You didn't want to hurt anyone, anymore. If you could make things 
happen, if you could do things, small things, beautiful things, and fill 
the world with, fuck, laughter, meaning, anything, wouldn't that be 
better than making whatever weird shit the Critic ejaculated onto 
canvas? Some fucking asphalt that eats people and spews out a 
poem about how big the artist's dick is and how smart they were? 
Fuck that. 


The hope coursed through you. This feeling of the world maybe 
being different. You were only twenty. You were a fool. A stupid fool. 


harmpit: whatt he fuck is ossifywall street???? 
bluntfiend: Some fucking bug that did some skeleton 
shit. Look, | wasn't exactly in the ornithology department 
of AWCY. 

bones: Entomology. 

polaricecraps: big man in w/ the own. hell fuckin yes its 
like when your teachers make fun of each other. 
harmpit: was itlike the bugsi n the mmuym movies with 
brendon frazier 

bones: It wasn't an own. 

jockjamsvol6: | guess it's a good thing you left then. | 
just know some of their highlight reel. | didn't know, you 
know, about ideology or anything. 

bluntfiend: It was a toxic environment to be in. | can't 
even think about what my life would have been like if | 
stayed with them. | mean, shit, guys. Some of my shit is 
straight up wild. It's not all just, like, you know. Memes 
and shit. I've tested it, and I'm pretty fucking sure | could 
Doctor Manhattan the shit out of someone. At least, like 
partway Manhattan'd. Quarterways. 

bones: | am unfamiliar. 


polaricecraps: like fucking reducin people to like atoms 
of air and shit explodeways you know fucking pakoosh. 
gaycopmp4: pakoosh 

hetcopogg: pakoosh 

lesbian_gengar: pakoosh 

jockjamsvol6: That shit is like way beyond me. | don't, 
like, fuck with explosions and all that shit, you know. I'm 
much more of a not doing that sort of thing guy. 
lesbian_gengar: you wouldn't have killer queen is what 
you're saying. 

bones: | think it is good that you left them if you would 
have caused pain by staying with them. Sometimes, it is 
better to let go of what you used to be. Definitions of self 
and the concept of being can be malleable, and 
sometimes it is good if it is malleable. 

bluntfiend: Yeah, fucking right on, dude. 

bones: It is good not to hurt. 

polaricecraps: awww big guy youre too cute. 

bones: @Bluntfiend, where did you go when you left 
them? | know you came here, but we have not known 
each other for long. 

harmpit: pakoosh 


It's 2012. It could be any other year. It doesn't matter. They all feel 
the same. An unending stream. You've tried to kill yourself a few 
times by then. It's amazing how hard it is to die when you're some 
kind of magic. You try to tell yourself it's because you're there to do 
something special. You tell yourself your inability to end your own 
life is a direct message beamed down from VALDIS or whatever shit 
Philip K. Dick thought. 


There's something you'd read about when you were in high school. 
The dark night of the soul. You remember your teacher drawing 
small peaks and troughs. He said that was the life of a regular 
person. Small highs, small lows. Nothing so intense. 


The life of a saint, the life of someone so close to God or whatever, 
has much higher peaks. They come so close. It's gotta be happy, 
right? To be so close to God. But their darkness is more intense. 
Their troughs scraped the bottom of the chalkboard, presumably into 


hell itself, or at least that little metal bit the teacher left the chalk on. 


That was how you felt. Except, this trough was long and wide. This 
dipped below the chalkboard into the fucking carpet. Or was it tile? 
You can remember the smell of the classroom, but not the room 
itself. It smelled of whiskey. You were the first class. A theology 
teacher with alcoholism. Maybe he had his own dark nights. 


Everything was still shit. You saw the meaninglessness in all of it. 
You understood where they came from, and in your darkest 
moments, didn't it almost make sense? To show them what they 
didn't understand, taking them by the lapels and throwing them to 
the wall? But you never did. Call it stubbornness. Call it morality. 
You weren't exactly Batman, but you weren't going to take another 
life. Ever, ever, ever again. 


You were alone. For a long time. It was easy for you to work alone. 
But, on the internet, you could talk to people without leaving your 
room, without having to stop nursing that bong that was affixed 
around your lips, sucking in anything to keep you from having to 
think, from having to take anything seriously. 


And that's why it was so funny. Gamers. Like your parents would 
ever have let you play a video game. Against weed. Like you ever 
did anything else to fill the void that stretched out like some fucking 
wide open gaping ass wound or whatever. 


It was just a fucking joke at first. It was easy for a joke to get 
overused, to keep coming and coming. But it was a good name, 
wasn't it? But then it started to, well, fit. It started to make sense. 
More stratified, maybe? You started doing things again. You weren't 
going to hurt anyone. This wasn't art. This was trolling. This was fun. 
This was harmless fun, most of all. 


