| thought about how badly Connie had wanted to go back to school 
in Washington, and how she’d said that I’d always had a place. | 
wished that I’d told her she was wrong, and that | had as much of a 
place here, in my dorm room, on this campus, as her ashes did in an 
urn. 


Everything made sense when | thought about it like that. Tracing the 
line of my grandfather and Ma through China, to Taiwan, then Ma 
across the Pacific to America, then me from Los Angeles to this 
room, every decision and event had, if not purpose, then weight. 
When it came to the question that had brewed in my mind for the 
past several months—whether or not | would work for PTOLEMY— 
things made sense because | realized that, just the same way only 
one path had led to where Connie and | were now, only one path led 
out. | could only ever make the same choice. 


| never wrote back to PTOLEMY. A week later, in one of the 
Foundation’s front companies, a man in a suit shook my hand and 
began to interview me. 


| drove up to Washington immediately the day | learned that Connie 
had jumped off one of the campus bridges. My drive started in the 
afternoon, and | was only halfway there when it was midnight. As | 
fought off sleep, | reminded myself to keep my eyes on the road, to 
stay alert—to be careful. | realized that | only ever told myself to be 
careful in the same Mandarin that Ma had used: /J\t).”Small” and 
“heart”, side by side. 


| spent a lot of my time in Washington taking care of business: 
figuring out which of Connie’s belongings to send to Ma and which 
to throw away, talking to the campus police and ICSUT 
administrators and counselors, organizing a cremation. | was in 
Washington for a week, not thinking of class, not thinking of 
anything. | called Ma every single night. 


Death waited until | was finished laughing before she said, “I don’t 
really get what’s so funny.” 


“Nothing,” | said. | wiped my eyes. “It’s nothing.” 
She shrugged. “Whatever. Can | ask you something?” 


| noticed that Death wasn’t hiding behind her bangs anymore. She 
looked at me directly. 


“Yeah,” | said. Okay.” 


“Do you regret what happened?” Death asked. “Do you ever wish 
that you could change things?” 


It took me a while to answer Death’s question; | immediately knew 
what my answer was, but | didn’t know how to put it. 


Finally, | said, “No. Connie’s life wasn’t a mistake for me to fix. There 
are things | wish I'd said or done, but...1 guess those are with you 
now, too. And | don’t like the idea of bringing what’s dead back to 
life.” 


Death shrugged. “Not many people answer like that, you know. But | 
get it.” 


“I’m glad,” | said. 


“Well,” Death said, standing up and stretching. “This was a good 
talk. The Red Right Hand’ll help you get settled in at your new 
location. We'll see each other around, Claire.” 


| nodded. “Thanks for checking in.” 


Death left the room before me; when | stepped outside, the hallway 
was empty, save for two members of the Red Right Hand, ready to 
escort me away. 


| met Death for the first time as | stood above the bridge that Connie 
had jumped from. Her death had prompted ICSUT to install safety 
nets, big green meshes that stretched out and covered the view of 
the gorge. Below, where they’d recovered Connie’s body, there was 
yellow police tape to ward away the inquisitive. It was the middle of 


winter, and the river was frozen. 


When | looked down, past the green safety net, past the swirling 
snow, | could see something in the river. It was right where Connie 
had fallen. As | watched, Death rose from the ice and rushed 
towards me. | saw it catch on the safety net; | saw its fingers 
squeeze through the holes as it reached upwards. 


The wind whipped at my hair, splaying it behind my head. | could 
feel my heart unfolding and expanding in the presence of Death, 
opening to invite it into me. | kept my eyes fixed on Death. | did not 
turn away. 


| stayed there like that for a long time, my fingers growing numb on 
the frozen railing, looking on the impassive face of Death as it 
strained at the net separating us. 


Triumph 


Hello. Nice to meet you. 


I've brought you out of containment and took that tarp off you, for 
which you're welcome. To be honest, | shouldn't have done the 
latter; it's against the containment procedures. Normally I'ma 
stickler for the rules, but frankly, | just needed someone to talk to. 
You're the kind of thing it'd feel good to talk about this stuff to. 


It all started a few days ago when | saw a movie. Horror movie, 
decently made. An object that influenced people in some pretty 
nasty ways, with horrific, terrifying results. Sounds familiar, doesn't 
it? 


Anyways, it was the kind of movie that really worked off the strength 
of the audience you're seeing it with. Lots of gasps, verbal 
expressions. The audience | was with was audibly depressed at the 
ending, for example. Everyone except me, that is. | was happy. 
Proud, even. 


See, in movies like the one | watched, they tend to end with the Bad 
Thing surviving. Gotta leave the option for a sequel open, | guess, 
even if there won't be one. Maybe I'm strange, maybe I'm 
oversensitive, but that thought sticks with me longer than anything 
else in a movie. The world of the movie continues spinning, and the 
Bad Thing is going to keep doing what it does. People will still be 
scared, hurt, and killed, and there's nothing to stop it. 


