The approach of singing along with SCP-983 has a direct impact on 
the color of the candy and the side effects of its consumption. Test 
groups instructed to follow Document 135r to the letter have verified 
that a perfect sing-along results in the production of crystal-clear 
candy with mildly luminescent qualities. A near-perfect sing-along 
produces the same candy minus the luminescence. Both of these 
candy types have been verified as restoring any age lost by the 
consumer due to SCP-983’s song; however, the luminescent candy 
may also grant additional time and youth, though as of yet this 
theory is unproven due to the low production rate of this candy. 


Due to the inconsistencies in attitude, tone, behavior, and approach 
when trying to match SCP-983’s song, a wide variety of candies 


and beaten over the course of a decade, lashing out with her 
shattered mind. The older SCP was kneeling on the floor, ears 
bleeding. His knotted hands were clenched, as his foe turned for the 
moment from Clef to float toward him. 


It was almost beautiful to watch, Clef thought, stopping for an instant 
to observe what he hoped was a rare circumstance. The distance 
between them crackled as the hovering female changed things, 
reversing the laws of physics and existence as 343 set them back 
into place. It was like watching a petulant child throwing her toys to 
the floor and her patient grandfather picking them up and setting 
them right. 


Clef edged around near the now dead kitten door, raising the 
revolver again. He fired, the painful report running up his arm as 
chunks of the hovering menace were ripped from her body and 
thrown behind her to the mirror. She screamed as the cancers 
started to form almost instantly under her flesh. 


“Don’t care much for that, do you little girl?” shouted Clef, as 343 
suddenly locked the universal order back into place. 


Clef dropped the gun and bull rushed her before she could recover, 
hitting her tiny midsection sharply and pushing her toward the mirror, 
grasping the red disk and shoving. 


They fell into a strange field, with rolling wheat and smells of 
emptiness. The girl was rolling on the ground, willing herself up off 
the ground pitifully. Clef stood nearby, knocking the bits of wheat 
and grass off his armor. He walked over and forced her body over, 
straddling her small, heaving chest. 


“Sorry, dearie,” he said, smirking. “Different world, different rules.” 


He placed both his hands around her neck and brought his thumbs 
up to her trachea. Tears ran down her face, her quivering lips 
pleading wordlessly with him to reconsider. As the brittle, 
malnourished bones snapped, her eyes thankfully glossed in the 
pleasant emptiness of oblivion. 


Clef stood and walked back toward the mirror. "Should have done 
that years ago..." 


Clef stepped back through the mirror, unlocking the telekill body 
gear he was wearing and dropping it to the floor. 343 leaned against 
the wall nearby, being tended to by Lore. Clef watched as she 
dabbed the blood away from the old man’s eyes before he cleared 
his throat. 


Lore looked up, smiled, and ran to the edge of the mirror. 
“239’s status?” 
“Eliminated,” said Clef. 


“Good,” said Lore. She brought the gun only as far as Clef’s 
midsection before she fired. 


Clef felt parts of him tear out of his back and staggered backward to 
the frame of the mirror. He looked up at Lore, the smiling face 
holding the violet pistol, feeling a tugging sense of recognition. 


“Jack?” 


Lore smiled, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Well, of course, Alto. Who 
else?” 


Clef was sagging now, his legs giving out as the internal and 
external bleeding set in. 


Dr. Bright jiggled happily as she sneered down at the bleeding, 
middle-aged man laying on the floor. “I don’t take kindly to people 
who try to kill me, Clef, regardless of the circumstances.” 


"Really, Jack? But they were very good circumstances. Not even 
friends?" asked Clef. "What's a little murder between friends?" 


"Especially not friends." 


“That’s too bad, Jack,” said Clef, throwing up parts of his stomach. 
“You look good enough to fuck.” 


Clef rolled over, struggling to stand up. Bright let him, if for no other 
reason than it made the blood pour out of his gaping body that much 
faster. 


“You forgot one thing though, Jack,” said Clef, feeling his muscles 
twitching around the cancers forming in his midsection. 


“What’s that, Alto?” 
“You're jewelry.” 


Clef stood in front of the mirror, smiling bloodily as he held SCP-963 
at arm’s length in his gloved hand. 


“Goodbye, Jack.” 


As Clef lurched back through the mirror, Bright brought the pistol up 
a second time, pulling the trigger. The gun popped, electrical arcs 
running up and down its length. Bright screamed and rushed toward 
the mirror, but as she did, a loud shot—gunpowder and 
copper—echoed through the room, striking the disk hovering in the 
center of the glass. As Bright reached the mirror, she saw the disk 
chip, ever so slightly, and cease glowing. 


She whirled around, looking for the source of the shot, raising the 
pistol over her head in rage. She found no one. 