And no one died. And no one needed to die. 


gaycopmp4: wait you smoke weed 

bluntfiend: Don't troll me. My fucking handle is 
bluntfiend. 

gaycopmp4: im serious i thought your name was an 
ironic thing | quit smoking as soon as i joined 


hetcopogg: oh honey. 

polaricecraps: Imao nice. 

jockjamsvol6: You're only 18. You shouldn't be smoking 
anyways. 

gaycopmp4: okay one youre not my dad and two ill be 
nineteen in july so suck it 

lesbian_gengar: we can't really act like we're totally 
disconnected from shit, tho. we're not all jokes. 
remember all that shit we sent to the protesters after the 
election? 

bluntfiend: | mean, | guess we do take some things 
seriously? Look, everyone needs a conscience. We 
didn't give them anything they could hurt someone with. 
Just keep the cops off of them. | guess. Fuck, | mean, 
like, you Know what I'm saying here? 

harmpit: i think making joeks all the time and sayins illy 
shit doesnt mean you cant find some things important 
and it doesnt mean you cant help sometimes 
bluntfiend: Yeah. That. | think. Anyways, what the fuck 
is your big serious back story, bones? And don't tell me 
that bullshit again. 

bones: | am one half of an alien intelligence in orbit 
behind your Luna. | am a weapon devised to destroy 
your Earth after it is catalogued by my best friend, Lyris. 
My friend read Homestuck and decided that she would 
rather be a part of the world than end it. 

hetcopogg: i wanna be a satellite. 

polaricecraps: hahahahahahahahhaa big man getting 
em IN today! 

lesbian_gengar: that's fucked up because if i was an 
alien who read homestuck, i'd wanna blow the world up 
even more. 

harmpit: homefuck 

bluntfiend: Fuck you. You just owned me. | come here 
with personal truths, right outta the vein, and | get the 
Homestuck shit. 

bones: It was not an own. | only tell the truth. 
jockjamsvol6: Yeah, don't you guys live out on the 
moon, too? 

gaycopmp4: bones you know saying that only makes 


Qappik: No. She was really nice and was real 
good at fishing. | think it's because she can 
swim really well and doesn't need a boat. She 
never said where she was from so | thought 
she was from the island. Can | see her? 


<End Log> 


Closing Statement: The interview continues 
in this vein for some time. Throughout, Qappik 
insists that SCP-828-1 did not harm him and 
was friendly. The story was not released to the 
public. Local authorities believe that the child 
had experienced hypothermia-induced 
hallucinations while on the island. 


In the weeks following the recovery of the missing child, rumors 
began to spread through the town of a strange marine animal in and 
around the harbor. Repeat sightings of a strange person on the 
docks prompted widespread speculation and hearsay. Teriaq 
LeChatlier, Site-641's on-site shaman, heard the rumors through 
family contacts and decided to investigate "on a hunch" with a small 
team from MTF-89E "Tomas's Tuggers". SCP-828 eluded capture 
for several weeks until capture during an attempt to enter the Qappik 
family residence. SCP-828 was then brought back to Site-641 for 
processing. 


Interviewed: SCP-828 
Interviewer: Teriaq LeChatlier 


Foreword: This unofficial interview was conducted en 
route to Site-641 on board the recently-acquired fishing 
vessel "Jeanne". SCP-828 was sequestered in the live- 
catch hold at the time of interview. LeChatlier insisted on 
the encounter before processing, saying "The sea is 
already pretty angry about this. | don't know if we'll make 
it back." Please note that the following interview was 
translated from Inuktitut. 


+ show block 


the own worse right 
bones: Yes. 


Nothing made sense in what felt like a new world. 2016 had been 
the worst year of your life, but hadn't it also been the most fun? 
There were so many things to do. So many jokes to make, pranks to 
pull. And in this new fucking world, in this Trump's America, couldn't 
we all do with something funny? 


Satire never helped anything. It really started bubbling up in 
Germany in the fucking twenties or something. Fat lot of good that 
did in stopping the Nazis. Jokes didn't stop the Vietnam War. Every 
artist besides like Toby fucking Keith or something was against the 
war in Iraq, but that shit's still going, isn't it? It all seemed 
meaningless. 


If the world was a meaningless, hopeless place, if nothing could be 
made good with what was had, you didn't want to make it worse for 
anyone else. Existence was a vast, yawning void, but it was your job 
to bring as much, fuck, joy, smiles, love, what the fuck ever you 
wanted to call it. If nothing mattered and nothing was worth taking 
seriously, why not lay the fuck back? Why hurt and take and jerk 
yourself off until your dick gets chapped and your hand falls off? 


Maybe it made you a liberal. Maybe you weren't as radical as 
thought. Maybe, in your heart of hearts, you were still a sweet 
Catholic boy and not the renegade you thought you were. 


