Vera swiveled, examining the peeling, outdated wallpaper. She 
rounded another bend, and the flimsy texture was supplanted by a 
wooden frame. 


"Oh," she remarked. "That's something.” 


It was a door, on the inwards surface of the hallway. It was wooden, 
inlaid with simple rectangular patterns. Vera jiggled the knob, then 
braced her shoulder against the door. 


Casey peered at her. "What're you doing?" 
"Breaking the door." 


"It would be a really bad impenetrable barrier if it was weak to 
shoulders." 


"Fair." She took a step back and fished the bulky way-opener from 
inside her jacket. "I reckon this is the target, then." 


Casey nodded, mostly to himself. "Yeah." He held out his hand. "I 
can try opening it, and you can head inside." 


Vera shook her head. "| don't know," she said. "I'm kind of tired." 
Casey blanched. "You can't be serious. Right?" 


Vera sighed. "I've done a lot today. There was a bomb, | chased 
down some people, fought two guys. | think | stole someone's bike, 
too." 


"They, uh. They probably didn't need it?" 


"That's not the point. This is all still foreign territory. And | can deal 
with that, but | can't go in there and act like | speak for the city. As 
much as | want to know this place, | don't. Not yet." 


Casey lowered his hand. "But what could | do?" 


Vera pondered for a moment. "Why'd you start this, in the first 
place? Troy offered you a way out of the town, and it's not like you 
owe Eustace any help. Why not just wait for it to be over, and clear 
your name then?" 


Casey looked at the door, then the ground. "I don't... | don't want to 
leave. | don't want the city to be someplace | have to run from. So 
much of my life, I've been... unwelcome, unwanted, just a nothing. 
Three Portlands accepted me, and no matter how hostile it can be, 
it's home. If something's happening, | want to be here for it.” 


Vera smiled. "You're doing just fine. After this, we're going out for 
drinks." She pointed the way-opener at the door, shut one eye, and 
squeezed the trigger. 


The door warped, and from the creases on either side a pitch-black 
shape grew to cover the surface. 


She winked. "Head on in. I'll be here." 


Casey fell face-first onto the ground. He tried to open his eyes, and 
then realized they already were open. Pitch darkness. 


His hands spread across the floor. The air was cool and the ground 
was curved, subtly bowl-shaped. Casey's fingers brushed against 
something soft that flaked off onto him, and he recoiled. 


And then there were sirens in his ears. Everything became bright, 
blisteringly white, and the blast in his eardrums sent his hands 
rushing to protect his head. The sound was like a foghorn, so loud 
the air was boiling and Casey's mind was forcibly cleared of all but 
the thought of escape and — it stopped. 


Casey gasped, as if he'd had the wind knocked out of him. 
He heard a quiet, rasping voice. "Pathogen. Identify." 


He strained to look up. The room was still pure, endless white, but 
forward and above him there was a violet sphere. Like looking into a 


(it turns into a perfect replica of a human head) 
Cook 2: Nice! 
Cook 1: Yeah, great work guys. 


Cook 3: ... Needs hair though. Guests like to see that, rip 
it off. Maybe put some tendrils of... 


Cook 2: Bloody hell , leave it be man, it’s fine! 
(chuckles) 


Addendum 05: See Log SCP-604-05 
Log SCP-604-05 


Man in suit: Test 32 on Curio B-26. We've shoved 
various slugs together into a wireframe of a human head. 
Couple keep falling out, but let's see what happens. 


(places slugs on plate along with cook) 
(slugs all drop at once) 
Cook: Bloody Hell! 


Man in Suit: Seem to be little twitching gall bladders. And 
| would say that's an appendix. 


Cook: That one looks fucking gross... it’s oozing... 


Man in Suit: Um, duodenum | believe. But yes, | don't 
think it should be bursting like that. 


Addendum 06: See Log SCP-604-07 (only audio, on a tape 
cassette) 


Log SCP-604-07 


Unidentified voice: Note: it is unknown if Curio B-26 
could create sapient creatures. When we finally 
successfully do get a living head, the mouth and eyes 
could simply start opening and closing randomly, and it 


single, massive eye that consumed his vision. 
Casey clambered to his feet, wobbly on the curved ground. 
"I'm Casey Malik. | need to talk to you." 


Smooth lavender tendrils laced themselves around his ankles and 
wrists. He was yanked into the air. The orb hovered in front of him 
and pulsed with each word. "What you have done is proportionate to 
needing to talk in the same way that brain surgery is proportionate to 
wanting to say hello." 


Casey wriggled. "I'm sorry, but it's bad out there. People are dying 
and it's only getting worse." 


The room warmed by a degree or two. "Death," the voice emanated, 
"is all around us. Your cells are dying right now. In seven years, 
every part of your body that is alive now will be dead and replaced 
by new life. The death of a cell does not imply the injury of the 
whole." 


He squinted, indignant. "How can you write us off like that?" 


"It is not your fault that you don't understand. You were simply a cell. 
And now you are a pathogen." 


"There are bigger problems than me out there. I'm just a secretary. 
There was a bomb out there and I- | think that was just a 
distraction." 


