The skip was proving to be significantly more difficult to deal with 
than | had anticipated. 


As in, it was actively attempting to carve my face into a nice confetti, 
and then sprinkle my con-face-tti in the air. 


“Heh. ‘con-face-tti.’ ld have to remember that one for next time,” | 
thought as | dove through the closing containment bay’s doors as 
they slammed shut on an errant tentacle, slicing it off with a squeal 
of pain from the skip inside. 


| slowly got to my feet, and pulled out a notebook from my pocket. 
Pulling out a pen, | jotted down a quick note. 


Anomaly is extremely hostile, do not approach. ‘Con-face-tti 
expected.’ 


It all started two months ago. Shit went down. And | mean that in 
more than the typical Foundation way, where the world is full of 
bloodthirsty monsters, unspeakable terror, and occasionally tastes 
like raspberry lemonade razorblades. 


| didn’t know what was happening at the time. The guards herded 
me into the holding chamber like a calf being led to slaughter, and | 
felt roughly the same way. Whatever was happening, | was pretty 
sure that I’d get the short end of the stick. 


Life’s like that when you're basically human cannon fodder. Life as a 
D-class | guess. 


For the first hour, | assumed that some breach had happened, and | 
was being sequestered, as per usual. When the fourth hour hit, | 
thought that it might be more serious than usual. When the sixth 
hour hit, and | heard screams coming from outside, | got a little 


worried. When the eighth hour hit, and the power went out, kicking 
on the backup generators, | was pretty sure that shit had hit the fan. 


For a while, | wasn’t sure what to do. Some part of me thought that 
staying in the chamber until someone came to get us was the right 
call, because | was fairly sure I’d get shot if | left. Another part of me 
pointed out that if something this big had happened, they’d probably 
be coming around to shoot me anyway. “Wrapping up loose ends,” 
so to speak. Well good for them, hope that stain of plain old murder 
was worth the bureaucratic efficiency. 


In the end, | decided that if | was gonna die, | might as well have a 
chance to run for it. 


After squeezing myself through the vents, | dropped into the hallway, 
and immediately scanned the area, bracing myself for a hail of 
gunfire from a waiting guard team. Instead, what greeted me was... 
carnage. 


Everything was bathed in the light of a slowly flashing red alarm. 
The remains of the guard team that had locked me up was all 
scattered through the hallway. Yet the typical sights and sounds of a 
Foundation site busy at work were nowhere to be found, the 
hallways devoid of all life save for the puddling remains of staff 
members everywhere. The smell of death was thick and cloying, 
wafting through my mind and seizing my brain in a chokehold that 
made me gag. 


| picked a pistol off the ground from the severed hand that still 
clutched it in its rigor mortis fingers, and pocketed it, just in case | 
needed it. Seriously, what the fuck had happened to this place? 


As | walked through the hallways, | only found more signs of 
violence, but no signs of any answers or life, anomalous or 
otherwise. No doctors, no usually ever-present guards, not even 
another D-class. In the middle of one hallway, | picked up an ID card 
from an important looking corpse, before | finally came upon what | 
had been looking for: the site director's office. 


“Okay, so, note to self, don’t fuck with that tentacle-y skip in the 


future. Thanks, self.” 


| slid to the ground, and buried my face in my hands. | wondered if 
all this time alone was making me crazy. 


Back in the day, when there were other D-class around here, we 
picked up a real sense of gallows humor, except nothing around 
here was nearly as nice as the gallows. At least gallows had the 
decency to snap your neck and kill you quickly. If only some of those 
skips my fellow D-class had to deal with were so kind. 


There | go again, | guess. 


But there was a point to it. Shitting around about skips was a lot 
easier than having the stuff drip down your pants every time you 
realized where you were and what in the hell you were doing. At 
least that's what we told ourselves. 


| picked myself up the ground and dusted myself off, focusing on the 
task at hand. | checked for any bits of tentacle that might be stuck to 
me and looking to wriggle underneath my skin or something. After | 
decided that | was clean enough, | made my way to the site garage, 
checking to make sure nothing else was going to pop out of its 
chamber and eat my face. 


The site garage was filled with untouched vehicles, all except for 
one loaded Foundation issue truck, stuffed with supplies and other 
assorted gear. | pulled out a checklist from my bag and began to run 
down the list. 


‘Feed SCP-3234.’ Check. | wrote “con-face-tti” next to the item on 
the list. 


‘Week’s worth of supplies.’ Check. GI issue MREs for a week, plenty 
of water, and a first aid kit, just in case. 


‘Camping supplies.’ Check. Tent, knives, and other tools, all packed 
up and loaded. 


‘Weapons.’ Check. | had raided the armory for a pistol, a rifle, and 
plenty of ammo. Odds are it wouldn’t do squat against any skips that 
| had to come up against, but if there were human targets, that was 


another story. Plus, they made me feel better about myself. 


| got in the truck and checked the map that | had gotten from the site 
director’s office, before turning on the ignition and leaving the 
garage. 