But here, in reality? We have us, the Foundation. I'll let you in ona 
little secret: | hate most of what | have to do in this job. | hate 
reading about otherwise decent people being kept under lock-and- 
key because they can't help who they are. | hate having to give a 
widower a pill that'll make him forget he had a wife and kids. | hate 
when | ask the higher-ups if we can maybe adapt an SCP for the 
world's benefit, only to be rejected. | hate throwing D-Classers at 
things just to experiment. Jesus Christ, | even fucking hate what we 


do to Six Eight Two. | have no proof of it, but I'm pretty goddamned 
sure I've self-medicated on Class-As just to forget how horrible | feel 
about this fucking job. 


But with things like you? Things like you make this job worthwhile. 
When we get our hands on you, nobody else dies. We figure you 
out, we put you in containment, and the story ends. Oh sure, your 
information is stored in thousands of safe places, but in any practical 
sense even we forget about you. You act in the shadow, and we 
keep the sun above you. We'll keep doing it until our sun toasts this 
world. 


Well, that's all | have to say. | get this is kind of gloating, but I'll be 
honest: | needed this. | needed to let one of you things know that we 
always win out. In a few moments I'll be leaving this place, and you'll 
be back in containment. In a few hours, I'll have inevitably forgotten 
which SCP | pulled out, and you'll be in containment. If | quit this job 
in one piece, you'll be in containment. When | die, you'll be in 
containment. When I'm dust, you'll be in containment. 


Your story is over. 


Troy Lament and the Terror Ferrets of Darkling Lane 


| wrote this for the 2016 Crack Fiction Contest. 


The title | chose was by thedeadlymoose, and came 
with the requirement that | include my own, original 
character in the tale. Bonus points would be awarded 
based on how much of a Mary Sue that character was. 


Chapter 1 
The moon was black with clouds. 


The 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 drove down the dark country 
road. It wasn’t 1970 though, it was the present. Agent Troy Lament 
sat in the passenger seat, thinking, while his partner and best friend, 
Agent Herc Leroc, drove at 20 miles over the speed limit (which was 
his average driving speed). 


At 17 years old, Herc was the youngest agent in Foundation history 
— not that he let it get to his head, though. He was dressed simply, 
with a t-shirt and some skinny jeans. Troy knew that these clothes 
were against regulations, since agents were required to wear black 
suits, but he knew that telling this to Herc was a waste of time — you 
may as well be telling an alpha timberwolf not to howl under the 
moon after a righteous kill. Herc also wore a fedora, tucked low over 
his eyes, which were a mysterious indescribable shade of gunmetal 
blue that people found both magnetic with also an undertone of 
scary, because of how intense they were. 


“So what do you think about this case, Herc?” Troy asked, looking 
over at his best friend. 


Herc said nothing for a while, watching the road. “Something’s not 
right,” he said at last. “A whole town goes missing inside of a few 


weeks, and no leads? | think it’s a trap.” 


Troy sat up in his seat. “Then we have to turn back, and tell the 
Foundation so they can send more agents!” 


Herc shook his head, his fedora casting mysterious shadows over 
his gleaming eyes, and chuckled. “And let those guys have all the 
fun?” He stepped down on the accelerator so they were going 130 
mph at least, and cranked up the radio, making System of a Down's 
B.Y.O.B. blare from all the speakers. 


You crazy son of a bitch, Troy laughed inwardly, as the 1970 Ford 
Mustang Boss 302 roared along the cracked asphalt. 


Chapter 2 
Now it was five hours later, and still at night. 


Troy and Herc had reached the small town of , where they 
moved down a desolate Main Street, the weak light of the 
streetlights glinting off the chassis of the 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 
302. There was no one anywhere — the place was more deserted 
than a bra store on Mardi Gras. On a hunch, Herc took them away 
from the center of town, toward the outskirts; he eventually turned 
onto a narrow lane among the cornfields, the farmhouses going by 
one by one, all dark and empty-looking. 


Without warning, a huge shadow jumped in the middle of the road. 
“Herc, watch out? Troy screamed. 


But Herc had already seen the danger - he stepped on the brakes, 
the 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 skidding to a halt, the glow of the 
headlights revealing a gigantic beast, all fur and teeth, at least six 
feet tall, standing on its hind legs. 


“Is that...a giant ferret?” Troy said, squinting at the shadowy shape. 
“We have to get out of here,” Herc said, his sixth sense, honed by 


his grueling training as a U.S. Marine, warning him of impending 
danger. He put the 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 in reverse, but 


before he could turn the car around more of the creatures emerged 
from the cornfield around them, surrounding the car on all sides, 
their red eyes burning like ninjitsu shurikens. 


“What do we do?” Troy asked, starting to panic as the beasts moved 
closer to the car. 


Out of nowhere a Molotov cocktail struck the windshield, the bottle 
shattering, enveloping the car in flames. 


