Nervously, he stepped into the hallway. 

"Little brother?" he called out, tensing up to run. "Hey, I'm here." 
The duo turned with difficulty to look at him. 

"Oh, thank god! Come on, we have to go take him to the hospital!" 
As they advanced on him, Paul reflexively took a step back. 


"That's, uh," Paul fumbled over his words. "Mike, | don't think we 
should do that..." 


"Are you crazy?! Look at him, he's almost dead! Please! | can't just 
let him die! It was our fault Paul! We did this and... and..." 


The boy stopped and vomited, clutching the other form tightly and 
taking in ragged breaths. 


"Please, Paul... We hit him... | can't... | can't let him die..." 
With these words, Mike collapsed to the floor. 


Paul shouted, and ran over to his little brother. He crouched and 
started checking for a pulse on his neck. He ran his eyes over the 
familiar face, noticing every single minute detail, from the scar above 
his left eye, to the lip he'd bruised earlier, to his long, narrow nose. It 
was most definitely his brother. 


"Paulie...?" he faintly murmured. "Is that you?" 


"Yes, yes it's me, Mikey," Paul said with relief. "I'm here, I'm going to 
help you now, we're going to take you and this kid to the hospital, 
and everything is going to be alright. | promise." 


The boy shook his head. 


"Brother, you've done enough. | can't move on, | need more rest. 
Please, just stay with me right now until | have enough strength to 
move on." 


"Sure thing, Mike." 


The sensation wasn't subtle. Paul knew soon enough that it was 
over. And yet, he didn't regret it. Strangely, he felt...at peace. He 
closed his eyes as he felt the cold, clammy appendage attach itself 
to him and start converting him. It felt right... 


Hey there Paulie, I'm glad you finally came! Have you met my 
friend? 


Three Sleepless Nights 


Barcode splashed cold water across her face, well aware that it had 
been seventy-two hours and three minutes since she had last been 
asleep and that sleep would not come for another seventeen hours. 
She looked up into the mirror: The young woman who looked back, 
with the round face and short-cropped hair all dyed up, and the bare 
arms sleeved with tattoos of | Ching hexagrams, looked unfamiliar in 
a way. She recognized that it was herself, but the image felt 
disconnected. Like a photo that she couldn’t remember taking. 


She’d need to get her dye touched up, she noted: the black roots 
were showing beneath the orange and white. The circles under her 
eyes were exceptionally dark, almost black, as they always were 
towards the end of her waking cycle. Her senses were dulled to the 
point where the world around her consisted of a blurry blank 
vastness, viewed through clouded, rippled glass. 


And yet... 


She flicked open her foldable toothbrush and squeezed a glob of 
blueish goop onto it. 


And yet the world exploded with color and noise around her like a 
demented scrapbook. Each object, the sink, the faucet, the soap 
dispenser, the toothbrush, her hands, was outlined in its shadows a 
thousand days hence, and bathed in colors that had no wavelength, 
and twisted around in more dimensions than it ought. She saw 
things from all sides and none, things that existed and did not. She 
saw it all, all at once, if she looked the right way. 


If she looked in the mirror at the right angle and let her eyes go 
unfocused just the right amount, she could make out a blood-red 
worm with a thousand rippling legs and a head shaped like a penis, 
curled around her neck. 


“Morning, beautiful,” it said in a velvety voice with some indiscernible 


Slavic accent curling around the edges of its fleshy mandibles. 


“Go home, Vinnie,” Barcode said through the toothpaste foam. “You 
aren’t real.” 


“Aw, don’t be like that, baby.” The worm skittered around her 
shoulders, undulating rhythmically. “Don’t be like that.” 


“You're a figment of my imagination.” 

“You're no fun anymore.” 

Barcode spat into the sink. Drink, swish, spit, drink, swish, spit. 
“| was never fun, Vinnie.” 


She rose from the sink, put her toothbrush and toothpaste into the 
pocket of her pajama pants, and brushed at her shoulder where 
there was no worm. 


The young woman named Barcode, of the Esoteric Warfare Unit’s 
fourth squad, trundled out of the bathroom, her bare feet brushing 
against the cool, cracked tiles. 


“So | says to the guy, | says ‘Do you want to see some real 
operating?’ and | show him Bessie like this, and he looks about 
ready to shit himself and... Chinkacoon, are you sleeping on the 
job?” 


Barcode half-heartedly flipped off the dark, shriveled husk of a man 
sitting there on the low concrete wall. Ramses. Fitting name. 
Brought a plague on every house he entered. That, and he looked 
like he crawled right out of the Valley of the Kings. 


He actually had crawled out of the Valley of the Kings, though the 
exact details changed with every telling. 


“No.” 


“You look like a walking corpse.” Ramses twirled his favored razor 


around in his fingers. 
Barcode didn’t dignify that with a response. 


The other man sitting on the wall looked like someone had stapled a 
face and a brain to a flank steak off of a rhinoceros. This was 
Whalebone. His fingers were as thick as her wrist. 