Next stop: Site Omega. 


| had passed by the site director’s office dozens of times while being 

escorted from test to test, and | figured that it was as good of a place 
as any for figuring out what had happened. Every time | had passed 

by here, there were two armed guards in front of the door. 


“Well, there were two guards here at some point.” | mused, looking 
at the splatters of blood that were on either side of where the door 
should have been had it not been torn off its hinges and thrown 
away. Solid steel had buckled and been torn apart by something 
which | didn’t think that | would ever want to encounter. 


That reminded me of the fact that | still had no idea what had 
wrecked this base, and it certainly wasn't anything that | had ever 
been in testing with, or I'd be like Mr. Puddle and Mr. Human- 
Shaped-Stain here. Suddenly, | felt very alone and very exposed in 
the middle of this open hallway, so | quickly ducked inside. 


The site director's body was slumped over his desk, looking 
surprisingly calm compared to most everything else that | had found 
in the site. A bottle of some kind of pills was open on the desk, along 
with a note written in a kind of stilted, blocky looking handwriting. 


If anyone from the Foundation made it out and is reading this, 
understand that this could be Dr. Heinrich’s theorized “XK-class 
scenario” that he published a paper on last year. It’s so bad that the 
Phoenix Protocol is in effect. May God save our souls. Good luck to 
whoever you are. 


| didn’t have the slightest clue what the hell he was talking about. 
Scratching my head, | noticed the still-on computer that was on his 
desk. | moved aside the director’s body, and sat down in front of the 
computer when | was promptly greeted by a faintly lit screen. 


between the research team and their contacts was intercepted by 
Agent , who intervened on behalf of the Chilean government. 
Mobile Containment Task Force = (" ") was dispatched, who 
used incendiary devices to incinerate all plants in the area. All 
instances of SCP-780 were retrieved, and all but one has been 
destroyed to reduce the risk of further growth. 


Addendum 780b: See Experiment Log 780 A 
« SCP-779 | SCP-780 | SCP-781 » 


“PLACE FINGER ON PAD” 


| noticed a small metallic plate in front of the computer on the desk. | 
put my finger on the plate and immediately drew it back, wincing at 
the small cut that it had somehow made. 


A small bead of my blood lay on the plate, but the computer’s screen 
flickered and changed. 


“DNA AND FINGERPRINT SAMPLE IDENTIFY: D-1573.” 
“PROCESSING CLEARANCE...” 
”ACCESS GRANTED UNDER PHOENIX PROTOCOL” 


The screen soon changed to a Foundation Logo background 
covered in rows and rows of folders. Suddenly, the screen was 
covered in pop-ups all sharing a common theme. 


ALERT FROM SITE BRAVO: SIMULTANEOUS 
RELEASE OF MULTIPLE KETER CLASS SCP 
OBJECTS, IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE REQUESTED. 


ALERT FROM SITE TANGO: EXTREME LOSS OF 
LIFE DUE TO RELEASE OF SEVERAL HOSTILE 
ANOMALIES, IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE 
REQUESTED. 


ALERT FROM SITE EPSILON: CANNOT CONTAIN 
SUDDEN RELEASE OF HOSTILE ENTITIES, 
IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE REQUESTED. 


AUTOMATED ALERT FROM OVERWATCH 
COMMAND: PHOENIX PROTOCOL IN EFFECT. 


The alerts went on and on, until | clicked through so many that | lost 
count. | was dumbfounded. How many sites were there? What the 
hell had happened? Who else was still out there? 


My eyes were drawn to one last alert flashing in the bottom right of 
the screen. | clicked on it, and my heart began to pound as | read 
the document. 


PHOENIX PROTOCOL ENACTED 


Note: This is an automated action. The Phoenix Protocol 
is in effect for the following automatic reasons: 


At least 5 hours has passed without any response to 
Phoenix Alarm system from any site, therefore it is 
assumed that contact has been lost with >90% of 
Foundation sites as of the time of this alert. 


In addition, contact has been lost with Overwatch 
Command. 


PHOENIX PROTOCOL EXPLANATION: 


In the event of systemic collapse in the operational 
strength of the Foundation to the point where it is 
assumed that no major site has the ability to effectively 
contain any SCP objects, along with the crippling of the 
Overwatch Command, the Phoenix Protocol ensures the 
survival of the Foundation’s key data assets and central 
purpose. 


In the event of the Phoenix Protocol going into effect, all 
surviving members of the Foundation of any security 
clearance or status are immediately upgraded to 
temporary level 5 intelligence clearance regarding SCP 
anomalies and tasked with coordinating the consolidation 
of Foundation intelligence and survivors into a force 
capable of securing critical anomalies that must be 
contained immediately. 