"A distraction for whom? | can see you are not wholly uninvolved. 
You have a passenger." Additional tendrils extended from the orb, 
raking along Casey's cheek and temples. He tried to move back, but 
was forced still. 


"She's just waiting outside. She's a friend." 
"Not that. A passenger. Inside your head." 


"That's, well- | was exposed to a carrier. It made me do something. 
It's- it's memetic." Casey ran through the steps in his head. "An 
infection in the cells threatens the body." 


The Mayor burbled in a contemplative manner. "Yes," it said. "It 
can." 


"What does it take to threaten you?" 
"Much more than what you have." 


The Mayor closed in and dug its tendrils into Casey's head and he 
yelled- 


In the beginning, Casey was scared. He was just born, and his tracts 
of land were barren- 


Wait, back up a sec. Casey didn't have tracts of land. He, the right 
Casey this time, took a step back. The Mayor was inside his head, 
but mutual cognition is a two-way street, isn't it? 


The sound of gunfire brought Casey back to the other place. Bombs 
shook his vast body, and he had nowhere to go. Great ropes tied 
him to an unseen anchor, three harpoons buried in his flesh. 


He felt footsteps upon him, and heard voices. Soldiers, seeking 
refuge from a faraway war, fought with guns and ghosts and fire. 


Three Portlands greeted them with open arms. 


Years passed. The war ended with great fanfare, and the 
watchtowers and fortifications and convoys of Portlands became 
houses and bakeries and bicycles. 


The Mayor celebrated too. It built itself a home. 


The population multiplied; the people became indistinct. The Mayor 
didn't see faces, not anymore; all it saw were cultures — desires. 
Power accumulated in the city. 


The Mayor became aware of entities just like itself. "America". 
"United Kingdom". "Foundation". The Mayor built stronger walls. 


Three Portlands flourished, and the Mayor only skimmed a fraction 
of that energy. Its body expanded rapidly outwards, stretching to the 


ether. Great limbs and veins of stone and steel filled with tens of 
thousands of cells- 


Casey snapped back. He was a person again, sitting on a wooden 
chair in a coffee shop. 


He glanced out the great window to see miles and miles of blank 
space, and the entirety of Three Portlands turned on end like a great 
wheel. 


The cafe was empty, save for one person sitting across the table. 
"Casey, love," Adam cooed. "Tell me about the bomb." 
"Adam, you-" Casey started. "You shouldn't look like him." 


Not Adam laughed. It sounded just like him. "Now that I've been 
inside your head, | think we can be comfortable with each other. | 
can't see inside the blast, Casey. Tell me what happened." The cafe 
seemed to zoom towards the sideways city, where the great cone of 
dust rapidly became visible. 


"There was Cillian Erwan, and Sidney Way. The target and the 
bomber. A duplicate of Agent Spencer killed them both." 


"Mm," Not Adam hummed, as if savoring a bite of something. "Who 
made it out?" 


"| did. And Adam, and Vera. And the other bomber. Timothy." 


"Timothy," Not Adam repeated. The cafe closed in on the edge of 
the opaque cloud, to a side street where a man in basketball shorts 
emerged from the dust. Muddy tears were streaming down his face. 
He started running. 


The window followed him as he faded into a line of citizens running 
from the blast. He stayed with them until he could turn off onto his 
side street and rush into the apartment building. The cafe window 
transformed to a top-down view. 


Timothy raced up the stairs and fished a key-ring out of a pocket of 
his dust-plastered jacket. He burst into a cramped, dirty apartment, 


slammed the door, and doubled over coughing. A moment passed 
and he caught his breath. 


He looked back up, and a pristine package the size of a breadbox 
caught his attention. 


He knelt beside it, examining it for any marking of origin. Finding 
nothing, he dug his fingers into the seams and tore it open, pulling 
out a small, black object that looked like a pistol, and- 


It looked just like Vera's way-opener. 


The Not Adam's face hardened. "No, no." It looked at Casey. "Let 
me see it again." 


Casey couldn't take his eyes off of Timothy, who was still cradling 
the object. "What?" 


"The virus in your head. | need to see it again." The scene outside 
the window burst into sparks and then faded back to grey mist. Not 
Adam grabbed Casey by the shoulders and lifted him effortlessly 
into the air. Its voice was frantic. "| need to know what it does. / need 
to see who sent it. We can't have much time." 


Not Adam buried its fingers into Casey's neck, but he barely felt the 
pain. The apparition's eyes went blank as it took in the information. 
"Yes, yes, it's- | can see, | can see it." 


And then it froze, and it and the coffee shop blinked out of existence. 
Casey fell to the ground. He was in the white room once more. 


As he pushed himself to his feet, he saw someone else. 


"Finally," said Timothy Way. He looked just like he had from the 
window. "Took you all long enough." 


Casey tried to lunge at him, but was just forced back by some 
unseen draft. The orb in the center of the space was blinking, 
vibrating faster than any could tell, and it was radiating force 
outwards. 


"Honestly," Timothy continued, "I don't know how they did it. How do 


you design a cognitohazard for something so abstract, let alone nest 
it in another hazard?" He shrugged, and Casey could see the way- 
opener in his hand. "Guess it doesn't matter now." 


