The church wasn't the only thing that had changed. The people that 
had brought him in here had seemed like ordinary, if a bit strange, 
citizens of this uncharted city in the middle of nowhere. Now, 
though, they took on the appearance of scaly beasts with gleaming 
red eyes. In their eyes, he thought he saw the images of the people 
they had appeared to be before the ritual, their faces contorted ina 
perpetual silent scream. 


The priest, who had spoken, and who had led the ritual, raised a 
large mirror. He saw in the mirror another of these scaly demons, 
but with a television in place of a head. In the static of the 
television's screen, he could almost make out the image of a 
similarly-headed human. 


"What did you bastards do to me!?" he demanded. 


"Isn't it obvious?" asked a resounding voice that seemed to come 
from all directions at once. "You have become one of the Followers. 


"What the fuck does that mean?" 
"It means that you are now part of the greatest thing to ever happen 


to this dreadfully dull world of yours,” the voice responded, 
seemingly coming from the very walls and floors of the church. "The 


man you once were is dead. | am your life now. You get to be a part 
of me." 


"Where are you? Show yourself, you damn coward!" 


"| revealed myself to you the moment you opened your eyes." The 
doors of the church opened on their own accord. The former doctor 
stumbled out of the door, unused to his new clawed feet. Where had 
once appeared to be a normal-looking small town, was now a 
twisted mess of what could only be described as organic structures. 
The former buildings now seemed like appendages of a colossal, 
grotesque living being. 


"You get to be a part of my great rebirth,” the voice said, causing the 
buildings to shiver slightly. "Long have | waited to recruit one of your 
Foundation. The first one may have been a nobody that nobody 
missed, but you? They will investigate your disappearance. You will 
bring in more. And when | have enough Followers, | shall shed this 
sessile form, and the world shall know my true glory." 


The doctor simply yawned in response. 
"You do not seem impressed by my glory." 


"I've heard it all before," he snarked. "In my line of work, I've seen 
the very worst this universe has to offer, and frankly, as far as 
eldritch abominations that pose a threat to all existence as we know 
it go, you're...slightly above average, if I'm feeling generous. And 
let's be honest...I'm not." 


The buildings trembled slightly more. "You dare to look upon my 
infinite greatness and not prostrate yourself in total service?" 


"Frankly," the man said, "I'm more pissed off that you killed me over 
this than anything else." 


"Your death was a necessary means to this end. The living cannot 
yet see my true form. Your death, and rebirth as a Follower, was the 
first step in the path to your destiny!" 


The man crossed his arms. "Yeah, um...no." 


The buildings expanded and contracted, as though the great 
monstrosity was sighing. "| suppose | should have expected 
resistance from you. My Followers! Restrain him!" 


With a collective snarl, the Followers burst from the church, and all 
the surrounding buildings, running on all fours, looking more like 
giant monitor lizards than human beings. The man shook his head, 
reached into his pants, and removed a gun. Without so much as 
flinching, he fired, and hit the priest squarely between the eyes. 


The other Followers stopped dead in their tracks, staring in disbelief 
at the unmoving, bleeding priest. "He...he's dead," one of the other 
Followers said. 


"How can this be?" the voice asked. "You cannot kill that which is 
already dead." 


The man cocked his gun and took aim at the nearest Follower. This 
was going to be fun. 


The Liar's Confession 


James Blackshaw — Part VI 


The group of people in black suits surrounded a fresh grave. 
Everyone who used to work with Dr. Kondraki and lived to tell the 
tale was present: Gears, Alto Clef, Kain Pathos Crow (for the sake 
of decency he agreed to be wearing a collar), Simmons, several 
assistants and also a young beautiful woman who had tried to pass 
herself off as the widow of the deceased, but during the funeral was 
identified as Jack Bright. 


A priest was performing the rite. Afterwards the coffin was lowered 
and covered up with soil. It seemed highly unnatural for such a 
wayward troublemaker like Kondraki to lie peacefully inside a 
wooden box and not try doing something about it. Everybody 
seemed a bit confused, as if not knowing whether to mourn or 
breathe a sigh of relief. 


“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. 


Gradually the small gathering started to disband. Foundation 
members, inured to lose their colleagues and witness death, were 
leaving without turning back, as if they wanted to close this chapter 
of their lives. Dr. Clef was the only one who took his time. People 
were walking by, passing the stout, hunched up Training and 
Development Director’s silhouette. Dr. Gears stopped beside him for 
a moment with a questioning look, but Clef only made a "nothing for 
you to see here" gesture with his eyebrows. 


Eventually there was only a single person left on the whole 
graveyard. Stepping towards the freshly-covered grave still fragrant 
with the questionably fresh smell of earth and cemetery dew, Clef 
pulled out a bottle of Heineken beer that he was hiding underneath 
his clothes during the whole ceremony, and opened it against the 
edge of the grave. Several foamy drops fell on the tombstone. 


transfer from host to host. 


