And Bobby fell backwards, attempting to flee, 

It pressed on his windpipe, strained vocal cords, 

This is it, he imagined, and thought of last words, 

"Muh... Merry Christmas," he croaked, as it began its attack, 
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good..." crack. 


The North Pole 


What appeared to be a techno remix of Santa Baby blasted over the 
sound system, while "Polly" began to strip. It was Christmas Eve 
inside SCP-2713, which meant the bizarreness was going to be 
stepped up a notch. Three unarmed agents stood near the door, 
scanning the crowd for potential threats. Two doctors with 
Foundation insignia on their badges sat at the bar observing the 
chaos around them. 


"Man. Look at that stellar body," Doctor Cimmerian grinned at 
Doctor Foster as he spoke. Foster, for his part, let out an audible 
groan. Cimmerian kept his smile and motioned to the bartender. The 
man walked over and put another shot glass down, joining the 7 
other full glasses to Cimmerian's right. 


"You know, the point of having to buy a shot every time you make a 
terrible pun was to keep you from doing it," Foster shook his head 
and looked over at the bartender who stood over the pair with a 
questioning look on his face, "Oh uh, sorry, we're paying customers 
but we can't drink on duty," 


The bartender nodded as though that explained everything and went 
back to wiping the bar. 


"You think he's worried about running out of glasses?" Cimmerian 
said, cocking his head to the side. 


"| don't know. This place has always confused the hell out of me. 
When it instituted a two drink minimum last year | stopped trying to 
figure it out," Foster played with the single glass in front of him. 


"This is one of the projects in your portfolio, | don't think you can do 
that," Cimmerian said, his smile returning. 


"It is in there, yeah," he said before looking back up, "But not by 
choice." 


"Cause Malina knew your name." 


Foster drew a sharp breath. "Yeah. What are you doing here 
anyway? Shouldn't the ethics liaison be at home with his family?" 


"Don't have one," Cimmerian said with a shrug, "Plus they wanted 
someone with a decent clearance to keep an eye on you, just in 
case," 


"Oh? You feel comfortable telling me that?" Foster looked back 
down at his drink. 


"I've looked at your file. If you were going to betray the Foundation 
you'd have done it a long time ago." 


Both men let that hang above the conversation for a second, then 
another, and then one more before Foster broke the silence. 


"You think she'll show up tonight?" 


The omnipresent music ebbed for a moment, and the two Doctors 
looked at each other. 


"She shows up every Christmas Eve." 


"Polly" had finished her set, and, after collecting her discarded 
clothing, retreated behind the curtains. The PA system boomed, 
"Once again, put your hands together... for... BETH," 


The rest of the crowd rushed to the edge of the stage and looked up 
at the pole. The curtains moved, and the catcalls began from the 
crowd, but neither of the two doctors could see anything on stage at 
all. Every Christmas Eve, the biggest crowd would show up in 2713 
all year, and every Christmas Eve the Foundation would observe an 
even stranger event. A performer named "Beth", that the Foundation 
could not see. 


"You know they're just playing a joke on us about the Star of 
Bethlehem, right?" Foster said, before turning back to his glass, 
"We're not going to get any new information out of this place this 
year that we didn't get the first year it happened.” 


attack it. In the presence of humans, it has "learned" that mimicking 
the shape of an incapacitated infant or small child is the optimal lure 
for human beings. 


Once ensnared, prey often exacerbate the situation by struggling 
against SCP-968, which serves only to compound the adhesion; the 
effect is much like quicksand. The exhausted prey is pulled either to 
a "den" or underwater to be drowned. SCP-968 pulls against its prey 
in opposite directions on both macroscopic and microscopic levels to 
mechanically dismember its prey until it is torn into small enough 
fragments to digest on a cellular level. 


Though SCP-968 has shown a heightened level of intelligence, 
SCP-968 appears to have a single-minded devotion to feeding and 
exhibits no other desires. Attempts to freeze SCP-968 for analysis 
have proven extremely hazardous. It conducts heat through friction 
and metabolism, keeping parts of itself from freezing. The frozen 
parts of SCP-968 provide a structure for its fibrous tendrils to act 
against, much like muscle on bone. 


It is advised not to continue freezing attempts, as SCP-968 may 
"learn" to use the bone structure of its prey to escape or attack 
Foundation personnel. 


Acquisition: SCP researchers and Task Force Epsilon-9 (aka. "Fire 
Eaters") were dispatched to North Central Africa after an Associated 
Press reporter put several seconds of film onto the Internet. In the 
video, an indigenous man was seen being pulled into a dark pool of 
water. The reporter was on location to investigate reports of locals 
being consumed by shadows. After considering known African 
folklore, it was believed that fire was the tool of choice to be used in 
suppression and containment. 