“Morning, Barcode. Heading home today.” 


“And leave when we get there.” Ramses flicked his straight razor 
closed and slipped it back into his pocket. “About fucking time.” 


“Heh heh heh, yeah, we could all use the relaxation. What are you 
gonna do, Bar?” 


“Sleep. Shower.” 


“Sleep? Pah.” Ramses mimed the act of spitting. “Sleep is no good 
for relaxing. Fit for savages, perhaps, but worthless for a man such 
as myself. Civilized relaxation requires fine silks, good wine, a large 
jug of olive oil, and a half-dozen nubile young men in various states 
of undress. You miss the finer things in life, Chinkacoon.” 


“That explains why I’m stuck listening to you.” 


Whalebone laughed, and it sounded like a hippopotamus with a 
respiratory infection. 


“Too bad we can’t have our leave here.” He nodded out towards the 
beach and ocean. “Home is probably frozen solid by now.” 


That it was. Snow and ice back home, rather than tropical salt 
breezes and bright flowers and five suns and a crumbling Nazi 
bunker. The last bit wasn’t particularly nice to look at, but it did 
contribute to the overall atmosphere in ways that Barcode could not 
adequately describe now. She could, however, see a few burning 
towers of screaming goat skulls, an erotic carrot hive-mind, some 
micro-zeppelins with sloth faces, and aborted spoons in the 
background, none of which existed. 


They had found a flag when they first got there. Kramer cut it up and 


used it as toilet paper. Said the chafing was worth it. 


“Long story short, the guy got fucked over.” Ramses continued 
whatever story he was telling before. “And | look down and lo and 
behold, he had no legs. Nothing below the waist. | look down at him 
and | say, | say ‘see, you should have listened to me, never trust 
lactating clowns’, and then | cut his throat. Common decency was at 
stake.” 


Barcode ignored their talking: the words went around her like so 
many three-eyed salmon. 


She felt a twinge in her head, something pulling down at the edge of 
her stretched tarp-consciousness. Something out by the ocean, 
fluctuating the Field, bobbing up and down. Irregular. Like a lead 
weight dropped on a sheet of rubber. 


hey kramer im picking up something on the water 

ANY IDEA WHAT IT IS? 

The words tasted yellow in her head. A gaunt, looming yellow. 
no idea going to run down and check it out 

RIGHT, ILL TELL MACNUGGET 


Barcode wandered out of the bunker and down the wooden 
scaffolding that led to the beach. The thumping in her head grew 
more intense, louder without sound. Muskrat liches scattered as she 
passed. There were weird things out in the water, probably just 
some big dumb thing messing up the local Field... 


She was on the beach, sand in her toes. The Thing, whatever it was, 
was drawing closer. And it was big. Her mind brushed against its 
presence, like a swimmer brushing a foot against a boulder they 
could not see to its full extent. She couldn’t see anything with her 
eyes, but she could feel it there, swimming off the coast. Maybe a 
few hundred yards out and approaching. 


A spout of water erupted from the waves, and a sharp lance of panic 
stabbed through the blurriness in Barcode’s mind. 


“WHALE!” she screamed with voice and mind, drawing the Field 
around her close. 


The mist and spray fell back to the ocean as a wide, bloody gulf 
opened up in the sky. Wisps of damned souls shrieked as they 
poured out of the gaping hole and swirled about in the pooling black 
clouds. The thumping became an all-out assault against Barcode’s 
mind, coiling and prying and trying to find an opening in the Field. 
The waves broke as a great humped back rose above the water, 
grey and red and speckled with the fleshy, screaming faces of its 
old, eternally tortured meals. A massive wedge-shaped head, 
encrusted with barnacles and sea lice, opened up its mouth and 
roared. 


The air rippled and tore, and whatever mild local gods inhabited that 
place collectively shat themselves. 


Barcode found herself rooted where she stood, immobile. The fear 
that sprung up sublimated on contact with her mind, burning away 
the blurriness and leaving cold, strangely logical thought behind. 


There was a Whale. There was a God-damned Whale maybe a 
hundred yards away from her. There was a dog-fucking God- 
damned Whale that knew she was there. There was a shit-licking 
dog-fucking God-damned Whale here right when they were going to 
head back to Baseline. There was a cunt-chafing shit-licking dog- 
fucking God-damned Whale here and she couldn’t move because 
sparing any neurons from maintaining her shield would let the Whale 
into her head and reduce her mind to a fine slurry. She could feel its 
gigantic, salt-rimed eyes already peering down at her soul, like a 
king looking at a worm in his apple, trying to crack it open. 


A mass of golden fire screamed over her head from behind, hitting 
the Whale in the shoulder, cascading off in sheets of flame. The 
pressure on Barcode’s mind lifted just enough that she would allow 
herself to move, allow herself to run. More fireballs launched 
overhead. 


kramer is there a plan 


ARE YOU UP FOR A SOULSHOT? 


do we have a choice 


NOT UNLESS YOU WANT THIS THING TO GAIN THE 
ADVANTAGE. KILL IT IN FIVE MINUTES OR FIVE MONTHS YOU 
KNOW HOW IT IS. 


right ill do it 
WHALEBONE’S BRINGING YOU A CADABRA. 