But you don't have any pretensions about what you do. Someone 
like you could make great changes in the world just with thinking. A 
lot of people in your group, in splinters of the group, and splinters of 
splinters can do magical things that would set the world ablaze. 


But that's not what you're here for. It's the jokes. If nothing matters, 
you should make sure to ease all the burdens you can. And a 
laugh's the only way you know how. You couldn't stop everything 
from sucking so much, but maybe you could make the suck sting 
just a bit less. 


polaricecraps: do we have any plans or anything for the 
next couple weeks? 


lesbian_gengar: let's send the misters against weed shit 
out. 

bluntfiend: Well, we can start sending them out anyway 
if they feel done. You gotta stagger these things. 
gaycopmp4: why 

hetcopogg: we can't have people bored by the joke 
before we even start. 

harmpit: tehyre not even done 

gaycopmp4: get on your magic shit then ass 
hetcopogg: i'm ms zapatista. 

harmpit: mr meem should openh is mouth and advice 
dog hsould pop out 

jockjamsvol6: Can we just put a tattoo on Bernie 
Sanders? 

bones: No cheating. 

bluntfiend: Yeah, what bones said. Besides, | got an 
idea for that one anyway. 


Dimensions 2, 3, and Onward 


The alarms had been going on for so long that his ears rang in 
between each beat of the klaxons' harsh, rising pitched wail. Every 
time he scanned a new hallway, his eyes picked out lurking shapes 
in the dim half-light, dispelled every time when his jittering hand 
pointed the flashlight at it, its rubber grip slick with sweat in his grip. 
In his time in this place, Site-17 had only experienced two alarms 
like this one. One was a fire, quickly extinguished. The other was 
something the guards and the researchers would refuse to discuss 
with him. Also quickly extinguished. 


If the clocks in the various hallways were to be believed, this alarm 
had been going for at least four hours, or at least four hours after the 
door to his cell had been opened. Why it had been opened, when he 
knew there were at least three redundant failsafe systems supposed 
to prevent that outcome, he could not say. 


The halls were dim, the site's power systems rerouted to what a 
planner somewhere must have deemed to be more important 
functions than brightly illuminating the sterile white walls and tile 
floors. To his eyes, the walls seemed to glow in the dim light, the 
spotlessly clean tiles each a twilight reflection on the ground. It 
made him feel as though he were walking through a dream, an 
entirely unwelcome reminder of some of his more distressing 
travels. 


There had been screams, early on. He had heard them, even before 
his cell door was open. But yet there were no bodies. No blood, no 
scattered belongings, no damage to any equipment or any of the 
facilities. Somehow that was worse. The only noise now as he crept 
through the abandoned middle levels was the klaxons, and the faint 
echo of earlier screaming just behind the ringing in his ears. His 
heart pounded, so much that there were times he thought he was 
going to faint. The only thing keeping him moving was the thought of 
being found by whatever had caused this, and having nowhere to 


run inside of his standard humanoid containment cell. 


His overriding instinct was to somehow get outside and as far away 
from Site-17 as possible. There was no telling the next time he 
would be snatched up by whatever force determined these things 
and sent god knows where; he had no intention of being randomly 
put back into a breached facility, back into the middle of whatever 
was going on here. He crept as quickly as he could around the next 
corner, hoping that a bank of elevators or a stairwell was at the end 
of the next turn. 


Down the hallway, more empty rooms. More noise, more half- 
darkness. Utility closets, power stations, a janitorial supply room, all 
open and unattended. The hum of a still-glowing panel of 
instruments pulsed behind him as he continued. A red tile square on 
the ground in front of him caught his attention, the first he'd seen 
since the one directly in front of the entry to his cell. Another skip. 
The sign at the door indicated "SCP-085." He had heard about 
Cassy from the researchers. Curiosity welled up in the midst of his 
terror, and he carefully made his way through the open door. 


In front of him was a stainless steel lectern, angled as though he 
were approaching it in order to give a speech to the blank white wall 
directly in front of him. The usual coterie of chairs and recording 
instruments lined the walls to the sides. A white drawing pad sat on 
top of the lectern, a cheap black ballpoint pen resting next to it. He 
approached. 


In the dim emergency lighting, he saw her. A slim, long-haired young 
woman, drawn with clean, black strokes on the white paper, pacing 
frantically across the page. She was drawn in body armor, looking 
like the security personnel that he would see sometimes rushing 
through the site. At his approach, she stopped suddenly, a mixture 
of relief and fear playing across her elegantly drawn face. Despite 
the situation, he noted that her movements flowed elegantly as the 
lines that composed her shifted and uncoiled, nothing at all like the 
living animation that he had envisioned. She pointed desperately at 
the pen next to the pad, mouthing silently frantic words. 


He picked up the pen and started to scribble in the corner of the 
sheet, his hurried handwriting a tangled mess compared to her 


precisely delineated form. 
What the hell is going on?