If a subject maintains contact for thirty (30) days, their brain 
functions become a duplicate of the late Dr. Bright's. If 963-1 is 
removed after this time period, the subject retains an independent 
copy of the consciousness of Jack Bright. Sanctions were put in 
place to prevent multiple instances of Dr. Bright from being created 
to prevent Dr. Bright from collaborating with himself, however it was 
found this was not necessary, as Doctor Bright has proven 
thoroughly dedicated to the Foundation and its cause. 


Doctor Bright himself has performed extensive experimentation on 
SCP-963-1, with the expressed desire for release from it. Interviews 
with Doctor Bright indicate that killed himself in the process of 
empowering SCP-963-1, and was therefore never able to slave his 
own consciousness to the amulet. Doctor Bright hypothesizes that 
he accidentally activated 963-1's power by being killed, instead of 
killing himself as the original creator had done. 


Entry Regarding SCP-963-2 

On //_ , orders were given by O5-9 to attempt to replicate 
SCP-963-1. All attempts met with failure until SCP-963-2, at which 
point [SUBSEQUENT DATA EXPUNGED] 


ALL INFORMATION REGARDING SCP-963-2 IS 
CLASSIFIED LEVEL 5. ANYONE ATTEMPTING TO 
ACCESS FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT 
SCP-963-2 WITHOUT LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE WILL BE 
TERMINATED. 


Footnotes 

1. Who has been working for the Foundation since the containment 
ofSCP-590. For more information regarding Dr. Bright's mental 
condition, seeDr. Glass's psychological evaluation. 


« SCP-962 | SCP-963 | SCP-964 » 


“There is your blessing”, Clef muttered, moving aside to stand in 
front of the gravestone. He gave it a reprimanding look. 


"Well, well, Konny. You were one hell of a bastard, and everybody 
knows that. Of course they wouldn’t have spoken all this goody- 
good bullshit about you if not for the funeral regulations. As for 
James Blackshaw...” Clef smirked. "This was Kain's idea, although | 
told him you'd like Beethoven more". 


He took a gulp from the bottle and fell silent for a few minutes. 


“But you know what? | would never have imagined you to wind down 
so fast. Really. It was you who started this whole Duke mess, rode 
the Reptile; you tricked Able himself in swordplay. And now? You 
just a bag of bones, aren't you? And here we are!” 


Clef stared at the name and the years of life carved on the 
tombstone, as if the rock could understand him. A mischievous grin 
flashed across the face of the “father of lies”. 


“By the way, there is something | can tell you now that I've never 
told anybody. You can keep a secret, can't you, my dead friend?” 


The cemetery answered him with quiet rustle of leaves, mixed with 
distant noise of passing cars, and the morning fog swayed lightly in 
the hollows. 


“Ok. | see, you're interested. After all, you were always itching to 
take a picture of my face, didn’t you? It was a matter of professional 
honour for you, right? And what made you think | actually had a 
face? Did you notice, Konny, that people saw me differently? 
Someone even mentioned the third eye, but he was made a 
laughing-stock. Seriously, who would come up with something like 
that?..” Clef rubbed his forehead. “If you were even a little familiar 
with the Bible, Konny (which | doubt), you probably heard about the 
guy with six wings and four faces. But let me tell you, it’s just the 
beginning. My case is much worse”. 


Clef took another swing from the bottle, brushed the beer 
“moustache” off his upper lip and carried on. 


“Okay, let’s take a look at it from a different perspective. Here you all 
are, unanimously calling me a liar. | am used to not take offense, | 
even play along. But nothing of what | said was a lie. Was it the 
truth?" Clef smirked. “Lil once asked me about it. She was like: “Tell 
me the truth”. | laughed. My god, how | laughed, Konny. You are all 
so narrow-minded. You have invented such ridiculous things like 
truth, lies, fate, justice, egg pillows. They don’t exist, Konny. They 
don’t exist. Except for the egg pillows. The O5 Command sweated 
for such a long time over my PDA after that incident trying to recover 
the audio. They hired experts to recognize the motions of my lips on 
the video feed. | can’t know for certain, but I’m almost sure they 
tried. Do you know what they would have found there if they had 
searched properly? My laughter. Whole lotta laughs! And also a few 
words mentioning that whatever | said would always be true,” Clef 
slurred the last words, reaching for the bottle again. 


"Or maybe none of that. So you all better leave me alone with this 
crap. You are just primitive creatures with linear fates. How can | 
explain to you what multiplane reality is? You can’t even understand 
wave-particle duality. Well, take yourself for example, Konny. If you 
knew what | know, you wouldn't be lying in this coffin like a piece of 
lazy shit. You would have overcome death and stood right behind 
me!” 


