Agent Washington felt an automatic response, a sudden rise of bile 
that he just ignored and swallowed back down. The amnestics were 
lost. Hector would know after tonight. "No. Not important." He wasn't 
so sure. Policy in this case was simple. Remove all witnesses. 
Hector was weak, in pain. It would be easy to overpower him. He's 
supposed to die tonight. He said so. 


Rashaun wasn't sure what the car would do at the boundary of the 
effect. Evidence to date indicated that the vehicle dematerialized 
during the day. Maybe the car crashed. Maybe it burned. Maybe it 
simply disappeared or returned to whatever dimension or circle of 
hell or whatever it came from. He pressed down on the accelerator, 
watching the gauge read 70 MPH, 80, 90. 


He heard a pistol cock. "You know," Hector suggested, "if I'm going 
to die tonight, I'd rather know it was from you, than some thing out 
there." 


"W - what?" 


"| can see what you're thinking, compaadre. | spent my whole life 
killing people. | Know when a guy needs to kill. You never had it on 
your face before. That's why | let you live back at the shack. But 
now, if | do what I'm supposed to, you're dead. And let me guess, if 
you do what you're supposed to, I'm dead." 


"Something like that." 


"So what's stopping you?" 


"It ain't right. My role is protecting humanity and now | have to kill 
you." 


"Right, ain't right... Funny talk coming from a guy who just stole a 
cop car." 


"Maintaining secrecy of the Foundation and its mission is paramount 
to the protection of normalcy," Agent Washington recited. "Revealing 
oneself is acceptable in order to prevent containment breach, as 
long as amnestic treatment is delivered immediately afterward. 
Knowledge of the Foundation's purpose must remain solely for 
personnel..." Sweat started beading and trickling down his brow. 


"What, is all this what you learn in the Foundation?" 
"Personnel." 

"éQue? You wanna make sense?" 

"| gotta turn you in." 


"Yeah, to get sent to prison by the feds and get killed there? Same 
thing, muchacho. Just be a man and do what you gotta." 


Rashaun started wondering when the inside of the car got so hot. 
"No, wait. What you do is tell the officer you volunteer for D-class. I'll 
pull some strings, get you janitorial duty. You'd still be officially a 
prisoner, but you'll be working for the Foundation and no one has to 
die tonight." 


Hector wiped his eyes with his shirt and lowered his pistol. "You 
serious? What, you gonna have me cleaning up after things like 
this?" 


Rashaun nodded and replied, "Sometimes you gotta -" 
Hector finished with him: "- break the rules to follow them!" 
Rashaun shifted. "Is this car getting hot?" 


The dashboard started to crack and splinter before them. Faint 
ember-red light started leaking through. The steering wheel was 


crumbling beneath Rashaun's fingers, and the windshield cracked 
and split. 


The radio called out, "TIME FOR YOU GIRLS TO COME WITH 
ME." 


Rashaun looked up, and saw the orange and white boards of the 
road barricade ahead. He slammed on the brakes. "We gotta get out 
of the car now!" The two men opened the doors and dove from the 
car. They struck the ground hard, and rolled, scraping themselves 
up further and reminding themselves that there was still more pain 
that could be felt. 


The car careened toward the barricade. It buckled, imploded, and 
crushed itself into a scarlet smear of static before disappearing. 


Hector lay in agony, scraped, flensed, and burned. He hazily 
watched other people approach, also bearing the same insignia his 
new friend had. He lost consciousness before sunrise, but offered a 
prayer to Jesus and Mary, knowing that dawn would still come for 
him, after all. 


You're Always on My Mind 


Blackness. Emil was standing in a void. Unable to see. Unable to 
hear. He was holding something that began to move. Something 
wet. 


He looked down to see himself holding a pulsating mass of organs. 
A tiny thing, in the approximate shape of a human. Intestine curled 
around the mass this way and that, clumped together and extended 
in places to give the impression of limbs. The brain was in the wrong 
spot, nestled against the stomach in the quivering lump's center. 
The heart, beating furiously, lay above a pair of milky white eyes that 
fixated upon him. 


It started to shriek. 


The shrill whine of his infant daughter pierced him. He watched as 
the mass writhed and contorted in his hands, smacking its lips and 
grasping at him with its pseudo-arms. Emil wanted to vomit. He 
wanted to run screaming mad, to never have to rest his eyes on 
something so horribly wrong. He wanted to just forget. 


The crying grew in a horrible crescendo. Louder and louder. Losing 
any semblance of humanity and becoming a mechanical screech of 
an alarm clock. 


03:30 


Emil drug himself up, and silenced it. He sat in the silence of the 
bedroom for a moment, running shaky hands through his hair and 
letting out a pathetic whimper. Over his shoulder, he could see his 
wife, Julia. Her face was wrenched up in stress, a stream of tears 
rolling down her cheek. There was a time he'd wake her from her 
nightmares. A futile effort, he learned, as they came most nights 
regardless. 


