The table jostled slightly as she climbed onto it, and then stilled 
when she walked through the portal. As soon as she did, the 
abnormal space collapsed, with no trace that it had existed. 
Seerson pushed back his chair and stood, then collected the 
half-drunk glass of tea and bowl of lemons back onto the tray. 
He hummed as he tidied up, then picked up the remainder of the 


deck and sat down at his desk. 


He waited for the portal to reform above the reading and 
shuffled the rest of the deck. Cut, shuffle. Cut, shuffle. Cut, 
shuffle. 


The Reading 


Walking through the portal wasn't uncomfortable or shocking, 
per se, but was definitely an odd sensation that she couldn't get 
used to no matter how many times she did it. It was like having 
something lightly brush every part of her, inside and out, all at 
once. At least it was brief. 


Claire steadied herself as she entered and inspected the 
hallway. It was important to keep in mind that this was a largely 
symbolic environment and that first impressions were just as 
important as deeper introspections. It was hard, though, to 
maintain a balance between dismissing seemingly irrelevant 
details and obsessing over every little thing, trying to ferret out 
meaning. 


She suspected that this hallway was more of a staging ground 
than anything deeper, as she'd seen variations of it in two of her 
past readings. The copper branches were new, though. Copper 
tarnished into green, an imitation of true plants. A simulacrum of 
living things. Interesting. 


No! She was already trying to read too much into small details at 
the very beginning. This place was too responsive; it would give 
her finer and finer details the harder and longer she looked for 
them. She had to fight her instincts and metaphorically unfocus 
her eyes. 


So. Hallway. Branches, ceiling lights, door. She walked down 

the hallway, her strides covering more distance than would be 
expected, until she stood before the door, now a set of gates 

made of twining silver bars with sapphires and rubies inset at 

the intersections. They were held closed by a fine silver chain 
locked into place by a brass-colored lock. The keyhole was 


slightly smaller than the tip of her pinky finger. Claire patted 
herself down in case a key had appeared in a pocket, as 
sometimes happened. Nothing. 


She gave a tentative tug at the chain, but it held strong despite 
its delicate appearance. The bars weren't loose and the hinges 
were on the other side of the gates, where she couldn't reach 
them. How was she to open this? 


Oh, of course! She plucked at one of the branches at random 
and a twig easily separated, the broken stem resembling a 
skeleton key, if you squinted and looked at it at an angle. Her 
methods were all about using the overlooked to her advantage, 
after all. She inserted the twig into the lock and the bars of the 
gates thinned finer and finer until the weight of the gemstones 
snapped the silver threads, leaving the way ahead open. 


Claire passed through into a chaotic scene. She was now 
standing in the eye of a vast windstorm, too large to be a simple 
tornado. Branches, no, whole trees went spinning by, a cinder 
block wall disintegrating before her eyes as it hurtled around 
before retreating further into the storm, a flock of starlings 
somehow maintaining formation as they darted as one being. 
The flock-beast burst free into the calm space around her and 
started flying around her in the opposite direction of the larger 
storm. Bird calls, deafening, wings buffeting her as the flock 
grew closer and closer. 


She dropped into a crouch, arms held up to protect her face 
from the storms of wind and birds. Greenery started hitting her. 
She wasn't sure which storm was throwing them, but as they 
touched the ground at her feet, they sprouted. Yellow roses and 
sweet mint sprouted and entangled her feet, her ankles, her 
legs, rapidly climbing her body. The smell of them was so 
strong, her head started swimming. 


The smell, the birds, the storm... they were all trapping her, 
buffeting her, wanting to keep her in one place where she could 
be attacked. Claire tried to pull off the vines, but the thorns 
stabbed her hands and the mint stained them green where she 
ripped them away. Blood and green, dripping from her hands. 


The scream of the storm and the high piping of the birds. 


She raised herself as much as the plants would allow and 
screamed, no, roared her defiance at the chaos that surrounded 
her, that which dared to keep her trapped, to force her to 
inaction against her will. 


The windstorm died, immediately, everything it carried crashing 
to the plain surrounding her. The flock continued its circling, 
though, its mad cries growing shriller and shriller, as if to tell her 
that though she may have roared away the wind, her cries had 
nothing on its. 


The roses and mint slowed their climb as they reached her hips. 
She was more firmly bound in place, but at least her arms were 
still free. The strong redolence of mint and roses rose strong 
and fierce, though. She was losing her concentration, which she 
couldn't afford to do here. She had to defeat both the birds and 
the bower, and needed to keep a tight focus on anything that 
could help her. 


