Special Containment Procedures: Samples of SCP-686 are to be 
stored under standard protocols for class 2 biohazardous liquids in 
G2 facilities. SCP-686 is infectious but not virulent. It can only afflict 
a new host when taken orally, and is not motile or otherwise ‘active’. 
The infectious agent's mechanism of operation is not known. 
SCP-686 does not contain appreciable amounts of nucleic acids and 
prion activity is not apparent. 


Due to the large quantities of SCP-686 that are being produced by 
various test subjects, the principal requirement for this substance is 
not so much containment as it is disposal. While pasteurization has 
proven completely effective at sterilizing the infectious agent, 
whatever its nature, it is recommended that all unneeded stocks of 
SCP-686 should be incinerated. Human consumption is not 
recommended by anyone other than designated test subjects. 


Description: SCP-686 is an opaque white liquid consisting of a 
suspension of lipids and proteins that is indistinguishable from 
ordinary high-grade dairy milk without detailed analysis. Ata 
biochemical level there are certain subtle differences: the protein 
content is much more complex, with most of the peptides so far 
proving difficult to sequence, and it contains a richer blend of 
vitamins and minerals than is typical of cow's milk. 


SCP-686 was first isolated from cattle at a small-scale commercial 
dairy farm near . Records indicate that the farm's herd began 
increasing its milk output and quality to unusually high levels 
approximately two years before the infection managed to make the 
jump to the farm's human workers and the Foundation became 
involved. It is not known with certainty whether this farm is where 
SCP-686 originated or if it came in from some other source and was 


bend backwards to see the top. Looking at it made her eyes burn. It 
seemed to bend as she looked at it, the surrounding warping like 
heat waves from concrete. A booming roar like thunder battered the 
air. Amy clamped her hands over her ears, but it was no use- the 
noise travelled through her unassailed. 


She took a step forward and her leg buckled. She caught herself 
before she could fall and took another teeth-gritted step. The Queen 
walked beside her. Amy was shocked to see the woman’s face 
covered in sweat. She wiped her own face. When she brought her 
head down, she saw a faint smear of blood. 


She heard the Witness’ muddled voice in her head, ignored it. The 
voice came again, louder. Stop. 


Amy grabbed the Queen’s shoulder, and they halted. Even stopping 
was a chore. It felt like trying to stand beneath a waterfall. Her knees 
shook just supporting her weight. 


Look up. Beside the relic. 


The air around the rock was in tatters. The world ahead fluttered like 
an image printed on a torn curtain, and in between the flaps she 
caught glimpses of people, houses, dancing shadows. Images 
running together like frames on a film reel. 


The stone is not of this universe. It has torn the space between 
worlds to arrive here. It is these tears that we will travel 
through. 


Amy nodded, numb, too focused on staying conscious to respond. 


You must isolate the destination from the noise. You must... |ts 
words stuttered into a babble of stray syllables before fading to 
nothing. Amy waited, but it didn’t return. 


She stared into the broken air. Her thoughts were coming in 
fragments, snippets of words and image forming the outline of ideas 
in her mind. The Witness’ words had stirred something in the back of 
her mind, but trying to focus on it was like trying to grab a swarm of 
gnats. A hundred pictures from a hundred worlds strobed in front of 


her. Isolate the destination from the noise. The phrase blinked into 
her mind, but she couldn't attach meaning to it. 


Her arm raised itself, driven upward by some subconscious instinct, 
and her fingers brushed a tear in space. But that wasn’t right. The 
tears were too far away to touch. And yet she could. She was a 
hundred yards away. But she was also right next to them. And she 
was also within them, being pulled down into a thousand universes, 
tugged in every direction in every world and also standing with her 
hand against the tears in space and also standing next to the 
Queen, weeping. 


A feeling rose in her stomach like bubbling sludge. Her arm felt like it 
was being dipped in antarctic slime. She was afraid to look, to see 
the damage. Blindly she reached, trying to find something something 
solid, something real, something to keep from falling, felt her hand 
grasp air. She was tumbling through space now, screaming, 
surrounded by the web of worlds. Where was it? Where was safety? 
She scrambled, again finding nothing. Someone was grabbing her 
arm. Who? She was falling alone. 


But she wasn't falling. She was standing in the field, touching the 
fabric of the air, and someone was grabbing her arm. Yanking free 
of the grip, she stumbled forward, fell, pushed herself to her feet, 
lurched on. It was just ahead of her. She could feel it. They key to 
escape this place. The space ahead was cracked like glass, each 
shard showing dozens of angles of dozens of worlds. She needed 
one of them. Why did she need it? It didn’t matter. She could feel it 
pulling her in, like a mother beckoning a child. There. She saw it. 
Reached up. Closed her hands around the glowing object. 