"It's just the stress," the doctor would tell them. "It isn't real, it's 


simply your mind's way of coping with what happened.” 


When they would try to explain how impossible it was for them to 
share precisely the same flawed memory of their stillborn child, the 
doctor would merely dismiss it. The mental image they shared of 
their daughter, according to the doctor, was merely a product of the 
young couple reciprocating and reaffirming each others delusion. 


Had they brought it upon themselves? 


Where did they go wrong? Hadn't they done everything right? 
Everyone around them had complimented their commitment. They 
took every class, read every volume, took the right vitamins; they 
had even cultured an immaculate environment for a natural birth at 
home. There were no holes, no flaws in their planning. Everything 
was perfect. They were supposed to be perfect. 


He'd only woken up, and already Emil was a nervous wreck. Lifting 
himself up, he made his way towards the bathroom for his meds. 
The door to the empty bedroom adjacent to it lay open. 


It hurt too much to look in there. He shut the door, choking up at the 
sound of the click. 


Emil flipped the bathroom switch, squinting in the sudden glare. The 
pills lay next to the sink. Emil popped one of the little blue pills into 
his mouth and gagged from the bitter taste, and stared down the 
specter in the mirror. 


He wasn't perfect though was he? There were so many little things 
he could have done better, right? It was all his fault. It had to be. The 
broken thing that clung to their mind's eye, penance. Conjured from 
their subconscious and layered over their recollection. The entire 
thing had been such a blur. 


As much as they were urged by both friends and family, they 
wouldn't dare try for another. How could they expect to raise a child, 
when they couldn't pull themselves together? 


Emil trudged back to the bedroom, the night terrors suddenly more 
appealing than his waking life. Upon crossing the threshold, he 


stopped dead in his tracks. 
There was a stranger in his bedroom. 


A wretch of a woman. Dirty, cracked nails traced circles on his wife's 
temple. Julia slept soundly though, and didn't stir. The intruder didn't 
seem to notice his presence. Emil slowly worked his way towards 
the corner of the room, making sure to keep his eyes on the crone. 
He reached out blindly, feeling for something, anything to defend 
themselves with. 


He averted his eyes for just a second, spotting his old cricket bat. 


Immediately, Emil had completely forgotten why he had been 
reaching for it in the first place. He grasped the bat, staring at it and 
turning it over in his hands. What had gotten him so worked up? 
Something seemed off. Before placing the bat in its place, Emil 
looked up and realized they had company. 


A woman, youthful and lithe, was crossing the room towards him. 
The shredded clothing she wore revealed a peculiar horizontal scar 
across her stomach. There was a glow about it, a brilliant 
luminescent blue. 


So powerful... 


Her lips did not part to speak, the words instead arched seamlessly 
into his consciousness. A neutral, icy monotone that belied her 
femininity. She reached out towards him. 


Emil was glued to the spot, unable to reply aside from an incoherent 
stammer. Her fingers brushed against his temple. 


Thick, impermeable darkness. Back in the void. That weight in his 
arms. The screaming. 


It wasn't just the child though. He heard his own voice, and that of 
his wife's. The darkness began to recede. Light and form penetrated 
the nothing that surrounded him. An odd feeling of déja vu crept 
over Emil. 


He was home. It was their big day, but Julia was screaming; 


incomprehensibly at first, but slowly, Emil could begin to make out 
her speech. 


"...skin! Oh God! Where is her skin?" 
A bright flash. He was fumbling with his phone, hyperventilating. 


Another flash. Cradled with Julia and the little one. Trying to stay 
calm. She's still moving, so she's still alive. There's still hope. They 
just had to hold on long enough for the ambulance to arrive. 


Another leap in time. There were paramedics accompanied by 
security guards. Most of them remained silent, save for one who 
was consoling his wife. They moved with diligence, stone-faced and 
efficient, unaffected by the gruesome scene. Everything was 
cleaned and disinfected. 


They brought a tiny cot for the little one, and carried her out. The two 
of them had to stay behind for now, the woman who seemed to be in 
charge had said so. It was a delicate situation, she explained, it 
would all make sense soon. 


The last thing he felt was a sharp pain in his neck. 


Before Emil opened his eyes. He had fallen to the floor. The Woman 
in Rags offered her hand, and helped him to his feet. He noticed that 
her wound was absent. Eyeing him coolly, she spoke, "I felt it from 
the street. | could feel the scar." With this, she raised a finger, 
indicating her temple. 


"You mean, we're not... I'm not—" 
Delusional? No more than any other man. 


The stranger turned away, slowly walking towards the far wall. 
Those men you saw, they couldn't heal it. They instead tried to bury 
it; and so untreated, it festered. She paused. If you'd like, | could 
remove it entirely. It is within my power to obscure her visage from 
your conscious. You won't have to look upon it. 


He stole a glance at Julia, and looked back to the stranger. 


She met his gaze, answering before he could ask. | opened her 
mind whilst she slept. | showed her Truth. We had our words, she 
made her choice. 


