The objects tied to SCP-1002 do not behave in an anomalous 
manner with the exception of their shadow. SCP-1002 tied to these 
objects are dormant and stationary until an individual who has 
committed what is socially considered to be a crime in the last six (6) 
months comes within ten (10) meters of the object they are tied to. 
At this point, SCP-1002 instances will become active and manifest 
as a dark humanoid figure similar in appearance to their dormant 
stage. 


SCP-1002 will then attempt to pursue the targeted individual. 
SCP-1002 instances have demonstrated high levels of agility and 
appear to be able to track their target through walls. If the targeted 
individual moves ten (10) meters away from the SCP-1002 instance, 
it will return to a dormant state at its original object. 


If the individual is caught by this manifestation, they will inflict a 
physical punishment directly proportionate to the crime the individual 
has committed. Despite the severity of this physical punishment, the 
victim will remain alive and conscious until taken ten (10) meters 
away from the manifestation. Through careful study, researchers 
have discovered punishments tied to the following crimes: 


¢ Minor Crime (Littering, etc.): Removal and severing of 

fingers. 

Shoplifting: Non-fatal removal of fingers, tongue and eyes 

Burglary: Non-fatal removal of hands, ears, tongue and eyes. 

¢ Assault: Non-fatal heavy damage to the legs, removal of 
hands, ears, tongue and eyes 

¢ Murder: Non-fatal removal of arms, legs, ears, tongue and 
eyes 

¢ Mass-Murder: Non-fatal removal of arms, legs, ears, tongue 
and eyes. Subject was then disemboweled and, using the 
subject's internal organs, suspended from the ceiling of the 
testing chamber. Movement was detected from the subject for 
two (2) minutes before they were removed from the area by 
members of security. 


« SCP-1001 | SCP-1002 | SCP-1003 » 


towards the folded out couch, where Claire had insisted Mikell sleep 
next to her. Empty. 


“...Okay. Just, lets...um... come on.” 


Jack heaved himself to his feet and held out a hand, feeling tiny 
fingers curl around his own. 


“Be quiet, okay? We don’t wanna wake up TJ, yeah?” Jack cast his 
gaze over at the figure sleeping on the bed, at the faint glow of 
orange curls against the filtered country moonlight. Purple-blue 
black eyes swollen and closed, his youngest brother was still 
sleeping, recovering from the tight, black stiches sewed in his 
forehead. 


“Yeah.” 
“Hey! Cut that out. You’re too old for that.” 


Claire removed her thumb from her mouth as Jack led her down the 
empty hallway to the bathroom. Although Jack had had his moments 
with Claire, she really was closest to TJ, then to Mikell, then to him. 
That was what it was like having multiple siblings. You knew where 
you were on the totem pole of love, and Jack, as the cynical middle 
child who made and sold questionable alcohol out of the back of the 
garage, did his best not to be a engraved as a role model in any 
way, shape, or form. Mikell did fatherly things like shingle roofs and 
load guns and work late nights at a job. Jack made sure that the 
amount of cash he got didn’t become suspicious to the bank. Mikell 
hunted deer to save on groceries and skinned them on the back 
porch and cooked them and sold the horns and pelts to the farm 
store down the road to make money and froze the rest of the meat 
so they wouldn't starve and showed them how to cook a meal and 
trapped rabbits and squirrels and chopped fire wood with an axe like 
fucking Paul Bunion and earned a what he suspected was a hard, 
honest living, like being left alone at 21 years old to care for three 
siblings was what he was born to do. 


Jack shoplifted and gambled gently and ate a worm for $2 just last 
week. 


He liked to think it was an equal trade off, even when he felt 
worthless in comparison- they about broke even on legally and 
illegally obtained cash when the two of them sat down to pool their 
earnings at the end of the week. They had a system: Mikell would 
take the cash and tell him that he really looked like he did well this 
week at his explicitly legal minimum wage job, and he would say 
yeah, he did, and then pass Mikell a flask of the leftovers under the 
table. If Jack got caught in front of TJ or Claire, Mikell would make a 
show of condemning such hideous underage acts and Jack would 
act in mock horror of what he had done, and then would continue to 
brew and gamble anyway, because it had become a surprisingly 
stable form of income in recent months, especially when the 
electricity was cut off mid-December and they scrambled to pay ina 
week-long scare. Promote good citizenship, live off bad citizenship. 
The Bright way. 


Halfway down the hall back to the room, in the haze of florescent 
lights and cracked wallpaper, Claire stopped walking. It caught Jack 
by surprise, making him lurch back and stumble. 


“Hey, come on.” 


Claire stood, thumb in mouth, staring down the hallway. Let go of his 
hand. Tears welled in her eyes. 


“No.” 

Jack sighed. Oh, he was not doing this at 3AM. 
“Well, where are we gonna go then?” 