Though well equipped and informed, Epsilon Force had great 
trouble containing the entity that was to be later labeled SCP-968. 
Before the arrival of Epsilon team, it became apparent that SCP-968 
had established snares of itself across nearly two square kilometers 
of savanna. By attaching itself to animals and allowing its prey to 
flee for nearly a kilometer in every direction, SCP-968 was capable 
of weaving a web of fine tendrils, up trees, down holes, and across 
small bodies of water. While used in the future acquisition of prey, it 


"Maybe," Cimmerian said, before grabbing one of his shot glasses 
and raising it into the air, "But I'll settle for the constellation prize." 


« The Art of Coping with Anomalies in the Gulf Region | 
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer Hub | That'll do pig. That'll 
do. » 


The O5 Orientation 


| was there. 


| was there when a man ripped through five steel doors and tore 
men in half with his bare hands. | was there when horrible things 
erupted from a plane in mid-flight and set the sane world ablaze. | 
was there when the green made the dead dance and scream. 


| was there when the orders came through, when those orders were 
carried out, and when they told us they needed to be carried out 
once a day, every day, for the rest of her life. 


| was there when the two best men | have ever known crumpled in 
an instant because they looked away, and | stood there, staring into 
that ridiculous face... 


That absurd, ridiculous face. 
That was the last time anything ever surprised me. 


When | woke up in an infirmary bed to be told that | had been 
promoted, | wasn't surprised. When they told me that they had 
falsified my death and administered amnestics to the people who 
knew better, | wasn't surprised. When they brought me to Command 
and | met the others, | wasn't surprised. Then they told me that, as 
part of the O5 Orientation, they were going to explain to me what 
SCP-001 was... 


| wasn't surprised. 


When | met the rest of the council, they told me that as per protocol, 
| would be given an introductory letter from the Administrator. When 
| asked them where the Administrator was, they simply told me "We 
don't know." | almost laughed; didn't the O5 know everything? They 
handed the letter to me and left the room, when | asked why they 

were leaving, they said, "For privacy". | merely blinked at him; at this 


point | wondered whether the whole thing was a joke. So | sat down 
in the chair they left for me and opened the piece of paper. 


Welcome, newly-appointed overseer. 


You have questions. Perhaps you don't even know what 
they all are, or care what the answers are at this point, 
but you have them, and you have many. If you opened 
this letter expecting those answers, | will tell you all that | 
have. 


Which is none. 


What is SCP-001? There isn't one. Was there a first 
anomalous object that was discovered? Of course. Was 
it important? Probably not. Confused? Good. At least 
you're still human. That's all we are, human beings. 
Human beings that thought we could reliably record the 
destruction of sanity. We were fools. We still are. The 
Foundation is compromised, it always has been, and it 
always will be. Why? We thought that there was a 
linchpin, a reason for it all—it's because we thought there 
was a "why". 


There wasn't one. 


This is the way things are. Nothing has changed, the 
universe hasn't broken down over time, this is how it's 
supposed to be. Personnel are told about SCP-001 
because it comforts them. It helps to think there is a why, 
because that suggests that there is a solution, but there 
isn't. We do not repair: we secure, contain, protect. 
Surely you must have wondered why the objects are not 
numbered chronologically, in order of recovery? Surely 
you must have wondered why some objects have fully 
documented-histories and others don't? Surely you must 
have wondered, given everything you know, why this 
world even still exists? See, | told you that you had more 
questions than you thought. 


We don't know how much of what we documented is true 


anymore, it probably changes from day to day. There's 
no way of telling what is being affected by what anomaly, 
especially when there could be an infinite number that 
we haven't even discovered. Existence is an anomaly. 


So what do we expect you to do, armed with this 
information, or lack thereof? Whatever you can. We do 
not repair, and we do not solve. 


We Secure. 

We Contain. 

We Protect. 

Congratulations on your promotion to overseer. 
Good luck. 


-The Administrator 


| was there when not caring was not good enough to protect me 
from the truth. 


| must have sat for an hour before they came back for me. When 
they asked how | was, all | said was: "A little surprised." They looked 
at me and | heard the voice, faintly, "Welcome to Overwatch, Brian." 
The rest is history, if such a thing exists. There is one more thing, 
though, the letter had a PS: 


Don't worry about it too much, whatever you think is the 
truth is probably good enough anyway. 


The Old Ice 


illustrations by SunnyClockwork 


It was cold. Not the type of cold that the air conditioners brought into 
the Foundation every day of every year. It was the type of cold 
reserved for a dark, winter night. It was a harsh, hostile chill that was 
capable of freezing blood. 


Sitting in this cold, cold room was a woman, or at least, the image of 
a woman. She was holding a doll close to her chest. The toy looked 
just like her: clawed hands, rabbit ears, one eye gouged out, anda 
grin that looked... wrong. 