Or wait. She had already admonished herself about keeping too 
tight a focus, of encouraging the landscape to give her more and 
more until she couldn't take it. Her senses were being 
overwhelmed and her instinct was to fight it, to fight her way 
free. But to struggle, fruitlessly. To fight even when doing so 
only encouraged more violence. This wasn't a winning strategy. 


She closed her eyes and tried to still her breathing. She flinched 
as a wingtip flicked across her forehead, then another against 
her ear. She kept her eyes closed, though, trying to ignore the 
distractions. She felt a rose vine brush and then grab her left 
arm, a flower blossoming against her elbow. The thinner shoots 
of a mint vine grabbed her right arm and both vines crawled up 
to her shoulders, and then her head. A torque of roses around 
her throat, a circlet of mint upon her brow. 


She kept as still as she could throughout it all, fighting to not 
fight, struggling to not struggle. And none of the thorns pricked 
her. And none of the vines tightened to strangle. And as she felt 
the leaves grow down over her closed eyelids and the blossoms 


grow up over her mouth, the flock descended. 


At first only one starling, then another, then so many she 
couldn't tell them apart. They landed on her bound body. A 
single bird would be so light as to not be noticed, but this many 
weighed her down, binding her to the ground as sure as the 
plants that covered her. But then. 


But then she felt a purpose in the jostling hops of birds over her 
body. Mint was plucked, roses were broken, vines were pecked 
loose. In a matter of minutes, she was freed, but for her crown 
and her torque and her mask. Claire gently lifted her arms, birds 
hopping out the way, and felt at the remaining greenery. It was 
smooth and metallic now. She couldn't open her eyes with the 
mint leaves pressed against them, but there was negligible 
weight to the metal plants. 


She tried to pluck it free, as she'd plucked the twig in the 
hallway, but it was solid and stubbornly resistant to her fingers. 
She put her hands to the ground and slowly pushed herself up 
into a crawling position. Sweeping her hands back and forth, 
she started to explore the area around her, now that the 
environment wasn't actively trying to hinder her. Birds hopped 
around on her back and in her hair, disregarding her motion. 
Their cries were softer now, and more melodic than shrill. 


She made her way slowly across the expanse, the grit of dirt or 
coarse sand beneath her. The ground slowly became grainier 
and grainier as she felt a heat upon her exposed forearms and 
the back of her neck. It felt like sunlight, like she was at the 
beach, but there was no sound of waves and she couldn't see. 


Her sweeping hand bumped into something, a pole of some sort 
that felt like pitted stone. She pulled herself to her feet as her 
hands carefully traced the pole upwards, until she reached... an 
arrow sign. No, two, pointing in different directions. Rather more 
pointedly on-the-nose than she would have expected. They felt 
like they were made of the same stone as the pole supporting 
them, and she couldn't tell if there was anything written on them. 
It didn't feel like anything was engraved on them. 


discovered, with the rest gradually located over an extended period 
of time. The current average discovery rate of drums containing 
SCP-697 is one every three weeks. 


« SCP-696 | SCP-697 | SCP-698 » 


She was frustrated with this whole thing and let her head fall 
against the pole. This was not a terribly wise decision, as her 
mask thunked back against her face. It may be light, but it was 
still solid metal. She tried to rub her forehead where it had jolted 
her, but aborted the motion. The definition of insanity, after all. 


She heaved a sigh through her nose and drummed her fingers 
against the pole as she took a moment to just think. This place 
was literally made just for her. What did she need to do to 
master, no to understand it? Time always felt strange in here, 
and she couldn't tell whether she'd been at it for hours or days 
or forever. She could be here forever, if that's what it took to 
understand. She didn't know everything about the deck that 
opened the way here, but she did know that not everyone came 
back. 


But she couldn't doubt herself. She had gone through this before 
and emerged stronger and wiser. This place was a test, yes, but 
one she placed before herself. Any opposition was her own 
doing, as much so as any strength she used. It was easy to 
forget, when things became externalized. 


And if this place was all and only hers... 


Claire blinked and opened her eyes as the mask came off in her 
hands. Silver filigree with tarnished copper leaves and yellow 
gold rosebuds, all of a piece. Beautiful. She cradled it as she 
looked up. 


The arrows weren't actually signposts, but rather the feet of a 
much taller caricature of a scarecrow, all graying stone and 
angles. Its arms were pointed upwards in a V and its head hung 
down to stare at her, stony spines making a ruff around its neck. 
She recognized it, though. It didn't look like her predecessor, but 
it carried the impression of him. The blankness, the lack of 
self... She didn't envy the bare fraction of a life that he'd allowed 
himself. The fact that she now carried his burdens as well as her 
own had always rankled. Being reminded of it was annoying. His 
strengths were hers now, his ways hers, and unfortunately, his 
enemies hers too. 