Around Casey, the white space dimmed with static. The draft 
accelerated. Gusts of wind swirled within the sphere. 


Timothy steadied himself against the side of the chamber, lifted his 
device at the frozen orb, and pulled the trigger. 


The sphere distorted — like dragging a needle through paint lying 
atop water, an indented cone extruding from the placid surface. An 
instant later, it reverberated back; it rippled through the air and the 
walls and Casey's body and mind. 


There was now a definite pull in the room, a gravitation to the orb 
that rippled with intensifying amplitude, wrapped around a Way to 
god-knows-where. 


Casey propped himself on his elbows. He tried to shout over the din, 
his voice hoarse and strained. "What are you doing? Why?” 


Timothy dropped the way-opener. It flew up into the growing vortex, 
and vanished. "You showed us how to get here. Took down their 
defenses and opened the door." 


The man coughed, shifting his weight down the wall. "They don't get 
it. They think this is a good plan. But Three Portlands needs to go 
through fire to get them out. All the cops and the spies and the-" he 
broke down coughing. "Reborn in fire. Like it should be." 


Casey pulled his knees to his stomach. The Mayor was fading now, 
growing ever smaller as the winds and the gravity picked up. He 
spoke and the words were taken on the wind. "| don't want to leave 
the city." 


"Don't worry," Timothy said, closing his eyes. "It'll be like you never 
left." 


Casey shut his eyes. The ground opened up beneath him, and he 
fell through into waiting arms. 


Every dog in Three Portlands awoke from their sleep and began 
barking. 


Passengers waiting at Three Portlands Central Station watched as 
each Way was sequentially marked "CLOSED". 


Anyone outside heard a great chime; above them, the stars blinked 
out one by one. 


Everyone dreaming winced, and gripped their covers a bit more 
tightly. 


It happened all throughout the city, all at once. Because, from that 
moment on, Three Portlands wasn‘ a city. 


From that moment on, Three Portlands was a corpse. 


« Automatic Stop | Hub | Intermission » 


Competitive Eschatology Hub 


The Way The World Ends 


The Lock has been opened. The armies and monsters of 
Revelations and Ragnarok and older, forgotten myths march across 
the Earth. The old gods have returned, and brand new gods are 
waking up. And more are waiting in the wings. 


The Foundation has been split at the seams. Senior staff and the 
leaders of the Foundation are missing, incapacitated, dead, or 
making desperate plans on the fly. 


The ends of the world are here, all of them, and we're not ready. 


Competitive Eschatology Official Playlist: You'rea 
god or an entity or a force of nature, and you're here with an 
agenda. Here are some songs to rock out to while you end the 
world. 


Story Sequence 


Act One, Part 1 


¢ Apakht (Part 1 of 3) (by thedeadlymoose): The fabric of 
reality began to unfold before their eyes. 

* The Gate Opens (Part 2 of 3) (by thedeadlymoose): "Uriel," 

Yahweh said. "It is Time." 

Revelation (Part 3 of 3) (by thedeadlymoose): "| come on 

behalf of the SCP Foundation," the woman said. 

¢ Storm Front (by Sophia Light): “Well, I'd say we're due for a 


little calamity. Wouldn't you?” 
¢ Awakenings (by thedeadlymoose): Ur-An-Uum raised her 
head to the sky and cried a rending wail of anguish. 


Act One, Part 2 


¢ The White Horse (The Conqueror With The Golden Crown) 
(by thedeadlymoose): Her eyes burned like white stars. 

¢ The Red Horse (The Ironic Metaphor) (by Dexanote): 
"Today is avery special episode." 


© Interlude: AMemo Regarding a Theft (by Dexanote): 
Inventory check for Site 62 reveals the absence of 
SCP-573. 


The Black Horse (The Crawling Sea) (by Sophia Light): 
Then its clothes burst, and out came the mice. 


© Interlude: Last Words from Svalbard (by Sophia Light): 
"We have a proposition for you." 


* The Pale Horse (The Wayward Children) (by 
thedeadlymoose): The living creature felt gratitude and elation 
beyond compare. 


Act One, Part 3 


* The Bloody Autumn (by Dexanote): "This is your army. 
Delivered by Fear itself.” 

¢ Stirrings (by Skara Brae): The lightning recognized his roar, 
and raced to join him. 

« Ganymede (by thedeadlymoose): "You know... In another 
future, we got to grow old together." 


Splinters 
¢ Now... This (by Gaffney): Three weeks into a possible 


future... 
¢ In the End: Monkey Business (by DrBright) 


¢ In the End: Elite (oy DrBright) 

¢ In the End: Europe (by DrBright) 

¢ In the End: Rawhide (by DrBright) 

Tenebrae (by TroyL): Our fathers have sinned, and are not; 

and we have borne their iniquities. 

Sunset (by Mister Evans): Dozens of faiths had a promise of 

eternal night to uphold, and most were going straight to the 

source. 

* When Moses Goes Wrong (by Loiterer87) Meanwhile on 
Earth, astronomers noticed several discrepancies when they 
looked up to the stars.