The room around her was coated in ice. She heard some of it crack 
as the door tried to open. A blast of heat hit the room, and the 
woman hissed, shrinking away from it, back into the doll. 


Unsteadily, something stepped into the room. The doll couldn’t see 
it, but she could hear it. Eventually, the heat passed, and the door 
shut again. The woman in the doll heard the click-clack-click-clack of 
claws coming towards her. Eventually, she exited the doll, and stood 
in the corner of the room, observing the thing that had come in. 


It was a cat, or something that used to be a cat. It was simply a toy, 
now. A stuffed animal, but far more grim than her. It had once been 
like her. It knew her. She felt it. 


The room grew colder. 


“She always loved the snow.” 


“It’s all | can do now.” The woman swallowed, stepping towards the 
cat. “...a friend of mine made sure of that.” 


“Aggie?” 


“Aggie.” The woman reached out towards the cat. “...but she didn’t 
catch you this time, did she?” 


“...it was... someone who said they were someone | loved.” The cat 
backed away. “This is a trick. Another trick.” 


“Stuart-” 


“Don’t say my name.” The cat’s skull snapped at her. “Who are you 
this time? Jacquelyn? Another one of those Furies? One of Donnar’s 
friends?” 


“...you know exactly who | am, Stuart.” The woman knelt by the cat, 
offering a clawed hand to him. In the hand was a flower made of ice. 
A fig blossom. Despite the fact that it was only frozen water, it still 
smelled of sweet fruit and a summer breeze. 


The cat sniffed at the flower, and backed away, before curling up on 
the icy floor, wrapping its body around the doll. It shook, but not from 
the cold. It couldn’t feel cold anymore. It could only feel sad, and 
overwhelmed. 


“... When?” asked the woman. 

“When what?” Stuart replied, voice cracking. 

“When did you die? How long did you wait without me?” 
“..1998. It never got any easier.” 


The woman swallowed, placing the blossom on the ground and 
rubbing at her one good eye. “Aggie... she caught me right after it 
happened.” She reached out to pet the cat’s skull. “She made the 
doll for me. It’s a...” She laughed to herself. “Crap, | forgot the 
word.” 


“Phylactery,” Stuart said, coiling tighter around the doll. “My mother 


taught me how to make one, a long time ago.” 
The woman sighed, and scratched the cat under the chin. “Stuart?” 
“Yes?” 


“Do you think that we’ll ever... get proper bodies again? Are we 
going to stay stuck like this?” 


“Not if | have anything to say about it.” Stuart started pacing around 
the woman, before crawling into her lap. “Shit... its been fifty three 
years since we saw one another.” 


“... Between the two of us, that’s a hundred and six birthdays we 
missed.”The woman laughed a surprisingly full laugh for the body 
she was in. “And | didn’t even get you a card.” 


“| can hardly blame you, Sarah.” The cat nuzzled close to her. 
“..speaking of which, it’s New Year’s, soon..” 


“Yeah, 2014.” Sarah sighed. “We'll be... 126 years old, each.” 


“That's a good, big number.” Stuart clambered onto her shoulder 
and nested himself on her neck. “We probably won't get to see each 
other before then, though. Protocol and all that.” 


“That hasn’t changed much since the 50’s, at least.” She sighed, 
holding herself. 


An alarm buzzed. The room began to heat up, melting the ice all 
around. Sarah retreated back into the small, cloth doll, which 
remained limp on the ground. 


A technician approached Stuart, who held the doll close, whispering 
something to it in its ears. Then, he let go, and Sarah dropped to the 
ground. 


Stuart Hayward looked back as he was taken out of the containment 
chamber. He saw Sarah Crowley, waving back at him and smiling as 
the door sealed itself. 


The One Thousand Deaths of Pastor Lewis Robinson: 
The Ethics of Repeatedly Drowning Baptists 


The following letter was among several similar unsent 
letters, the initial recovery of which is credited to Dr. 
Jacobs. Following their recovery, and at Dr. Jacobs' 
request, a psychological review was ordered. 


Hey asshole, 
To Whom it May Concern, 
Dear Doctor Jacobs, 


I've been working for you for 10 years. You've sent me on so many 
assignments I've lost count. And each one was shittier worse than 
the last. This site is quite possibly the worst I've ever had to review. 
You know sometimes | think you forget that I'm a human being with 
emotions and feelings. Is it possible that while sitting up in your ivory 
fucking tower you forgot that? 


Whatever. | went to Site-88 like you said. | talked to them about 
2557. Here's the report: The containment procedures are necessary 
and appropriate. They are also the worst I've ever seen. 2557 isa 
baptismal pool. Yeah. | know what you're thinking, you've got the 
SCP Report in front of you. | don't care. You need to read it again 
jackass.