Conwell was now standing in the corner of a Site-19 humanoid 
containment cell. Dr. Johnson sat at the nearby desk, facing the 
room’s occupant, a middle aged man known as Dr. Harold 
Thompson. Conwell had never met him before, but to his 
understanding he was a former colleague of Dr. Johnson’s who had 
the great misfortune of acquiring the ability to turn all living organic 
matter he touched into solid marble. Johnson had pulled a few 
strings and managed to get a “psychological health visit” scheduled 
for that evening. The last two hours had been spent with the three of 
them joking as Dr. Johnson and Dr. Thompson matched wits over a 
game of chess. Unfortunately, Dr. Johnson had recently made the 
winning move, signaling that their time together was drawing toa 
close. 


“Check mate, old friend,” Johnson said with a sad smile. 
“You got me again, Zach,” Harold replied. 
The two men then began placing the pieces back in the box. 


“Before you go, | have a small gift for you in the top drawer of my 
desk. I’d get it myself, but as I’m sure you know, | have to remain on 
the bed when | have visitors...” Harold added as he put away the 
last of the pieces. “I hope you don’t mind that | didn’t have a chance 
to have it properly wrapped...” 


Johnson gave a nod of acknowledgement, and slowly opened the 
drawer. His mouth hung open in awe as he slowly removed what 
appeared to be a small marble sculpture of a bird. 


“That's one of the products of Dr. Freemont's last round of testing. 
She said | could keep it. | thought you might like it,” Harold said with 
asad smile. He then gave Conwell an apologetic glance, “I’m afraid 
| didn’t have chance to prepare something for you, | didn’t know 
we'd have this opportunity to meet...” 


“Oh, don’t mind that Harold,” Johnson said with a hearty chuckle, 
“Jacob’s just here for the ride. This is very beautiful, though. Thank 
you very much.” 


“Guess | have some use after all...” Harold mumbled under his 
breath, his eyes glancing at his gloved hands, then back to his 
friend. 


“| have something for you as well,” Johnson said as he slowly got to 
his feet. Without a sound he silently placed his mp3 player on the 
table, and pressed play. “Your son sent it to me this morning.” 


“Hey, Dr. Johnson” said the voice in the recording. It sounded like a 
man roughly Conwell's age. “Here are some of the people from the 
neighborhood. Have a very merry Christmas!” 


Several more voices then joined the first as they began to sing 
“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Conwell watched as Harold 
sat straight up, his eyes unblinking as he kept his gaze firmly on the 
mp3 player. Johnson then quietly signaled for the two of them to 
leave. Before they exited the cell, both Conwell and Johnson looked 
back at their friend. A small trail of tears ran down his face as he 
remained motionless, taking in the sound of the music. 


“No one should be alone on Christmas, Jacob,” Johnson said quietly 
as the two of them stepped into the adjoining observation room. 
“Don’t you agree?” 


Conwell gave a nod in agreement. 


“Merry Christmas, Jacob,” the elderly researcher said as he slowly 
began to walk away, “You have yourself a nice evening.” 


“Merry Christmas, Dr. Johnson,” Conwell replied with a smile of 
admiration, “You too.” 


| Hope That | Get Old Before | Die 


Dr. Ralph Roget knocked on the door, shave-and-a-haircut style. It 
was the way he always knocked when he was a kid, coming with 
Mom to see the grandparents. It was also the only way for the now- 
retired Director Gillespie to recognize who was at the door, and 
come answer it. 


She did answer it, a moment after his thought finished. A small old 
woman, a bit withered in her body, but she still had the kind face that 
he could remember smiling down as her arms lifted him up. Shirley 
Gillespie's face lit up as she saw her grandson on her doorstep. 


"Oh, my goodness! It's so lovely to see you... please, please, come 
in... you've gotten so tall!" She tittered joyfully, lightly pulling on 
Ralph's arm to escort him into the room. The main apartment was 
small and plain, with a single antennae-box television set, an 
overstuffed armchair, and a little table beside it. In the corner, there 
was a small fake Christmas tree. Ralph's eyes lingered on the tree. 


"Your grandfather and | picked it up yesterday morning. It's lovely, 
isn't it? Bob says he's going to decorate it soon." 


Ralph sighed. The home had put the tree up in her room, like every 
other room. It was a cheap plastic tree, without any decoration, and 
it looked like the leaves were actually AstroTurf. He smiled at his 
grandmother, and nodded. "It's very nice. Did you pick it out?" 


"Yes, yes..." She looked into his face for a moment, smiling. "You're 
getting so tall, dear. You'll have to stand by Bob when he gets back 
home." 


