Photo Result: A number of ornately-dressed women look on with 
approval at an assortment of human corpses impaled on stakes. 
Said corpses include civilians of multiple ethnicities, soldiers 
dressed in the military uniforms of a number of countries and 
Foundation, Global Occult Coalition and Horizon Initiative 
operatives. Background buildings are gray and appear to be made 
of basalt. 


Subject: SCP-160 

Photographed Activity: Consuming a rabbit in its containment 
chamber. 

Photo Result: Consuming a rabbit in an environment subsequently 
identified as the town of [REDACTED], where SCP-160 was first 
captured. 


Subject: SCP-163 

Photographed Activity: Painting in its habitat. 

Photo Result: Interacting with another member of its species in an 
environment resembling the landscapes in SCP-163's paintings. 
Notes: A copy of the photograph was printed in UV-absorbent inks 
and presented to SCP-163, who refused to relinquish the 
photograph for two days. 


Subject: SCP-168 

Photographed Activity: Sitting on its table. 

Photo Result: An unidentified male teenager is using SCP-168 to 
solve several pages of mathematical equations; several textbooks 


Back at the hotel, | noted down everything (with a lot of swearwords: 
| hate it when | fail to adapt to a new partner!) and mostly forgot 
about it. 


Occurrence 2 

UK, London, Royal Opera House, April 2nd, 2009 

Tchaikovski's Swan Lake, Royal Ballet 

Excellent seat: stalls, front, centre, 2nd row. A treat to myself for my 
40th birthday. 

Magnificent performance... especially the Dance of the Little Swans, 
the famous Pas de Quatre. 

They were really little: they looked about 12 years old. When they 
appeared at the back of the stage, there was a wave of surprise 
through the audience, but the other dancers didn't flinch. 

The four dancers looked exactly alike, like true quadruplets: black 
hair, same face, same silhouette, same height. They all had a 
beauty mark on the forehead, very much like the Hindu 'Third Eye’. 
They moved as one. Their head movements were impossibly 
identical, to the millimetre and split second. 


Standing ovation for 3 minutes and 14 seconds. | timed it. The four 
curtsied like any performer during applause (their movements were 
exactly synchronized), then disappeared and weren't seen for the 
rest of the show. 


| wanted to enjoy the whole of my treat, so | put my thoughts on the 
back burner until the end. But my, that was one busy back burner! 
The guy in Le Chalet also had a beauty mark. When he invited me, 
and when | invited him later, | felt like he was peering at me with 
‘more than eyes' (as noted in my diary: | checked later). 

Black hair - yeah well, many people have black hair. 

But why/how male to female, adult to child, social dancer to classical 
ballet, one to four? Was it one or a group? 

Nah. Must be dreaming. Or deluded? Perhaps the beauty mark was 
a false memory. 


| checked the newspaper reports of the performance: they did point 
out the Pas de Quatre was exceptionally good and successful, but 
no detail. One report did however mention, in a pleasant aside, that 
the professional crew hired for filming the event suffered 
malfunctions in all their cameras. Nothing on the Royal Opera 


House website about genius quadruplet young dancers. 


Yes, | did consider telling the Foundation. This was rather 
anomalous... But in the end, | decided not to: no certainty, no 
proofs, perhaps deluded... Furthermore, | didn't want sheer talent to 
end up contained. 


Occurrence 3 

Egypt, Cairo, one of the restaurants in the Marriott Hotel, December 
9th, 2010 

Not alone this time: with four colleagues, three men and a woman. 
We'd just helped solve a nasty local containment breach and 
decided to treat ourselves to a good dinner; at my suggestion, we 
picked a restaurant with a belly-dancing performance. 

Food: excellent. Atmosphere: great. 

Just before the show one of the musicians asked the public not to 
take pictures nor film it. The waiters saw to it. 

Belly-dancer: black hair, black-and-gold outfit. Beauty mark. 


The best performance I've ever seen, and I've seen a /ot. | love 
belly-dancing, practised it for a long time, and am fairly 
knowledgeable about it. Many belly-dancers content themselves 
with simple moves and shimmies - trusting their half-naked bodies, 
shiny outfits, and the seductive aura of the dance to do the rest. Not 
this one: varied, inventive choreography. She moved like water - like 
the epitome of Woman, Grace, Pride, Sensuality... | could go on 
forever! 

During the performance she wore a small, secret smile, but her face 
was ... frozen? 

Mid-height, a voluptuous body. Not like the Chalet dancer, who was 
tall and thin. Not like the 12-year-old swans. But... something in 
common, not only the beauty mark. 


My colleagues were enchanted, clapped and whistled, gushed about 
her for the rest of the dinner. | didn't say much. 


What. The. Hell. 