“Aw shiiiit!” Troy shrieked. 


“Look in the back under the floor mats, hurry!” Herc said, 
maintaining his calm somehow. 


Troy obeyed, looking behind their seats and pulling back the floor 
mats to reveal a hidden compartment with two fully-loaded AK-47s 
inside. He felt a glimmer of hope. “How did you know we’d need 
those?” he asked. 


Herc turned toward him, the glow of the flames revealing a long 
jagged scar that ran across his left eye — a memento from his 
troubled past. 


“| just had a feeling.” 


Chapter 3 


Troy and Herc ran into the cornfield for cover, leaving the flaming 
wreckage of the 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 on the road behind 
them, the giant ferrets hot in pursuit. 


AK-47s at the ready, the two best friends struggled to see in the 
darkness, the cornstalks around them full of shadows that shifted 
menacingly, the air alive with eerie animal screeches. Out of 
nowhere, a giant ferret jumped in front of Troy and swung at him 
with his claws. Troy wasn’t quick enough to react, busy as he was 
having another one of his SCP-106 flashbacks, but Herc had him 
covered — he shot the beast through the eye, and it collapsed to the 
ground. 


“That’s the sixteenth time you save my life,” Troy, who felt better 
now, said over the ferret screams as the two of them resumed 
running. 


“Actually, it’s the seventeenth,” Herc replied with a foolhardy smirk. 
“Not that I’m counting.” 


Just then, three ferrets leaped out from the cornstalks, hissing 
insanely. Herc and Troy each shot one, then took down the last one 
together, execution style. Blood and gore exploded from the beast’s 
body and it fell backward, gurgling its dying breath. 


“Is that all you gut?” Herc said with his trademark cockiness, 
reloading his AK-47. 


“Herc what’s going on here?” Troy said as he tried catching his 
breath. “Why are these things attacking us?” 


“| don’t know yet,” Herc said, his eyes glazing over mysteriously as 
they did every time he thought about his tormented past, “but there’s 
something...familiar about this whole thing.” 


Chapter 4 


Troy and Herc had managed to lose the ferrets, but now they were 
stuck in the middle of nowhere, behind enemy lines, with no 
cellphone reception and no way of contacting the Foundation. After 
an hour of walking, they spotted a light in the distance and moved 
toward it, arriving at a farmhouse at the edge of a cornfield. 


“Look,” Troy said, “there’s people behind that barn.” 


Keeping to the field for cover, the two agents (and best friends) 
made their way to the other side of the barn, and watched from 
among the cornstalks, with mounting horror, the scene unfolding 
there: dozens of cultists in black robes with hoods were standing 
around a huge bonfire, chanting evil incantations. At the center of 
the circle they formed, in front of the fire, was a large cage 
containing dozens of terrified-looking, normal-sized ferrets. As Troy 
and Herc watched, an immense ferret, at least eight feet tall, its fur 


Subject D-980-24: Severe build changes, personality 
changes, slight memory loss, blindness, deafness, fusion 
of skin over ears, lung alteration 


Subject D-980-25: Severe build and facial changes, 
slight personality changes and memory loss, fusion of 
skin over eyes, deafness, blindness, muteness, kidney 
failure, heart chamber fusion 


Subject D-980-26: Build changes, severe facial 
changes, severe personality loss, blindness, fusion of 
skin over eyes, fusion of skin over ears, muteness, liver 
failure, stomach and intestine fusion, deafness, fusion of 
skin over nose and mouth, fusion of heart chambers 


D-980-07 showed physical changes during its second exposure to 
SCP-980. Subject experienced hair loss and skin formation of 
smooth surfaces over its unused sensory organs. D-980-07 has 
displayed remarkable improvement in navigation and self- 
awareness. 


Subject D-980-27: Severe build changes, facial 
changes, severe personality and memory loss, 
blindness, deafness, fusion of skin over mouth, ears, and 
eyes 


Subject D-980-28: Severe build changes, slight facial 
changes, severe memory loss, deafness, fusion of skin 
over mouth, ears, and nose, muteness, fusion of skin 
over eyes 


Subject D-980-29: Severe build and facial changes, 
severe personality and memory loss, blindness, 
deafness, fusion of skin over mouth, ears, nose, and 
eyes, muteness 


Testing to examine SCP-980's effects on humans is suspended until 
further notice. 


mottled with black and white, walked out of the barn on its hind legs. 
It was wearing a large, glowing amulet on a chain around its neck. 
The giant ferret reached inside the cage and took out one of the 
regular-sized ferrets. 


“What is it doing?” Troy whispered. 


As the chanting reached its crescendo, the big ferret took hold of the 
amulet around its neck, causing the barn behind him to pulse with a 
red light, and touched it to the normal ferret. Red lightning shot out 
of the amulet at the small animal, coursing through its body, making 
it to squeal with pain. Herc stiffened, his jaw tightening with rage. 


“Are you okay?” Troy asked worriedly.