In June of 2003, a few weeks after my 17" birthday, | swore into the 
US Navy with the intention of becoming a Navy SEAL. In 2006, | 
completed BUD/S and earned the title | had been seeking. 


In January 2017, | was recruited by a representative of the 
organization | would later come to know as the Foundation into 
Mobile Task Force Nu-7, "Hammer Down." 


In December of 2018, a robot the size of a small building was seen 
wandering through the Irkutsk area of the Russian Federation. In the 
hours and days that followed, a "disease" that no one had even 
known existed was wiped out by this machine, and by three 
organizations the world had also never even known about, called the 
Horizon Initiative, the SCP Foundation, and the Church of the 
Broken God. 


| was there, assisting in the cleanup of something that, simply put, 
should not have been. 


Of course, a 30-foot-tall robot that seems to have gathered a 
following of millions of worshippers isn't precisely the sort of thing 
you would call "normal." Such an occurrence has all the subtlety of, 
well, a robot the size of a building. It's not easy to conceal 
something like that, and it's even less easy to conceal when 
organizations that can only be described as "the Men-in-Black" are 
there, helping it do its thing. Of course, the biggest obstacle to hiding 
the Broken God was the fact that, about 96 hours after it was woken, 
the GOC launched ballistic missiles in an attempt to blow it up. 


A couple things happened after that. First, the Broken God protected 
itself from the missiles. | don't think so much as a piece of shrapnel 
ever touched the thing. Then, it continued what it was doing, 
destroying the remnants of SCP-610 as they cropped up. When it 
was finished, it just left. No vengeance on the GOC, no further 
attacks on the flesh, no ascension for its followers to godhood, just 


an absence. 


In its wake, it left behind... some sort of tablets. | don't know, | forget 
the specifics. But what | do remember is that it left behind a simple 
message on these tablets, repeated in who knows how many 
languages: "I will return." No indication of when, no set of numbers, 
nothing, just the words "I will return." 


The world being what it is, everyone lost their shit after that. The 
countries that had it easiest were places like North Korea, China, 
and Russia; they're used to putting down demonstrations and riots. 
Next came third-world countries like Sierra Leone; what does it 
matter if the government lied to you when that government will be 
gone in a few years, anyway? 


| honestly think Mexico had it the worst. Without having to hide 
behind the Veil to prevent detection by the Jailors and the Book 
Burners, the Chaos Insurgency and the Serpent's Hand both went 
public. The Insurgency actually got themselves a pretty good handle 
on the Mexican drug trade, while the Hand used the tension of the 
times to get riots going. What little hold the Mexican government had 
on its people, it lost quickly. The civil war didn't officially start until 
June 2021, but anyone who didn't see it coming since March 2019 
had their head in the sand. That's when there was the first big riot 
outside of the capital. There were, what, 200 casualties? 300? | 
don't remember. That was when the Mexican government started 
asking for outside help. 


No one wanted to, at first. Countries like the US, where people 
already hated the status quo and distrusted the government by 
default, were too busy keeping themselves stable. | honestly can't 
remember if there was a single day when you could turn on the 
news and not hear about riots, protests, arrests, and terrorist plots. 
2019 was also when Mobile Task Forces began working with and 
training alongside Special Forces, police departments, and other 
public safety organizations in order to help them respond to 
anomalies. 


A lot of their work and our work was actually the same: keep your 
head on a swivel and know what you're looking for. That's actually 
why the Foundation recruited from Special Forces and some of the 


higher-tier SWAT teams: less education the Foundation had to 
provide them. 


It wasn't until 2022 that the Chaos Insurgency and Serpent's Hand 
really started causing enough trouble in Mexico and along the 
border that the Foundation decided to step in. That's when | was 
deployed to Juarez. Decades of training and experience in fending 
off the Mexican Army on the cartels' part and nearly a century of 
fighting the Foundation on the Insurgency's part had made the city 
into damn near a fortress for them and a living Hell for anyone who 
got in their way. That's why we were getting sent in: to take out the 
POI in charge of the Insurgency's Texas/New Mexico border 
operations. 


A city as large as Juarez gives insurgents- Chaos or otherwise- 
plenty of room to hide. That's how a sniper was able to ambush my 
squad and land a round in my spine that left me paralyzed from the 
hips down. 


One thing the Foundation had never wanted to admit about the 
Church of the Broken God until after the Veil had been lifted was the 
fact that they had the best surgeons on the planet. If you wanted an 
iPhone in your skull in 2009, they could've pulled it off. If you wanted 
to be able to turn the lights on and off in your home by blinking, they 
had an upgrade for that. If you lost the use of your legs because of a 
sniper on a rooftop in Juarez, they had you covered. 