"| will, Director." He smiled at her. She used to become so annoyed 
when he called her ‘Director’. She'd always go on about how she'd 
retired to get away from stuffy formality, and she wanted to just be 
grandma from then on. Now? She just smiled and nodded, with a 
cheery disconnect from his words. 


"How's work been going? Are you still friends with David?" She 
picked an ancient tray of cookies, and placed them on the ground in 
between them. 


"No. He doesn't work at Site-77 any longer, and | haven't heard from 
him in awhile." Ralph didn't know who David was. He'd never known 
a David. In all likeliness, if he ever knew a David, Director Gillespie 
would likely never know about it. 


"That's a shame. He was a polite boy." Director Gillespie looked 
towards where her last room had a window. "Did you see the tree?" 


"Yes, | did." 


Director Gillespie looked back to Ralph. "Why, you've gotten so tall! 
I'll have to compare you to Bob when he gets home." 


"Grandpa's not coming home, Director." Ralph kept his eyes locked 
on where the window was. He left his grandmothers face out of his 
sight. 


"Oh... well, at least he's doing well," said Director Gillespie, talking 
to nobody in particular. 


"... [should be going. It's been nice seeing you." 


Director Gillespie smiled at him. "Well, it's been lovely having you 
down! Bob and | both loved seeing you, and I'll tell him you left when 
he comes home." 


"You'll tell him how much I've grown, right?" Ralph smiled at her. 
"Grown?" She looked at him, her smile stopped in space. 


Dr. Roget stood up, and turned away from her. "I'll see you soon, 
grandma." 


His grandmother smiled at him, the recognition in her eyes fading. 
"Goodbye..." 


Dr. Roget stepped out of the apartment, walked out of the building, 
out of the complex, and got into his car. Sitting in the seat, he 


subjects experience its effects to be pleasurable, so SCP-620 has 
been mounted on the wall in Site- ’s accounting department to 
increase morale. As of Incident SCP-620- , indiscriminate exposure 
to the object is no longer permitted, and the object has thus been 
relocated to a specialized research area. 


The perceived time acceleration only persists as long as the object 
remains functional. If SCP-620 loses power or its hands cease 
movement for any reason, all subjects exposed to it will experience 
time dilation in equal proportion to the time acceleration perceived 
when it is functional. All subjects, especially those previously 
perceiving time acceleration, find the time dilation uncomfortable, 
and after prolonged exposure it becomes unbearable for most test 
subjects. SCP-620 consumes battery charge at varying and 
unpredictable levels, causing it to lose power with little warning. As 
such, SCP-620 currently draws power directly from Site- 's power 


supply. 


Prolonged exposure to the object in either state is unsafe. After 
twenty-four (24) continuous hours of exposure, subjects have, in the 
past, begun to reject food regardless of hunger, frequently stating 
that they “just ate”, regardless of how much actual time has passed 
since the subject has eaten. Subjects become overconfident in their 
recollection, claiming to remember things “as if they were yesterday” 
but with no measurable increase in recall. Subjects who become 
aware of how quickly they perceive time to be passing have become 
chronically depressed, believing their death to be imminent. 
Subjects exposed to a stopped face for prolonged periods quickly 
become extremely bored, often pleading with researchers through 
the mirror for the test to end. 


It is important to remember that SCP-620 has no effect whatsoever 
on the actual flow of time, as far as Foundation equipment can 
detect. The acceleration and dilation are completely psychosomatic. 
Subjects who do not know what an analog clock is or how to read 
one are unaffected by SCP-620. 


« SCP-619 | SCP-620 | SCP-621 » 


sighed. 


He pulled out of the snowy driveway of the Soft Community 
Plantations retirement home, and back into the night. 


The Lost Shepherd 


December 24th, 2011 
5:14:06 PM 


Daniel Horatio Aeslinger, Psy. D. stood with his back to the room, 
facing the window. Outside all was quiet and dark, mostly dark. The 
single point of light in the room behind him only made the outside 
world seem more desolate. 


On the desk, spread out in what would to the average observer look 
like a total mess, but was in fact a highly sophisticated method of 
organization that only he understood, lay eleven personnel files that 
didn't exist. They looked unobtrusive enough; simple manila folders 
with neat handwriting on the tab denoting their subjects. Eleven of 
them, and he had to work through them all. He'd been at it for the 
last six hours, reading, making notes, comparing those notes with 
those in the dossiers, written by his predecessors. One of them had 
asked for a profile on eleven of the twelve others, the twelfth one 
having gone to Bjornsen for some reason. And now he was weary, 
his hand ached and his brain was alight. 


As he stood there, watching the dark calm, the first snowflakes 
began dropping. It was the one thing that could get him sentimental, 
snow. It brought back memories of his childhood, of misshapen 
snowmen and fortresses diligently made over the course of weeks. 