Back to one person. Or was it a family: Daddy for waltz, Mommy for 
belly-dancing, daughters for ballet? Somehow it didn't feel right - too 
normal. And what were the odds of meeting them in Strasbourg, 
London, Cairo: were they following me? No, that was silly: | travel all 


the time, but | don't meet them every time. Was | deluded? 
Paranoid? Perhaps the guy in Le Chalet and the belly-dancer were 
just good... Perhaps | had imagined those perfect little swans... 


Occurrence 4 

YouTube, last night 

Yes, I've just spent years wondering about this, and finally decided 
to brace up and think. And make up my mind: should | inform the 
Foundation? I'd rather not... Who would want to lock up Gene Kelly, 
Michael Jackson, Rudolf Nureyev? But it's been nagging me all this 
time, so yesterday | sat down at my personal computer at home and 
got to work. 


| searched the Net with all the keywords | could think of: Royal 
Ballet, Le Chalet (sadly, it closed in 2010), (social) dancing, beauty 
marks... 

Time spent: about four hours (am | going mad?). Result: nothing. 

| searched video websites for 'best dancer(s) ever' and assorted 
keywords. This resulted in quite a few videos of four-year-olds at 
their first ballet classes; many reality-show candidates, best or not; a 
lot of crap... 

Time spent: about six hours (yes. | must be mad). Result: ONE. 


Cellphone video of a street show in Brazil. Uploaded on YouTube in 
February 2008 under the (English) title hidden dragon. Okay, when 
you search these keywords you get over 900,000 results, mostly 
about the films, but... the video displayed only 21 viewings, over 
nine years. 

The author of the video only gave the date of the recording: the day 
before uploading, during the Carnival. No location given. Comments 
deactivated. No other video from the author (is it important?). 

The video was shot covertly, and insolently filmed many signs 
informing the public, in several languages, that PICTURES AND 
VIDEOS ARE FORBIDDEN. Consequently, neither sound nor image 
are good quality. But you can still see two male dancers dressed in 
black, at least six assistants (male and female? Hard to tell) dressed 
in white, all with black hair, similar faces and a beauty mark. 


The show is advertised as a "reenactment of Crouching Tiger, 
Hidden Dragon". lt also features some Matrix- and capoeira-like 
moves. The assistants watch the show, mingle with the crowd to 


check for cameras. They don't speak - only communicate with 
gestures, sometimes rather brusque. They occasionally join the 
dancers in their performance; whenever they do, the only difference 
is the colour of their clothes - the quality of the dancing is the same: 
inhuman. And they all look mighty competent with swords, sabers 
and violence. 


THOUGHTS 


The guy in Le Chalet: 


The feel of his hands/body was pretty normal. 

He was excellent at leading waltz: clear signals from his 
hands to my body. 

In rock: his hand signals were also surprisingly clear, given 
that you normally have to get used to a partner in order to 
decipher the signs in the split second between one move and 
the next. However, his signals were often not followable (e.g.: 
we were already at two arms' length from each other, and he 
signalled to 'push' me further away - not possible, | would 
have 1) lost balance and/or 2) crashed into other dancers 
behind me). 


The four little swans: 


It is simply not possible to achieve such identical moves. 
Especially the head moves: they are varied (up/down/up, 
straight left/right/left, left/down/right/down/left...) and often 
illogical (e.g. the dancers look right when they are moving 
left). Even top dancers from top ballet companies cannot 
synchronize them exactly: | checked videos of Royal Ballet, 
Opéra de Paris, Bolshoi, Mariinski and Pacific Northwest 
Ballet. 

They moved as one when needed, but also when they 
shouldn't, like the salute at the end of the Pas de Quatre. 
NO ballet company chooses children to perform this part; the 
choreography is highly technical and requires experienced 
dancers. What happened to the four girls who were chosen 
and rehearsed with the others? 

No reaction from the public after the 'wave of surprise’ (did | 
imagine this?): the standing ovation concerned the quality of 


the performance - | never heard anyone around me ask ‘how 
can they be so young?’. 

¢ Did THEY manually sabotage the cameras, or are THEY able 
to somehow... influence equipment from afar? Why did the 
crew not realize something was amiss and repair it? 

* How can such excellent dancers appear on a show, disappear 
after they do their piece, and never be mentioned again 
anywhere? 


Belly-dancer: 


¢ Pictures and filming forbidden. The waiters confiscated a few 
cameras politely, but firmly. 

* Incidentally: why forbid pictures and films? Unlike the other 
public performances | saw, this one was exceptionally good, 
but not anomalous! 


The show in Brazil: 


* Crouching Tiger and Matrix, including impossible leaps and 
moves, without wires and CGI. 

* Incidentally: how nasty can THEY be? How dangerous can 

THEY get? Ergo, how contained should THEY be?) 

Pictures and filming forbidden. The assistants confiscated a 

few cameras firmly, but not politely. 