“No.” 

Jack knelt down to her level. 


“Claire, come on. What’s wrong? Hey.” Jack reached out to take her 
hand, seeing she was crying harder now. His little sister reached out 
to his forearms. 


“Don’t hurt.” 


“What?” 


“Don’t leave. No. | don’t want you to get hurt.” 
“What, you think I’m gonna leave?” 

“You will.” 

“Claire, I’m not gonna leave.” 

“Promise you won't get sick.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Promise.” 

Jack sighed. 


“Look. Look at me.” Jack raised her chin with a finger, so her line of 
sight matched his own. “I’m okay. See? I’m gonna be fine. I’m fine. 
Yeah?” 


“Promise.” 
“Okay. | promise.” 
Claire seemed satisfied. 


Jack took her by the hand again and led her back to the darkened 
room, praying she would fall back asleep. When she did- with Jack 
laying next to her on the couch — he slipped out of the room, closed 
the door behind him, and made his way down to the sidewalk 
outside. 


Jack’s eyes widened at the sight of Mikell. 
“Dude. Mom is going to kill you.” 


“Not if she doesn’t find out.” His older brother exhaled smoke from 
the cigarette in his hand. “Isn’t that right?” 


“Oh.” Don’t tell mom. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s just...” 


Mikell raised an eyebrow. Don’t talk to me about it. Jack 
relinquished, swallowed, and went to stand next to him, his brother 


raising the cheap camel back to his lips. They stood in silence for a 
minute, looking off at the darkened fields of beans and corn, the 
singular farmhouse in the distance. The stars shone and the crickets 
sang. Smoke drifted from his older brother's mouth as he breathed. 


“Some guys came to TJ’s room earlier.” 

Jack looked at him. Mikell exhaled. 

“They were asking questions. About what happened.” 
“Really? You think they saw?” 


“Depends. Probably to some extent. If we keep our story straight, 
we'll be fine, just don’t tell anyone.” 


“What do you think they'll do to him? Like the X-files or something?” 
Mikell smiled. 
“You know where mom and dad work?” 


“Yeah. The government.” Jack looked forward again, examining the 
shadows on the pavement. “I don’t know. They said they couldn’t tell 
me.” 


“Yeah, they can’t tell you.” 
Jack jerked his head back to look at Mikell. 
“Wait, do you know something about them?” 


“| work there too.” Mikell smiled and looked at him. “I’m not going 
anywhere though, don’t worry. But anyway. People like Tu... 
You know.” 


“No, actually, | don’t think | know.” Jack’s blood rushed with anger 
and anxiety. 


“Oh...” Mikell looked up at the stars, contemplating. “Look. You 
know what they say about, ‘If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is 
around to hear it, does it make a sound?” 


“Yeah.” 


“Okay. Well, here’s how | see it: there have always been people like 
TJ. You read about them in the old world texts or whatever, like, 
witches and warlocks and shit. Back in those days, when stuff like 
this happened, you know, people didn’t really know how to describe 
them, and they just passed it off and the person went to live in the 
woods and nothing bad happened. Like yeah, people cared, but it 
was magic, or someone pissed off Jesus or something. You follow?” 


“| guess.” 


“Yeah. Well, now that we’re no longer living in the dark ages, people 
are smart. When someone like TJs born, there’s no casting them off 
to live in the woods. It’s systematic removal. I’m talking CIA and FBI 
caliber. So when shit like this happens, where | fell from the roof and 
TJ was clearly the one to take the injury from the fall, people start 
watching. It’s no longer the fact that god didn’t will me to take those 
injuries or some shit like that. These people see that, and they see 
something larger, someone that really is a witch or a warlock, and 
they start watching. And they keep watching. And they watch and 
watch, and if they see something that indicates that something 
deeper is going on, then they get taken. No more problems. 
Situation is safe, the people are safe, and the people will continue to 
be safe through this happening over and over again. That’s the idea. 
So, like, if it happens, and there’s no one around to see it, then it’s 
fine. But | think they might be keeping an eye on him.” 


“Where do they go?” 
Mikell shrugged. 


“But anyway. The way | see it, it’s like...” He waved his cigarette. 
“You know. TJ has always been special.” 


“Wait, what?” 


“You haven't noticed that? Like, when he was younger. He could 
always do shit when he wanted to. Like when you were nine and fell 
off your bike, you remember that?” 


“Yeah, what about it?” 

“He healed you.” 

“No he didn’t. | got lucky. | fell on the grass.” 

“And he was bleeding.” 

Jack opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. Shit. 


“Look, like...” Mikell exhaled more smoke. “...| think it’s different 
now, though. Like back then, he wanted to take that for you. He was 
eight, he felt empathy for you. He healed you. But this time, | think 
he was trying to help me, and something happened and he 
accidentally took it. | don’t think he wanted to feel my pain, | think he 
was trying to make sure | wasn’t dead, you know? And that’s when it 
happened.” 