What a way to spend Christmas eve. 
7:03:51 PM 


He'd noticed a pattern in the files. Each of the employees portrayed 
in these documents was a well-adjusted, but not too well-adjusted 
person. Each of them had some small quirks, except for #6, whose 
quirk seemed to be that they were quirkless. Each of the people 


portrayed had an exemplary track record within The Foundation, 
having risen to power by simply doing their job better and more 
efficiently than their erstwhile colleagues. He didn't buy it for one 
second. All of the files before him had been fabricated, but he 
couldn't for the life of him think of a good reason why they would be 
this badly fabricated. 


He leant back in the rickety chair he'd found in this office. Its usual 
occupant was probably busy having a ball at the Site's annual 
Christmas party. Closing his eyes he tried to walk through all 
possible scenarios that would leave him here, in a spare office on 
Christmas eve reading what amounted to fictional biographies of 
people that officially didn't exist. And didn't want to exist. 


In the end the only reason he could think of was that they wanted to 
see how long it took him to see through the whole thing. But why 
then give Bjornsen the last one? Or was it perhaps a case of a pawn 
being reminded of their nature? Have someone do something 
useless just to remind them they can be made to do anything, even 
if it doesn't make sense? 


He'd never be on the O5 council, that was for sure. 
8:56:29 PM 


As the windows caked up with snow, the only sound in the sparsely 
decorated office was the haphazard snoring of a middle-aged man 
drooling on the folders under his bearded cheek. 


9:33:11 PM 


Daniel awoke with a snort, causing him to profusely apologize to no 
one in particular. Several files were now impossible to return to 
records, but he figured they hadn't come from there in the first place 
anyway. When the courier came in the morning, he'd explain. He 
doubted the courier would care. Switching on the computer in front 
of him, he prepared to write up his final reports on those twelve 
people in charge of what was undoubtedly the biggest conspiracy in 
the history of mankind. As it was booting up, he stepped outside into 
the hallway. 


When he'd started, he'd had a thermos of coffee with him. Coffee 
that he knew tasted like coffee, in stark contrast to the concentrated 
monkey's armpit juice they called coffee here. But that thermos had 
been empty for the last three hours, and his body was craving 
caffeine. Standing outside of the small room, he looked left and then 
right, trying to remember how he'd come in and whether or not he'd 
seen one of the Site's coffee machines. He thought he had, two lefts 
and a right from where he stood. As the computer behind him 
merrily bleeped its way through its awakening, Aeslinger closed and 
locked the office's door behind him and went on a personal quest. 


10:02:43 PM 


It had not, in fact, been two lefts and a right. As the amount of both 
lefts and rights had now jumped to the double digits, he was fairly 
sure that he was as far from the office he needed to return to as he 
was from a cup of decent coffee. 


10:48:13 PM 


He was now thoroughly lost and still caffeineless. He didn't 
recognize any part of the building he was in, and as he'd only 
received the key card to the one particular office he'd been working 
in until a little more than an hour ago, he couldn't look outside for 
potential landmarks. That is, if he'd be able to see them through the 
snow outside. He found a small bench standing against a 
nondescript off-white wall and sat down with his head in his hands. 
He had a good GPS tracker on his company phone, but that 
required him not to abandon it next to a booting computer, which he 
of course had done. He sighed and counted the emergency lights on 
in this hallway. It came to seven to the left of him and nineteen to the 
right of him. Nineteen minus seven was twelve. What a coincidence. 
He leant back too sharply and hit his head on the wall. Muttering, he 
nursed the back of his head. 


Not to worry, he was going to get back to that office. Somehow. 
11:54:26 PM 


Daniel Horatio Aeslinger was oblivious to the muted sounds of 


laughter and music making their ways through the miles of corridors. 
One leg dangled awkwardly down from the bench on which he lay, 
the other was stretched out on top of it. His jacket had been folded 
up and placed underneath his head, and his hands were folded 
across his belly. The steady rise and fall of his chest made it very 
clear he was not, in fact, going to get back to that office today. 
Perhaps on Christmas Day, and with help, but for now he would stay 
put. It didn't matter, the work wasn't due until the 27th. 


In the office several feet to his right a computer patiently waited for 
one Daniel Horatio Aeslinger to input his credentials. It had nothing 
better to do on Christmas eve. 


Reconciliation 


The weather at Site 81 during the winter was typically a mix of cold 
and wet, with minor variations taking cues from there. Any given day 
it could be overcast and just above freezing, where the falling rain 
would feel like it was fine to ignore the rules about how cold water 
can get without turning into a solid, and the next day it would be 
sunny and ten below. Most of the more pleasant weather usually 
didn't show up until January, with December being left the "cold and 
miserable" and February being given the "cold and oh my god the 
ice".