The room was cold as Schmetterling walked down the hall, 
shouldering the sniper rifle. It had been a while since he’d done any 
shooting, and he was proud that he still had the touch. He walked 
methodically toward the frozen tube, entered the old password they 
hadn’t thought to delete, and smiled boldly as Imants fell bodily to 
the floor. 


He leaned down and slapped his face a few times. “Imants. 
IMANTS!” 


“Whoza?” 


Schmetterling sighed and picked up the larger man, resting him on 
his shoulder. He left the rifle behind and picked up the data backup, 


stashing it in his pocket. As he passed Dr. Kondraki’s tube, he 
stopped, looking at the frozen visage. 


“C’mon,” he said. “I’m going to need all of you to help cover our 
escape.” 


The tube shimmered as the butterflies flapped away from the empty 
containment chamber, floating around Schmetterling and his 
rescued friend for a moment before both of them vanished. 


Jack Bright sat in the director's office, tapping her polished nails on 
the desk. This would be a set back. The amount of time needed to 
repair SCP-093 was unknown, if it could be repaired at all, and the 
disappearance of Kondraki from containment was highly unsettling. 


Bright stood and walked to the far wall, entering the long and 
complex code that was required for someone without stable voice 
recognition or handprint. 


The door slid open, revealing a carefully crafted box. She opened it, 
revealing the almost circle with the three, inward pointing arrows. 


‘Only a set back, Alto,’ thought Jack. ‘Only a set back.’ 


Alto Clef sat breathing heavily in a field of wheat and emptiness. He 
could feel the effects of having a Higgs boson thrown through his 
midsection, knew he didn’t have too much longer to live, and that 
what time he did have would be unpleasant. If he’d still had a gun, 
he might have shot himself, but since he didn’t... 


Clef looked at the amulet. Tilting his head back, he positioned it 
perfectly over his mouth, and dropped it down his throat, thinking in 
his last moments how much nicer oblivion would be than the 
perpetual, eternally cold dreams. 


And somewhere, somewhere on the other side of our world's 
mirrors, a cancer ridden, bleeding body shuts down—and 
reawakens screaming. 


Unfinished Business II 


Unfinished Business: Part Il 


The Present, Eventually: 


Site Director Neil Ghost was one of the longest-serving members of 
the Foundation, a feat made possible by the relative safety of his 
job. It was rare that one of those few remaining SCPs originally 
classified as “Safe” ever proved otherwise, and as one of the 
caretakers of the relatively less deadly artifacts and anomalies, he 
enjoyed a certain amount of relaxation occasionally. 


A mostly competent staff, a relatively safe job, and a retirement age 
quickly approaching: Ghost had it all. He breathed a sigh and leaned 
back into his chair, pulling down his glasses long enough to rub his 
eyes. He might have drifted off for a moment, except that he 
heard... something. 


His eyes shot open and turned toward the door, narrowing. Almost 
without breathing, he reached for the front of his desk and retrieved 
a heavy brass candlestick he’d kept there ever since The Serpent's 
Hand had broken in and "borrowed" a few SCPs. He still had the 
note they'd left, polite and somewhat condescending, hidden away 
in a desk drawer, right next to the broken commendation plaque 
he'd cracked over one of their heads when they'd come back for 
more. 


He felt comforted by the makeshift weapon’s presence as he stood 
and slowly made his way to the door. Age had not lessened the 
instincts his time as an Agent had given him. He pressed an ear 
against the wood finish, listening again for the noise. He was almost 
certain he’d heard someone walking past his office, which shouldn't 
be possible. No one else at this site had his clearance, and as far as 
he knew, no one who did was supposed to be visiting anytime soon. 


He clicked the door open, peering into the black hallway. He 
stepped out, bracing himself against the wall as he slowly sidled 
down the corridor, listening as he progressed. He was certain he 


heard it now, someone further down the hall, someone in one of the 
storage rooms. 


He controlled his labored breathing as he crept closer, turning the 
cold brass in his hands, snaking a step at a time until he stood 
directly next to the door. It was a rustle of files, the paper kind that 
were just used for archival information now. With a hard twist, he 
turned himself into the door, tensed to leap at whoever he saw. 


Instead, a small metal disk whirled by his head, causing him to turn 
sharply and stare as the wall behind him erupted with thumb tacks, 
nails, and burning thorns. He tried to turn back again, but instead felt 
a fist connect solidly with his jaw, sending him falling backwards 
onto the floor, the heavy candlestick spiraling out of reach. 


He glanced up and saw a face he remembered: blond hair and blue 
eyes. Skin paler than he remembered, but ice had a tendency to do 
that to you. 


“Hello, Imants. | heard you'd been... released.” 