The fireblasts were now accompanied by the booming thumps of a 
cannon. That'd be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The Whale roared 
again, though in irritation rather than pain. Barcode didn’t have to 
look to know that the full extent of the barrage was maybe a little bit 
of temporary discoloration of the skin. It would be in the shallows 
now, reaching the shoreline. 


She was at the cliff, at the base of the scaffolding. She looked up to 
see Whalebone jump off from the top and plummet to the beach. 
The slight form of Spleeny rocketed off of the cliff face, striding 
towards the Whale on six legs of braided barbed cables. 


“Catch!” he tossed her a gun, a sleek grey thing on a shoulder strap. 
Red runes were painted along its length. 


“Get me up there!” 


Whalebone grabbed her around the waist with both hands. His skin 
rippled with the silhouette of his elasmotherium totem. 


“Can you keep yourself stable?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Right then. Alley-oop!” 

He threw her at the Whale. 

Barcode nudged herself just enough to keep herself stable as she 


flew, wind howling around her. She had precious little mind to spare 
outside. Everything she could afford had to be directed at the Whale. 


Her mind hit the Whale’s like a jet hitting a wall. If it had been big 
before, now it was monolithic, a singularity of hate corrupted by the 
static of the ghosts that swam in the air around it and the souls 
roiling in its gut. 


Below, Spleeny lashed at the Whale with her barbed cables and 
spears of her own blood, whisking around it. A scarlet lance lodged 
itself in its eye, and for a moment there was a crack in its mind 
before it healed from its injury. Barcode squeezed through, and 
began assaulting the Whale’s mind. Not to damage it permanent, 
just enough to make it recoil, just enough. 


For all of this, Barcode was in the air for six seconds. She landed 
where the neck met the hump. She shaped the Field around her 
hands and feet to maintain her grip and continued hacking at the 
Whale’s mind. Cannon shots and fireballs continued to barrage it as 
Spleeny continued to circle and lash. 


The pain in her head was indescribable, like getting eaten alive 
inside her own skull. She could dimly feel a dribble of blood running 
down her lip. She aimed the Cadabra, pressing the barrel right 
against the Whale’s smooth grey skin. 


Within the burning pain that surrounded her in the Whale’s mind, 
she could hear its voice and understand its tongue. 


Maggot [rot, scum, decay] 
infesting the fruit of the Tree / 
slave to knowledge [ignorance 
and false teachings] impotent / 
die a thousand/million/billion 
deaths [forever] undying / 
disgust-abomination wracked 


as she would appear without her anomalous augmentations. 


Subject: SCP-2337 

Photographed Activity: Eating a plate of gummy worms in the 
center of its containment enclosure. 

Photo Result: Inconclusive. Dr. Naismith, who supervised the test, 
later remarked the presence of a human face resembling that of 
Welsh musician Tom Jones. 

Note: Before it fully developed, the photo was stolen by SCP-2337, 
who then proceeded to shred the photo manually. When prompted 
to explain, SCP-2337 replied: "Apolojones of mine, friendola. 
Profound embarrassassins, cack! No what-newfangles of pussycats 
to be am thisward, no joséways." 


Subject: SCP-2547-1 

Photographed Activity: Regurgitating water in exchange for an 
offering of peyote. 

Photo Result: Reclining on a pile of furs and addressing a collective 
audience of nine naked humans - one of whom has been identified 
as Agent Miller. 


Subject: SCP-2598 

Photographed Activity: Circling the lighting implement within its 
containment cell. 

Photo Result: Subject is standing in front of a miniature house with 
another, smaller moth. Both subjects appear to be wearing small 
helmets. 


Subject: SCP-2703-1 

Photographed Activity: Discussing with D-9845 (Female, 29) 
during testing. 

Photo Result: Both subjects are located below a large metallic arch 
while wearing white tunics, embracing each other. Other entities 
similar to SCP-2703-1 are visible in the background, staring at the 
subjects. 


Subject: SCP-2735-4 

Photographed Activity: Attempting to remove its shock collar. 
Photo Result: SCP-2735-4 is motionless in the center of its 
containment chamber with its shock collar removed. There are 
several large wounds on its upper body. SCP-2735-1, SCP-2735-2, 


in/by/with filth 


Barcode was assaulted by a flood of new pain, human pain, the 
mindful-mindless anguish of a thousand souls driven beyond 
madness, stripped of the very capabilities of sapient thought. They 
swirled around her, and she could feel herself drifting off to join them 
in their unthinking chorus. 


No. Not today. 


She pushed through the well of spirits, their claws tearing at her, to 
reach the core of the Whale’s mind. It was unfittingly frail under her 
presence, a husk that felt as if it would collapse at her touch. But it 
did not collapse. 


She struck at it, and pain shot through her. Again, again, again... 
There! It recoiled!