* One video online for nine years, and only 21 viewings. If 
THEY found it, why did THEY not erase the video? Why/how 
no description given, no comments allowed? Who gave the 
video such a casual title? What happened to the author? Or... 
did THEY plant the video themselves? Why? ...Or maybe I'm 
getting distinctly paranoid here! 


In general: 


* Is the quality of their dancing due to anomalous talents, or just 
passion and hard work like for everyone else? Or both? 

¢ Who are THEY? Fanatical worshippers of Terpsichore, muse 
of Dance? Just dance lovers who somehow got together to 
raise the quality of dancing worldwide? Are they human? 
Were they humans at one point, did they morph into... 
something else, by dint of hard work and... what? 


* How do they find each other? How do they recruit new 
members? How do they end up looking similar or identical? 

« Third-Eye marks have various meanings, including creation, 
unity, concentration, concealed wisdom, hospitality, victory... 
How significant is it for them? 

¢ Why do they perform in public but refuse any recording? Not 
logical! 


Damn. Every question raises others instead of bringing answers. 
Why? Why is it not possible to think clearly about them? 


But still able to think. 
More questions: 


¢ If they are a closely-knit group, what was the guy doing in Le 
Chalet, on his own? Why did he react so harshly to my 
failure? 

¢ Was he trying to recruit me? 

¢ Is this why | can remember and think about them? 


| need the Foundation to find THEM. Not contain - just find. 

It will most likely take some time, so I've just arranged an 
appointment with my Site Director for this afternoon; in the 
meantime, | need to change this ‘report’. 

The Foundation taught me to fight - I'm good at it. But | have to take 
up dancing again. At 47, | cannot start ballet; but | can work on as 
many styles of dancing as | can, and strive for excellence. 


Theogenesis 


The image came to me as | slept. In my dream, | stood at the center 
of a tall hill, and though it was day | could see all the stars of the 
night sky. More, in fact. They were strewn across the atmosphere, 
clumped together so tightly that in many places you couldn't see 
anything else. Instead of white, they shone dark red. 


A voice came from behind me, and | turned. Standing there was a 
man. He wore a brown, ratty cloak, that obscured his face and body 
in shadow, so that all | could see were his hands. They were 
withered, grey things with fingernails that looked like a predator's 
teeth. He said something again that | couldn't understand. | asked 
him to repeat himself. He spoke again, and the voice seemed to 
come from all around me. you will find yourself, it said. when you do, 
you will fall. the fall will be the first of many, and when it is finally 
over, you will lose yourself again, among the dreams of stars. 


| asked him what he meant, but he did not reply. The red light 
around us began to grow brighter. Looking up, | saw the stars were 
expanding. Their edges crept out slowly, pressing against each 
other and meshing together, forming one great mass that stretched 
across the entire sky. | looked back at the man, but he was gone, 
and | could hear only a slow, humming crescendo. 


When | woke, my first instinct was to write. To this day | cannot say 
why, but | flung myself from the bed and scrambled to my work 
desk. Three years work of design and planning for the chapel were 
tossed aside. In their place, | took a stack of paper and pen, and 
began to write. A week later, | emerged from my home with the first 
and final draft of what would be published as Seventeen Red Tales. 


Though many people have asked me what inspired me to write the 
work, until now | have not relayed this story to anyone, not even 
those who helped publish it. There have been two reasons for this: 
The first, because | barely believed or remembered it myself. The 
second, because of what happened after the book was released. 


It was a little over a month later. | was still astonished by the 
immediate popularity of the stories, and trying to adjust to my new 
life in the spotlight. After a particularly grueling interview, | returned 
home expecting to pour myself a drink and retreat to bed. Instead, | 
found two women and a man standing in my study. The man had a 
book. The women had knives. 


“You're coming with us,” said the shorter, blonde-haired woman. The 
knife hung by her side in a most non-threatening manner. | looked 
from it, to her, to the other woman, to the man, to the knife, and 
decided it would be best to listen. A bag was thrown over my head, 
and | was pulled outside by rough hands. From there, | was tossed 
into a carriage. We bumped along through winding roads for what 
felt like many hours, before | was pulled back outside. The bag was 
torn from my head. 


We were in a small back alley, in a part of town | couldn't recognize. 
The three figures stood in front of me. 


“Show it to him,” said the taller, brown-haired woman. “Show it to 
him!” 


The man thrust the open book into my arms, and | realized it was 
Seventeen Red Tales. It was turned to the sixth tale, A Hidden Path, 
at the moment when Samuel reject's The Liar's third offer, though it 
took me a moment to realize this. The margins had been almost 
blacked out by notations and drawings, in a script so cramped | 
couldn't distinguish the words. Their writing filled every inch of white 
space. Only by looking closely could | recognize the printed words 
around it. 


“What does it mean?” said the man. He stared at me with wide eyes. 
“|... | don't know,” | said. “What are you trying to show me?”