And she stopped falling. Stopped seeing the bleed between worlds. 
Felt the coldness leave her arm. She was standing in the center of a 
sunny field, the Queen beside her. In front of them a door had 
opened in the empty air. Behind it, creatures of all shapes and sizes 
swarmed between tall shelves. Some took brief notice of the two 
women who had appeared out of thin air. Most ignored it. 


“Well,” said the Queen. She was pale, drenched in sweat. “You 
didn’t kill us. Good work.” 


Amy bent over and vomited. 


« The Prisoner | Hub | ...And Whenever They Catch You, They 
Will Kill You... » 


... And Whenever They Catch You, They Will Kill You... 


Amy had spent less than a month in the Library, most of it dedicated 
to hiding or following the random paths traced by the Queen. A 
week, she could tell, was not long enough to get a good picture of 
the place, to understand the whims that guided its labyrinths of 
shelves and ordered its ancient paths, to know the people who 
called this place their ancestral home, to memorize even a millionth 
of the passages contained. And yet, in all her visions of the 
possibilities of this new world, she had never imagined something 
like this. 


From the outside the door seemed to lead nowhere, uselessly 
attached to the end of a shelf. But when the Queen swung it open, 
and they stepped through, Amy gasped. The hallways inside were 
cream-colored marble, decorated like a palace. The carvings on the 
wall reminded her of Greek art in style, but the figures were 
inhuman. Some had fur or claws, others dozens of limbs, others a 
shape that didn’t correspond with anything on Earth. The stone was 
carved with such detail that she felt their gazes crawling across her 
skin. 


The carvings grew stranger the deeper Amy and the Queen walked. 
The pair rounded a corner, and the lights dimmed to flickers. Amy 
glimpsed movement in the murk. Long, nervous shapes that swam 
between shadows, always staying just out of full view. She gulped, 
looked away. The shadows stayed in the corner of her eyes. The 
Queen looked unconcerned as she marched forward. Amy lost track 
of how many halls they passed, of the shifts in tone and architecture, 
of the windows that peered open into impossible, otherworldly 
scenery. But she didn’t lose the fear. The instinct, deep from her 
animal psyche, screaming at her to run. 


Amy watched the Queen as they walked. If the women held any 
uncertainty, she showed no signs of it. No hallways passed were 
spared a second's glance. None taken were with a moment's 


hesitation. At times, she almost seemed completely unaware of her 
surroundings, navigating her own thoughts while her body mapped 
the corridors on autopilot. She said no words to Amy, and Amy was 
afraid to speak first. Breaking the silence of the labyrinth, she knew 
deep down, could be a death sentence. 


As they crossed into a path lined with gardens, she worked up the 
nerve to ask, What is this place? 


A thing that should not be, came the response, and then, silence. 
Even their footsteps rang empty against the stone. 


Until, out of nowhere, the Queen held up a hand. At first, Amy kept. 
The rhythm of the walk had ingrained in her so much that she didn't 
stop until the Queen's hand on jerked her back. “We're here,” were 
the Queen's only words. She gestured toward a small door that 
opened into darkness. 


For the briefest moment, as she stepped into the darkness, Amy's 
breath caught and she imagined herself back on the island, back in 
the forest, stumbling blindly through a dozen realities, trapped on all 
sides, clawing for release. The Queen's hand dragged her back to 
her senses, and she stumbled through to the light. Amy stood 
doubled over, gasping, trying to keep her trembling legs from 
collapsing. 


When she looked up, she saw a stranger. Tall, razor-thin, with skin 
so dark it was like looking into the night sky and long, curling grey 
hair. Bright red scars covered the left side of his face, letters in an 
unknown language carved into his skin. The Queen stood next to 
him. He stared at Amy with eyes the color of moss. “You shouldn't 
have brought her here.” 


“It's not your business who | bring.” 


The man turned his head to stare at the Queen. His left eye 
remained focused on Amy. “It's not the who that concerns me.” 


A glare from the Queen made the man look away. “Feel free to 
question me again, Thalmos. Any time you'd like.” 


For a second, it looked as if Thalmos was going to respond. Then he 
spun and stalked to the back of the room. He sat at a small wooden 
table with two others. One was a tall, fat man more focused on a 
wooden puzzle than the scene before him. The other was, at most, 
probably human. They had the right shape, but were wrapped in 
long white bandages that covered almost every inch of skin, except 
for a few sickly-grey patches. They sat forward in their chair, and 
from their body language seemed to be staring at Amy. She couldn’t 
tell. If it had eyes, they were bandaged off. 