If you are responding to a Phoenix Protocol that is 
currently in effect, you must follow the following steps in 
order to ensure the continuation of the Foundation and 
potentially the human race: 


The drive to Site Omega had been long. Even the closest 
Foundation site to my original one had been hours away. Thankfully, 
it didn’t seem like anyone in the civilian world had noticed anything 


particularly out of the ordinary yet, but | couldn’t vouch for what it’d 
be like in the upcoming weeks. 


| set up my camp a 30 minute walk away from Site Omega, just in 
case I'd have to be here for a while. | wasn’t entirely sure what I’d 
find in there, and it was better to have a place to fall back to, just in 
case shit hit the fan again. 


| decided that | had enough time to do a quick scoping out of Site 
Omega before night fell. | picked up my rifle (little more than a 
security blanket in this situation) and grabbed my bag of medical 
supplies, tools, and notebooks containing all the info that | could get 
my hands on about Site Omega and its anomalies. If | was going to 
do this whole “saving the world” thing, I'd have to make sure | didn’t 
get my dumb ass killed before | could do it. 


| walked to the site carefully, rifle ready. Soon, | came upon the site, 
hidden in the woods and disguised as a military research lab. The 
whole site was surrounded by trees, most of it being underground 
and hidden away. The actual entrance to the site was a little bit 
hidden away, forcing me to drop my rifle and check the map for 
where exactly it was. 


“Freeze. Hands up.” 


| froze in place, and slowly raised my hands into the air at the bark 
of the iron voice behind me. 


“Turn around. Slowly, motherfucker.” 
| turned around, making sure to do it extra slowly just in case. 


| almost laughed when | saw what it was. It was maybe 12 D-class, 
just like me, though still wearing the jumpsuits that | myself had 
discarded a week ago. They were melting out of the trees, behind 
cover, from the bushes, everywhere. Only one of them had a gun, 
but she seemed to be the lady with the voice who had been yelling 
at me. 


Life seems to have a weird sense of irony, don’t it? All these regular 
Foundation staff dead, but 13 D-class left to pick up the remains. 


“Who the hell are you?” The voice barked again, a pistol trained 
squarely at my head. 


“Easy, easy. I’m a friend.” | said, trying to infuse my voice with as 
much calmness and friendliness as | could. 


“Tell us who you are, shithead, and | might not shoot you for 
trespassing,” the woman said, not moving an inch. 


| smiled a bit despite myself, recalling something that | had seen 
while combing through files on the site director’s computer. | grinned 
at the crowd in front of me and answered. 


“| suppose you can call me...the Administrator.” 


After They Broke Our Fists 


Only the tips of Denver's skyscrapers still protruded above the sea: 
glass tombstones for citizens that were washed away years ago. 
Within one of those lonesome monoliths, a young man in a red and 
black life jacket watched the surf. Despite the knowledge of what 
lurked within that water, he felt a sense of calm as the sunrise 
illuminated its surface. He brushed a greasy lock of his hair out of 
his eyes and sighed. 


"Devon." 


Behind him stood a middle-aged woman dressed in faded tactical 
gear labeled with an emblem of a fist superimposed on a sunburst. 
Her hands were folded behind her back. She approached and joined 
him to look out over the water. 


"Beautiful day out, Captain Quine," Devon said softly. 
"Red sky at morning, sailors take warning," she replied. 


They both shared a chuckle. Quine gestured to the stairs with her 
gloved hand. 


"Come on, champ," she said. "Everyone's packing up. We're 
heading out." 


Devon and Captain Quine joined the rest of the crew in what was 
once a lobby, now flooded and filled by a small, patchwork barge. 
The term 'Disaster' has been scrawled messily on the side in red 
paint. 


Devon and his captain made their way to the pilot house. There, a 
one-armed teenage boy named Max loaded fist-shaped slugs into 
two shotguns. Between each slug loaded, he would twirl the 
ammunition between his fingers effortlessly. 


"Show-off." 


Devon snatched a slug out of Max's grip and replaced it with a 
power bar. 


"Bon Appétit." 


Max rolled his eyes and flipped Devon off. He then smiled as he tore 
into the ration. 


As Devon helped Max finish preparing the weapons, Captain Quine 
approached an older woman named June who sat by a small 
SONAR station. She kept opening a toolbox on her lap, examining 
its contents. 


"Any of them escape yet, June?" 


An old man in a grease-soaked mechanic's jumpsuit emerged from 
the hatch that led to the engine below. He chuckled at his own joke, 
thoughtlessly tracing his fingertips along the wedding band that 
dangled from his throat. 


June smiled and shook her head. 


"No, not yet, Roger. No lack of trying, though. Gary used to swear 
these things would sprout legs." 


"If | had a nickel for every time that happened,” Roger chuckled 
again. 


"What would you do with a whole quarter?" Quine grinned. "Think 
she'll hold for one more day?" 


Roger shrugged. 


"I'm surprised she didn't give up the ghost back in Sandpoint. But 
yeah. So long as you don't have me ram her into an iceberg, sure, 
why not?" 


"Excellent. June? Did you get the SONAR fixed?" 


The old tinkerer patted the device in response.