Clef shrugged, barely keeping from looking back. 


“lam anything and everything. | am all that you can possibly 
imagine. God? Will do. The Devil? Fine! No, really, why are you 
thinking inside the box?” Clef laughed one more time. “I liked you, 
Konny. | liked your vision of me. And | liked being what you saw me 
as. | told you, all of this is just an illusion. Like your butterflies. 
Speaking of which. | Know that you aren’t there in the coffin. | also 
know that you've locked the little ones several meters under ground 
without a single drop of sugar syrup. You are a magnificent bastard, 
Konny, you are. | know that you’re out there! You wouldn’t have lost 
an opportunity to attend your own funeral! All of us wish for it deep 
at heart — to jump out of the coffin shouting “surprise!” So c’mon! 
Come outside!” 


Clef looked around. He peered into the trees, the tombs... the air — 
maybe a butterfly wing would suddenly flutter by. He waited for 


about a minute, with a bright smile that wouldn’t leave his face, then 
laughed nervously — and fell silent. He was alone. Really alone. 


“Miserable bag of bones”, he muttered, taking several steps away, 
but looking at the grave until the last moment. Then he tucked the 
bottle into his coat pocket and walked away without looking back. 


The Line of Duty 


“I can't do this Leonard.” 


Richard straightened the sheaf of papers splayed across his coffee 
table, shoving them back into a folio. “I'll deny it; there are other 
candidates, take one of them.” 


“There isn't any reason to deny it, Richard.” Situated on the opposite 
end of the couch, his partner for the last eight years reached across, 
gingerly removing the documents and leafing through. “It says 
enough in here; I'm physically a match, psychological analysis 
shows me fit enough for the project, and HaShem knows | meet the 
age criteria. My number came up, it's my job. It's your job, Richard, 
to sign this.” 


An arm dangled mid-air as Richard rose, ignoring the offered folio, 
and moved to his small bar cabinet. The palpable silence was 
broken only by the odd clinks and gurgles of cocktail preparation, 
and Leonard's eyes fruitlessly searched his back, hoping and 
desperate for a connection. A few moments more brought forth a 
sigh, and a thunk from the documents hitting the table. “Richard...” 


“Did | ever tell you about Jordan Wyatt? Second Lieutenant, under 
my command during my active tour of 'Nam?” With his slight limp, 
Richard returned to the couch, and regarded the man he'd call 
“husband” if he were allowed with a deep drink; how his eyes were 
so brilliant and alert, how undeniably handsome he still was despite 
his seventy-six years. 


“Yes; he was the one who was shot.” 


Richard loved the smooth alto that answered; the voice was the first 
thing Richard had known of Leonard, as it echoed across a staff 
table, and he had been charmed from the first. A glaze moved 
across his vision as he had another drink, but it was memory, not 
alcohol, that stole away Leonard's face in favor of horrors of old. 


“He was no further than you Leonard; he'd just made a joke about 
the mess. 'Aren't you responsible for the chefs, sir? Maybe you 
should requisition a cookbook on the next supply shipment.’ ...1 don't 
remember how | was responding. He was gone then.” Reds and 
greens colored his mind, as the visceral eruption of bullet from his 
friend's chest burned into prominence, unearthed for the first time in 
years; and with the memory came the pain, as a single tear rolled 
down his cheek. 


“| never told you, that he was my lover; my first, and only, until you.” 
He finished his drink then, and returned to the bar as he spoke on. 
“You know how it was back then; we weren't allowed to be...well, 
what we are. | can only guess what would have happened if my 
superiors had found out; probably a court martial, and a beating... 
but we were in love. True, honest love, and | felt free, even in the 
midst of that jungle.” 


He had poured the whisky straight this time, carting the opened 
bottle as he paced the room; and it was Leonard's turn to cry, the 
hurt from his partner echoing his own struggles. “I'm sorry Richard. 
You never-” 


“Don't be sorry; it was a long time ago.” Richard interrupted, pausing 
to drink his entire glass, and sat it on the counter, content with just 
the bottle. He turned to face Leonard, tears streaming down his 
face. 


“| had what passed as therapy after they took the bullet from my leg, 
but it was still a long time before | got over Jordan. | was responsible 
for him; | was his CO. It was my fault he died, that they got the drop 
on us that day. | should've been more alert, damn it!” 


Leonard rose, moving quickly to embrace Richard, pulling the liquor 
from his lips. Neither spoke as they held each other, each taking 
comfort from the touch of the other. 


It was Richard who finally broke away, gazing longingly into the face 
of his companion. “It took me a long time, too, to finally find 
someone who understood. | love you, Lenny.” 


“I love you too, Richie. And | do understand; I'm so, so sorry.” 


Wiping cheek and nose with a handkerchief, Richard moved to the 
door, his face a stoic mask as he swung it open. “Get out, Leonard.”