The promise of blissful ignorance was tantalizing. Could it really be 
so simple? Could such a thing be neatly tucked away? Isn't this 
what he had prayed for? She was offering a chance to move on. An 
opportunity to finally be free. 


Free from what, exactly? He had been given clarity, and context. 
The image of their daughter had not been supplanted by their guilt 
manifest, it was not some twisted memento superimposed over their 
reality. It had always been her. She had always been a real person, 
if only for a short while. Could he possibly consign her memory to 
oblivion? 


"No. Thank you, but no." 


At this, the stranger nodded, and passed through the wall, into the 
night, and out of his life. 


Emil crossed the room and collapsed into bed, sick and dizzy from a 
swirl of emotion. To the surface, above the pain, above the sorrow, 
above the regret, rose relief, gratitude, love. It was a time that 
should be remembered, however fleeting. A life that should be 
cherished, however fragile. An existence that should be celebrated 
in all its beauty. This one last, little bit of her deserved to live on. In 
their hearts, in their memories. 


In their dreams. 


Re: You Want Happy Endings? 


From: Lisle Naismith [pcs.noitadnuof| 
htimsianl#pcs.noitadnuof|htimsianl] 
To: Lisle Naismith [pcs.noitadnuof| 
htimsianl#pcs.noitadnuof|htimsianl] 
Subject: Memo To Self 


You have set this message to be sent automatically to 
<pcs.noitadnuof|htimsianl#pcs.noitadnuof|htimsianl> 
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Why bother? 


Let's say the Scarlet King awakens. Let's say he eats 
4,000 sacrificial virgins for breakfast. 


Halfway through #2,374, he remembers a particularly 
funny knock-knock joke. 


He laughs, he chokes, and none of his slaves know 
CPR. 


Let's say the flesh god and the machine god decide to 
settle their differences once and for all. Let's say they 
bring every Sarkic cultist and Broken-God-fearing soldier 
to the final battle. 


The battlefield is on the other side of a wormhole, which 
closes and never opens again. 


Only catch, we never know who wins. But we can live 
with that. 


Let's say we find an infinitely huge wall of drawers. 


Let's say we fill them up with every anomalous item, 
where they'll be perfectly content until the heat death of 
the Universe. 


And let's say we still die screaming. 


Why bother? 


May 12th, 2016. One of my few days off in spring. | 
drank milk straight from the jug without looking at the 
expiration date - it should have been spoiled for two 
days. It wasn't. Still fresh. 


8:00 AM, Penny Naismith was off to school, and Mrs. 
Rosa Naismith told me that she had to go to a parent- 
teacher conference for Penny later. 


"I'll go," | said. 
"Don't," she said. "It's your day off." 


"Last week, | saw a D-class eaten alive by a snake made 
of intrusive thoughts. | think | can deal with bitchy 
teachers." 


Rosa grimaced, skeptical. /t's Mr. Glassman, isn't it, | 
thought, starting to miss the Mind Viper. 


9:00 AM. | sip a mimosa. There's a classic Doctor Who 
marathon on PBS. Old Tom Bakers. Rosa catches me 
grinning ear-to-ear as the title theme comes on. She 
laughs. 


3:00 PM. Mr. Glassman, assistant principal, told me that 
my daughter "doesn't handle bullies well." 


| said, "then how about we do something about the kids 
trying to provoke her?" 


SCP-1002: Demisers 


Item #: SCP-1002 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: All objects tied to instances of 
SCP-1002 are to be contained in a brightly lit 6m x 6m chamber. 
SCP-1002-6 is to be contained in a suitably sized hangar. No D- 
class personnel are to come within ten (10) meters of the 
containment chamber or hangar. No personnel involved with end-of- 
the-month termination for D-class personnel are to come within ten 
(10) meters of the containment chamber or hangar. 


All interactions with SCP-1002 instances are to be done via robotic 
drone. SCP-1002's containment chamber is to be guarded by three 
(3) members of security who have not yet killed in a combat 
situation. The same will be done with SCP-1002-6's containment 
hangar. 


Description: SCP-1002 is an abnormal shadow belonging to a 
group of six (6) objects currently in Foundation custody. Each of 
these objects possesses the shadow of a humanoid individual, 
dressed in a law enforcement uniform. Objects tied to SCP-1002 
currently in containment are: 


¢ SCP-1002-1: A grandfather clock retrieved from ; 
possesses the shadow of a medieval knight. 


* SCP-1002-2: A small pole retrieved from , possesses the 
shadow of a member of the PD. 

¢ SCP-1002-3: Large printer retrieved from , possesses 
the shadow of a Roman soldier. 

¢ SCP-1002-4: A pigeon retrieved from , possesses the 
shadow of a member of the Police Force. 

* SCP-1002-5: A kitchen knife retrieved from , possesses 


the shadow of a security guard at the Casino. 
* SCP-1002-6: A Boeing 737 retrieved from , possesses