She may not have envied his pale imitation of life, but she did 
almost envy that he was allowed to /eave. She couldn't yet. Not 
until she allowed herself to. And she had too much to do before 
she could afford that luxury. 


She banged her fist against one of his arrow-feet and watched 
as the pole spun slowly in a full revolution. The face of the 
scarecrow was different now. Her own. Or at least her face from 
when she'd held her own name instead of that of some nobody 
off the street. She struck the arrow-foot again, harder. It wasn't 
fair to taunt her like this! 


The scarecrow spun twice this time, stopping to face her again. 
The face was now a literal vacancy, an open cavity into the rest 
of the head, just begging for someone new to fill its place. 


Claire glanced at the mask in her hand and nodded, then began 
climbing the pole. She had to do it mostly one-handed, as she 
didn't feel comfortable putting the mask back on in order to 
climb, so it was slow going. The scarecrow seemed to get taller 
and taller as she climbed, too, and by the time she was able to 
sit in the V of the arms, she had to be at least a dozen stories 
above the gritty ground of the black plain below. 


She carefully placed the mask into the cavity, crown, torque and 
all. It was too small. It rattled around like a dried pea in a drum. 
But either it grew or the head shrank, until eventually it seated 
itself properly in the space. Just as it settled, a bright light burst 
from behind the mask and the scarecrow's arms jerked 
downwards. She slid and fell, her grasping hands unable to gain 
purchase before she slipped off the thing's shoulders. 


As she fell backwards, she steeled herself for the sharp impact 
and hoped that nothing major would break. 


There was a soft thud as she landed gently on a wooden floor. 


"Welcome back, Ms. Gray. Would you like another glass of tea 
while you gather yourself?" 


Anomalous Item #55829 
Item Description: A deck of cards which changes the 
number and type of cards it consists of in order to be 
able to play any type of card game desired by the 
holder. It will retain the form of the last cards used until 
used in another game. 
Date of Recovery: 2010-09-14 
Location of Recovery: Genua, Italy 
Current Status: Kept in Low-Security item storage at 
Site 78. Available to personnel with Level 1 or higher 
clearance. 


INTERNAL MEMO 


ACCESS LIMITED TO SECURITY CLEARANCE: 
SITE DIRECTORS: S-17, S-19, S-78 
DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE 


re: Potential upgrade of Al-55829 to SCP-class Item 


Al-55829 is a metamorphic deck of cards that changes to fit 
whatever game is played with it. Standard testing at 
acquisition indicated no adverse properties and a negligible 
risk level, so the item was assigned to the Anomalous Items 
department. Full file available here. 


On 2014-10-31, Al-55829 was checked out for 
entertainment purposes for an office Halloween party. Per 
post-incident debriefing, Assistant Researcher William 
Davidson decided to try to use Al-55829 to perform tarot 
card readings. Al-55829 successfully replicated a deck of 
tarot cards, which were visually inspected prior to use and 
determined to resemble a Rider-Waite-Smith deck. 
However, during use, a number of previously unseen 
effects manifested. 


The initial effect was that several cards were drawn which 
did not conform to the standard tarot deck in either name or 
illustration. Of note is that for instances of "pentacles" 
cards, the Foundation security levels logo replaced the 
standard pentacles. 


The second and more concerning effect was that the 
placement of cards in the "Tree of Life" spread resulted in a 
large visual distortion above the table upon which the cards 
were placed. Although the distortion began forming 
immediately after Assistant Researcher Davidson placed 
the first card with the intention of using that particular 
spread, he reported that he felt a strong and seemingly 
natural desire to continue the reading until the spread was 
complete. Upon the completion of the spread, a variety of 
disconnected objects and scenes were visibly cycling within 
the distortion, and Custodian Janet Martinez, the person for 
whom the spread was laid, reported that the contents felt 
symbolically representative of multiple aspects of her life 
and immediate psychosocial situation. 


Both Davidson and Martinez reported "knowing" that the 
completed distortion was a portal or gateway specifically 
available to Martinez only, but neither felt any sort of 
compulsion to confirm that. 


Five minutes after the distortion fully formed, it abruptly 
disappeared, and security personnel were able to recover 
Al-55829. As an immediate safety precaution, Al-55829 
was used to play a game of "high-card", at which point it 
replicated a standard 54-card playing deck and was 
returned to storage.