“So he’s changing.” 

Mikell shrugged. 

“Puberty. What can | say, he was always a late bloomer.” 
“What about Claire?” 

“What about her?” 

“Is she special too?” 


“| don’t know. | think TJs the most obvious, we’re gonna have to 
work to keep that covered up. Claire...If you watch her, Jack. 
She’s...| don’t know. She knows shit.” 


Jack laughed. 


“You're fucking crazy. Listen to yourself, Mikell, she’s seven, she 
likes fucking polly pockets and cabbage patch girls or whatever shit. 
What the fuck does she know?” 


“The future.” 


Jack wheezed. 


“I’m dead fucking serious, Jack. Look, okay, | was shaky on it too, 
but last fucking week, last fucking week she was coloring, and she 
gave me a picture of me on the roof.” 


Jack stopped laughing. 


“Significant events, Jack. | don’t think she knows what they are, but 
she sees them.” Mikell dropped the cigarette onto the pavement and 
put it out with the heel of his boot. “Look. Don’t tell anyone what | 
just told you about, okay? This is between you and me. We keep TJ 
safe, we keep Claire safe, we make sure nothing happens.” 


6 


TJ is a pale, freckled child with red hair- their father's- and a frame 
that stands wiry in worn hand-me-downs. Often onlookers comment 
on his striking resemblance to Mikell, but to Jack, his youngest and 
oldest brothers look and are, in essence, entirely different people. TJ 
lacks Mikell's broad shoulders and tanned shoulders and arms, his 
sunburnt neck, his iron resolve and firm competence. TJ wavers in 
the path of decisions; Mikell thrives in it. TJ is soft spoken and 
feminine in nature; Mikell is accustomed to confidence, a short- 
haired cowboy with adventurous resolve. 


His older brother has always moved as a subtle and direct force of 
nature one might even call clean, careful, swift, (lethal)— but such 
thoughts do not occur to him then. 


So when addressing the conflict of TJ's acquired tendencies, Jack 
and Mikell first make sure he's asleep in the other room, and then 
speak over the dining room table. His older brother drinks a cheap 
beer from a can, and after a moment, Jack moves to the fridge and 
gets one for himself, too- he is not yet of age, but such things are a 
formality in the battered barns and sun-bleached houses of small 
Midwestern farm towns. It's disgusting, but he drinks it anyway. The 
alcohol fills a widening pit of frustration in his stomach. It calms his 
nerves. 


(it calmed his father's nerves, too, in a time before TJ and Claire 


were born, when it was just the two brothers and their mother and 
the smell of heavy alcohol and charms from AA meetings, but they 
understand to this day that they are not to discuss this time) 


They reach a decision, or at least, a heated compromise. Jack 
finishes his beer and Mikell takes another from the fridge not 
because he wants another, but to give him something to do to keep 
himself from throttling some god damn sense into his younger 
sibling. Jack goes to bed. Mikell plays with the revolver in the 
kitchen, even though it is not Wednesday, and the next week- with 
TJ recovered enough to return to school- Jack outfits him in long 
sleeves, long pants, and thin gloves, and sends him off with one 
instruction: touch no one. 


7 


In late April, Mikell says he’s receiving a promotion. When TJ and 
Claire are in bed, his elder brother opens a locked steel box on the 
kitchen table and shows Jack two faded leather holsters with a 
revolver in each. 


In words that he did not yet know, Jack knew this object was special. 
It felt radiant, powerful, unearthly before him. He studied it closely. 
These revolvers were much different then their father’s on top of the 
fridge—no, these were old, old guns, weathered down with sweat of 
generations. The yellow glow of the dining room light above them 
turns the handles a sickly iridescent off-white, the barrels, a 
diseased grey-green, engraved with tendrils and elaborate vines of 
faded gold. The belt is an old, brown leather that is somehow 
miraculously still bound together, but to Jack, the weighted feeling of 
unease is only in the silver objects the belt holds. Mikell picks them 
up and Jack is surprised, like he wasn’t expecting the movement to 
be physically possible. They fit so well in his brother’s calloused 
hands that he can feel the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. 


“That’s not pearl.” Jack sputtered out. “The handles.” 


They remain off-white even when lifted into Mikell’s hands, shining 


not by nature, but by polish. When Mikell killed deer, he would boil 
out the marrow into a stew, then throw the rest out; all sorts of parts 
in the pot. Femurs sitting on the kitchen counter to be used. Skulls 
he let TJ hold. 


To a Jack in the future, in a different life, anomalous is a bone- 
stained word on iron breath. It’s a word that’s laced with gold. 


8 


In late May, Mikell leaves for work and does not return in two days 
as previously promised.