After the Awakening, which is what the Lifted Veil event became 
known as in common vernacular, there was a revolution in 
technology. Technology that futurists had anticipated in the 2040s or 
later became commercially available by 2024. Of course, by then, 
the Foundation had relegated me to paperwork. They rejected my 
requests for a return to front-line duty three separate times. 
Eventually, | just applied for training to work as a containment 
specialist. 


| miss Roderick. He was probably my best friend when | was 
growing up. | wonder where he is now. When Roderick was still 
around, | still got to see my parents every now and then. Now, it's 
either sit and do tests, or sit in my room all day. And | can't even see 


when I'm in my room. Like, my eyes work, but I can't look at things 
outside of my room. 


They treat me like a prisoner. | don't know why. I'm only 13, how 
could | have done anything?! | remember my mom telling me that | 
was sick, and that this place is a hospital. | think she was lying. 
There are plenty of doctors, sure, but none of them do anything. 
They just make me take tests. "What's behind the door? What card 
am | holding? Whose gun is loaded?" All sorts of stupid stuff like 
that. 


But that's ok. When I'm taking tests, | can see again. | usually use 
the time to check on Roderick, see what he’s doing. I'd check on my 
parents, too, but i can't seem to find them anymore. 


I'm worried about Roderick. Every time | see him, he seems 
stressed out about something. And he's never in the same place 
twice. | don't think that's normal. | ask the doctors and the guards 
about him sometimes, but they always ignore me. 


Of course, in those days, everything was in flux. The Foundation 
had begun overturning jurisdiction of safe anomalies (safe in this 
context meaning "not likely to hurt or kill people, or manipulate them 
in an unethical way") to local governments. The United States 
government had recently formed the Bureau of Paranatural Affairs to 
deal with anomalies on their own terms. The Anomaly Registration 
Program allowed people to call 911 to report dangerous or life- 
threatening anomalies, while also allowing people with anomalous 
traits to find doctors and therapists who could help them "fulfill their 
true potential." 


In theory, it would mean better treatment of anomalous people and 
respect for their civil rights. In practice, it meant that kids ended up 
in cells because "they were a threat to national security" or some 
other BS like that. 


It wasn't as bad as it could've been. They still let the safe anomalies 
visit with their families, and even when they weren't visiting, the 
Foundation still let them leave their quarters for certain parts of the 
day. There was one kid, Thomas, that | had to watch out for 


because he wasn't nearly old enough to be in that sort of setting on 
his own. | still worry about him sometimes. 


Today is test day. I'm excited. They make me do these once a 
month, but they always take their time with paperwork. That means | 
can check on Roderick. 


He's somewhere cold. | guess it must already be winter, wherever 
he is. And it's dark. | don't see the sun. The wind is blowing, and 
there's snow coming in on the wind. He's wrapped up, though, which 
is good. My mom was always making me wear a big coat whenever 
she visited around Christmas. It was dorky, but | would trade that for 
having to stay in a room all day. 


| can see Roderick walking into a building. | think it's a bar. Or 
maybe a diner. He visits those a lot. He sits down and orders a black 
coffee, his usual... | think. Definitely a diner. The waitress smiles 
and goes to get his drink. The diner's mostly empty, which is why It's 
weird when some man | don't know sits down next to Roderick. They 
start talking. Roderick seems like he knows him. 


The other man's name is Leonard. He says he didn't recognize 
Roderick with a beard. He always kept it shaved. Roderick says that 
it's the most he can do unless Leonard can help him. Help him with 
what? They start talking about "the good old days," when Roderick 
was "in New 7." No, that can't be right. What's New 7? Idunno, it 
must be from when Roderick was in the Navy. 


Crap. More tests. I'll have to check back on Roderick later. 


In 2027, the Foundation was dissolved and their assets in US 
territory liquidated by the BPA. It had been a long time coming. The 
GOC, now a public organization, was tasked with containing 
anomalies in international and disputed territory. A lot of skippers 
went there. The lucky ones, at least. 2027 is also when | was 
relieved of duty. | had to seek out alternative employment. 


I've been working odd jobs for the last six years, finding work 
wherever and however | can. It hasn't been easy, but others have 


had it a lot worse. | think the first Witch Trials were about three-and- 
a-half years ago. That was when the UN and most world 
governments started decrying the Foundation and its work. A huge 
document leak kicked the riots all back up. Things the Foundation 
had done in the name of preserving normalcy were being declared 
crimes against humanity. And public knowledge of what some 
anomalies were capable of, alongside registration with local and 
national governments, led to even more fear and paranoia of the 
government and the paranormal than had ever existed with the 
Foundation in charge. 


