate him.” 


“What do you mean we can imitate him?” 


“| mean just what | say. | can revive Bob for a hot second before he 
goes under again, and read his brain waves. | can try and restart 
Jerry’s brain with those brainwaves. It’s not going to be Bob Ross, 
because the way that neurons are connected in the brain choose 
how you think and what not, but | can get Jerry to act like Bob Ross 
on a surface level.” 


“...What? You fucking mad man, you killed Jerry so he can be your 
puppet? What good will this do us? How does this prove anything? 
How can you fucking stand there and be okay with all of this?! How 
does this prove anything to anyone!? 


“| thought you wanted Bob Ross back, I’m giving you what you 
wanted!” 


“Not at the expense of Jerry! | know, | know what you are, you’re a 
fucking fucking fucking psychopath.” 


“WHAT DO YOU THINK | AM CAPABLE OF, CLONING? Want me 
to just POOF another Bob Ross into existence? What closed off little 
world are you living in?! We're fucked, okay? We’ve gone too far, 
and we're fucked! There’s no two ways about it, at this point they’ve 
reviewed the footage and found me sneaking in and there’s already 
a price on your guys’ heads I’m sure. We’re fucked. We might as 
well wait here and get fucked together. Deal?” 


“Then bring Jerry back.” 
“He'll have forgotten us.” 
“| don’t give two fucks. Bring Jerry back or else.” 


“Oh man, you really got me there. ‘Or e/se’. I'm spooked, to be 
honest. Really shaken to my core.” 


“LL KILL YOU YOU MURDEROUS SON OF A BI—” 


And Ed just fell to the ground, just like that. Jai screamed in terror, 
and | took two steps back, a second from sprinting. 


“Oh calm down. He’s just knocked out. Oh, and Jerry’s back. | just 
didn’t want to give Ed the satisfaction. We're all one big happy family 
now, aren’t we?” 


“You monster! You're playing God, you’re fucking toying with us like 
you’re some wannabe ruler of this realm!” 


“| couldn’t revive Bob Ross, now could |? Some things | just can’t do, 
it's not all under my control! Do you want to see his corpse sputter 


and call out for help before dying again?” 
“Just stop it, for god’s sakes just make it stop! 


Bob Ross came to life only to give shell shocked looks, spit and 
gargle, and fall limp once more. 


“Stop it, dear god stop it now!’ 


The same pattern repeated, of Bob Ross going through his death 
throes all over again, staring helplessly at his surroundings and 
releasing painful moans of anguish. 


“You freak, leave him alone!” 

And again. 

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” 

And again. 

“YOU FREAK, LEAVE HIM ALONE! LEAVE BOB ALONE’ 
“G... guys? Rachael?” 

“Oh, hey, he does remember us.” 

“| don’t think we are alone.” 


As he said that, two cop cars pulled around the corner. Sirens going 
off, bright disorienting red and blue lights going off. Of course, they 
didn’t for long. Policemen came out of the two cars and pointed 
guns, yelling as you see them do in movies. Rachael, of 
course, took none of it. | mean, she put her hands up, but she kept 
her haughty in control type vibe. 


“| know | have the right to remain silent, but do | have to? Don’t 
answer that, there’s something | need to show you guys. Bob Ross 
is alive.” 


And again. The officers hadn’t even taken notice yet, instead 
beginning to radio for backup and hold us down with guns. Jai was 


still weeping over Ed, and they were screaming at him. Jerry laid 
against the wall and held up his arms, | held up my arms, Rachael 
held up hers. The officers closed in and confirmed that we had Bob 
Ross’s body, and just as they had a visual on it, Rachael made it 
happen again. 


“He’s not, wait a second.” 


Bob Ross died for the (n+7)th time that night (at this point it was 
hard to keep track). The officers were wordlessly dumbfounded. 


“Check his pulse.” 


It took a good twenty seconds, but an officer complied while the 
other one made sure to survey us with the end of his pistol. He 
made absolutely certain that Bob Ross was without a doubt clearly 
most certainly dead. Just as soon as he was done, Rachael made 
him gasp alive again. 


And, uh. You know the rest. | mean, you knew up to some parts in 
there, but now we are all caught up, right? We tried to revive Bob 
Ross, we weren't able to, and then the police detained us and then 
you said “hey police we got this”. Don’t tell me you’re police. | know 
you're not. I’m probably... I’m probably a couple hours from 
disappearing off the face of the earth, aren't I? In the whole process 
of hushing this up. | don’t know how in the world you got Rachael to 
comply. | thought she’d just start a murderin’ and escape and see 
where that took her, but she seemed oddly... happy, when | last saw 
her. Like this was all part of some unseen plan. | guess it’s too much 
to ask that | say some kind words to my family, or leave some sort of 
suicide note? 


What? Where are you going? Hey! Come back here! 


What’s that taste? Kinda like an acidic... peppermint... 


10: Rachael Wins 


“And that’s how it went down.” 


“lam counting on it.”