The room looked like a professor's study. Dim lighting, dark wood 
floors, a blood red rug supporting a thick oak table. Paintings hung 
on the walls, their subjects varied. Some appeared normal. Others 
showed humans engaged in fantastic situations. Others were bizarre 
landscapes that couldn't exist in any possible world. The Queen 
motioned for Amy to take a seat at the table. Amy did. The chair 
screeched as she dragged it across the floor. 


“Where is Rupinder? Where is my Sister?” said the Queen to the 
others as she slid into her seat. 


The room went silent. The fat man placed his puzzle on the table 
and exchanged a nervous glance with Thalmos. The bandaged one 
stared at the table. 


“Well,” said the fat man, just before the silence seemed to be 
threatening to become a physical substance, “we assumed he'd be 
here with you.” 


The Queen's expression didn’t change as she laced her fingers 
together. “You've lost him.” 


“Not lost, per se. More that we can't get a view of him.” The fat man 
reddened. 


“And how am | supposed to think that different from lost?” 


“Well, we couldn't get a view of you either. And here you are, fine 
and fair! So maybe he'll show back up too.” 


“Maybe he will.” She stood, the sound of her chair making Amy 


wince, and walked to the back door. Without a word, the fat man 
rushed to follow. Amy hesitated, looking between the other two, 
before going after the Queen. She stepped into a thin hallway. 


They passed two closed doors before the Queen ducked into an 
open entrance. The only decoration inside the room was a tall, 
brown table, upon which sat a hand mirror. The fat man approached 
it, nervously running his hands through his hair. He stopped in front 
of the table and looked back at the Queen. 


“Show me,” she said. 


Without a word, he took the mirror and handed it to her. She stared 
into, furrowing her brown in intense concentration. When nothing 
seemed to happen, she shoved it into the waiting hands of the fat 
man. “When did you lose sight of us?” 


“A few weeks ago, ma'’am.” The fat man placed the mirror back on 
the table as carefully as if he was handling unstable dynamite. “We 
assumed it was when you entered the new world.” He paused, then 
added, “Did... everything go alright?” 


She didn't answer, instead spinning around to exit the room. Amy 
and the fat man started after her, but she barked out a hard “Stay 
here!” that made them freeze in place. 


As soon as she was gone, the fat man gasped and fell back, 
trembling. Amy darted to his side. “Are you alright?” 


“I'm a dead man,” he moaned between hyperventilations. “I can see 
it now, she's going to have me hanged.” 


“You're not going be hanged,” said Amy, though she had no way of 
knowing the truth of that statement. 


“Burnt then! Thrown into the pits! Oh, I'm doomed, | am!” He began 
kneading his knuckles against his shoulders. 


“She doesn't seem like the type of woman who hangs people.” 


“What a naive thing to say.” The man stood. His legs swayed 
drunkenly.. Amy caught him before he could fall, but he pushed her 


away, stumbled from the room. She followed as he lurched back to 
the entrance, slid into his seat at the table. The other two stared at 
him. 


Is he going to be okay? 
It is an appropriate reaction to the situation. 
What was that mirror? 


A Looking glass. And a rather elegantly designed one. An 
object that can be used to spy across worlds. |am impressed 
that they would be able to obtain it. 


Amy looked across the table. The fat man was hunched over the 
table, muttering to himself. Thalmos patted his back awkwardly. The 
bandaged... thing stared eyelessly at Amy. 


“So... who are you people?” said Amy, trying to ignore the noise of 
the man's mumblings. 


The bandaged person pointed to themself. “Li.” They pointed to the 
fat man. “Gregor.” 


“You guys serve the Queen?” 


Li shook their head. “We serve the Serpent's Hand. At the top of 
which she stands.” 


“So, she's like-” Before she could finish her sentence, the wind 
raced from her lungs, as if she'd taken a blow to the chest. She 
pitched forward, arms flung out in a desperate hope to grab 
something solid, but she collapsed in a heap, panting into a puddle. 
It was dark- she waved her hand in front of her face and saw only 
the outline of a silhouette. Something buzzed near her ear. She 
swatted at it, and heard it angrily dart away. God-fucking-dammit. | 
thought you were going to warn about this shit. 


! cannot always anticipate its activation. 


Well, do you sense anything around us? 


Ido not. 
Better than last time, then. 


She whispered three words in a long-dead language and gestured 
her left ring finger down. A bead of red light erupted in the darkness 
in front of her, illuminating what looked like smashed concrete. The 
light followed her hand as she turned it, revealing more of the area- 
a disused, collapsing parking garage. Bugs the size of her fist fled 
across the concrete as the light touched them. She stood, dusted 
herself off, and continued guiding the light around. A few cars still 
sat in the garage, crushed into flat tin by boulders that had fallen god 
knows how long ago. She looked up through the hole in the ceiling. 
The night sky was completely black.