When people don't understand something, one of two things will 
happen: they will try to understand it, so they can use it for their own 
ends; or, and this is far more likely, they will grow afraid of it and try 
to destroy it. So it was when humanity rediscovered anomalies. 
Former Foundation employees were declared public enemy number 
one, with anomalous persons at a close second. 


The lynching started about three years ago, right about the time 
members of the Foundation Ethics Committee and RAISA started 
being tried by the UN. At first the National Guard and local police 
forces would intervene. Lately, though, they've been liable to 
participate. The news never talks about it, though. No one does. 
Even the most accepting of places turn us away. It doesn't help 
issues that the Unusual Incidents Unit of the FBI has unofficially 
been tasked with hunting us down. Hell, I've even heard rumors that 
the UIU and BPA have started hiring former Foundation agents to 
help them track down their old coworkers. | don't believe those 
rumors, but the truth remains that you can't trust anyone these days. 


Skips have it just as bad. The ones not locked up are almost all 
registered, which just means that it's easier for vigilantes to find 
them. The ones who are able to head for Mexico, but | don't think 
many make it. 


Ah, finally. They make me do the same thing every month. That's 
how | know I'll have awhile before they make me do more tests. 
What's Roderick doing now? 


Him and Leonard are still talking. They have food in front of them, 


majority of the organism's reproductive systems. Mature instances 
of SCP-631 are roughly 135cm in length and 42kg in mass. 
SCP-631 appear to be gender-less. 


SCP-631 are rendered imperceptible in the visual spectrum when 
exposed to sunlight. The mechanism for this remains unidentified; 
however, testing has revealed that this response is triggered by 
heightened levels of cholicalciferol (Vitamin D3) in the organism's 
bloodstream. SCP-631 remain detectable by their heat signature; 
because of this, it is known that they remain almost entirely airborne 
during daylight hours. 


SCP-631 do not sleep and remain active at night; furthermore, they 
demonstrate distress or panic in response to low light environments. 
This reaction worsens in intensity over time, and, it appears, can 
only be alleviated by immediate feeding or exposure to daylight. The 
organism will subsequently locate the nearest isolated sleeping 
human and impale the victim's throat with its stinger (thus preventing 
any vocal reaction). Following the injection of its paralytic venom, 
SCP-631 will remain in this position for 2-3 minutes while the victim 
expires. Then, it will quickly consume the victim's internal organs, 
replacing them with fertilized eggs produced via its tail. 10-15 
minutes following the reproductive act, the original instance of 
SCP-631 will expire, its body putrefying rapidly. 


The eggs require approximately 1 hour to hatch, at which point the 
newborn SCP-631 will consume the remainder of the victim's body. 
After their post-birth feeding, the instances will retreat to secluded 
locations and begin their growth period, during which they are 
inactive. Immature SCP-631 develop at an extremely accelerated 
rate, reaching their adult size within roughly four hours. Due to these 
factors, the lifespan of SCP-631 (including birth, feeding, 
reproduction and death) can be as short as 24 hours. 


Observation of SCP-631's behavior have revealed that they do not 
eat during daylight, and will only prey upon sleeping and isolated 
human beings. In the absence of sustenance, SCP-631 are capable 
of surviving on average for thirty days. 


Addendum [631-001]: Investigation and Findings 


plates almost empty. They're talking about cost now. Cost of what? | 
don't know. | think they've almost reached an agreement, but it looks 
like they're arguing over who's gonna pick up the tab. Why can't 
Roderick just take a gift when it's given to him? I've never 
understood that about him. 


Now they've settled the tab. Leonard paid. They're walking outside, 
to an SUV. Leonard's. It's already started, and there are people 
inside. Leonard is reassuring Roderick that they're with him, that it'll 
be all right. I'm not liking the looks of this, but it doesn't matter 
because | have one more set of tests | need to do. 


It's cold. | bring my coat tighter in to myself. Wisconsin isn't precisely 
like Arizona when it comes to winters. I'm only in this podunk town to 
meet an old friend. 


The bullet that paralyzed me wasn't the first close call I've ever had. 
I've nearly died on multiple occasions. On one such occasion, | 
saved the life of a man | only knew as Agent Leonard Wells. 
Tonight, I'm hoping he can return the favor.