The younger man remained silent, but the knuckles of the hand 
clenching a couple of file folders whitened even further as he 
tightened his grip. 


Ghost’s fingers were anxiously searching through the needles and 
points covering the floor, digging into his fingers and back. 


“You know, if you turn yourself in, we would be lenient. The situation 
has changed in recent years. We know you were young. 

Impressionable. The people who came to you for help were legends. 
Kondraki. Clef. It's no wonder you were star struck. Dragged along.” 


“And why wasn’t this brought up at my first hearing?” Imants replied, 
sneering with irritation. 


“Like | said,” said Ghost, his fingers finally closing around the 
smooth, metal surface. “The situation has changed.” 


He flung the disk hard, awkwardly pushing himself off the floor and 
desperately rushing Imants full on, burying a heavy shoulder into the 
ex-agent’s midsection as papers flew from the cabinets around 


them, edges sharpening and glistening as they shot out of their 
folders, cutting at both men. 


Imants was shoved back hard, slamming into the wall. Ghost fell to 
one knee suddenly, age catching up to him. He pushed himself up 
as quickly as he could, painfully straining as he put the last of his 
strength into a final, desperate uppercut when he felt the knee 
collide with his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Two more sharp 
blows to the back of the head, and darkness claimed him. 


Several Years Earlier: 


Dr. Glass had spent the past several years working with the 
Foundation, during which time he'd both seen and been subjected to 
more than his fair share of trauma. As a psychologist, he was 
supposed to analyze, interpret, and recommend treatment for 
dozens of cases a week, most of them repeat patients unable to 
deal with the stress of the job. When he'd finally been promoted 
upward, he expected a much less traumatic job. The Senior Staff he 
was now in charge of interviewing were supposed to be trained, 
hardened, and experienced. And while they were, he found his work 
all the more distressing. 


He would write a paper about each of them if he could. Over seventy 
separate bundles of neuroses, each on a case study in either sheer 
madness or inexplicably intricate coping mechanisms. Over half of 
them went around armed constantly against threats seen and 
unseen. Still others regressed into childlike states of coloring their 
reports, and still more simply died inside eventually. 


Then there were the special cases. A talking dog he had to 
interview, another man whose emotional nerves had been 
cauterized long, long ago, and a doctor who insisted on referring to 
himself as a chord rather than a name. And there was the butterfly 
man, who delighted in chaos, a woman who chased him with lamps, 
and a high-ranking agent who had threatened to kill him when he'd 
seen the Pondur he'd been given by an old patient. 


But it was the man with all the faces that gave Glass the most 
trouble. At first, he'd simply thought the staff had been joking with 


him about Dr. Bright, a phantasm in the background who seemingly 
resisted all attempts at analysis by sending a different person to the 
interview each month. Then, he'd read the file on SCP-963 and 
found the truth even more disturbing. 


At least he participated in the interviews somewhat, which was far 
more than could be said for the likes of Dr. Kondraki or Dr. Clef. 
They got a kick out of fucking with him; Jack Bright got a kick out of 
telling him the truth. 


He was surprisingly talkative to someone with sufficient security 
clearance. Glass listened intently, hearing about Bright's early life— 
though he spoke little about his family— and the events leading up 
to his first death. He also told him about the deaths he had 
experienced first hand, the ones he had physically experienced. 
Most of them were gruesome, as so often death was in the 
Foundation, and Jack recounted each with the reverence of a soldier 
remembering fallen comrades. The cycle continued, and Glass 
became more and more in tune with the one overbearing wish Jack 
Bright had: release. 


Glass remembered one point when Jack had been attempting to 
aggregate a body together with Professor Crow. The 
Frankensteining process had never worked, but he remembered the 
way Bright had looked at his hands, commented on them, admiring 
them for a moment or two. Weeks later, he'd asked him about his 
brother. Bright got quiet for a moment and tilted his head to the right, 
almost like he was listening for the answer. 


"| did what was necessary," he said. 


Dr. Glass continued to build the profiles, though after a while, he 
eventually stopped keeping anything but the most cursory notes on 
most of the staff. It was obvious that Dr. Gears would never change, 
though he still tried the occasional Rorschach test. Clef and 
Kondraki became a source of comedy at times, and he began to 
enjoy quiet coffees with Professor Crow in lieu of evaluation. But he 
kept keeping notes on Bright. For whatever reason, he was 
fascinated by the myriad of faces he'd seen over the years, the 
occasional animal, the regular shifts in gender. 


He noted cycles, patterns. He attempted to make sense of Bright's 
personality, the ways it moved and shifted, the ways it stayed the 
same. It was almost a year before he asked Jack Bright about his 
brother again. He had to go back and check his notes twice before 
he was satisfied, but he was sure that the tilt of the head, the 
listening expression, was exactly the same.