Upon entering SCP-901, the subject is confronted by one or more 
personnel in the employ of said authority, who proceed to restrain 
the subject and escort them to another sector of SCP-901, where 
the subject will be interrogated by a figure of relatively high rank in 
the organisation, designated SCP-901-2. Unlike the other figures 
populating SCP-901, SCP-901-2 appears to be a consistent feature 


Be free of sin, therefore, as He and His angels are free of sin; for 
wherever evil transpires in the hearts of men, the Unclean walk 
among us. 


Next the book was opened to the First Testament, and | was asked 
to read Psalm 23:4. It was most unlike the version | had learned in 
chapel many years ago, but | read it clear and true; 


Though | walk in the land of the Unclean, | will fear no evil, for you 
are always watching; your voice and your sight protect me. 


| was surprised when the judge closed the book and proclaimed | 
would have to prove myself by reciting the third verse from memory. 
| was challenged to recite Matthew 5:38-39 from the Second 
Testament. | knew well enough the verse in King James' Bible; but | 
had no way of knowing how it might have been presented in this 
world, or even enough of their strange theology to guess. | felt doom 
creep upon me and decided to do the best | could, and closed my 
eyes as | recited the verses | knew; 


Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth: But | say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever 
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 


The judges did not at first respond to this reading. They retreated to 
their bench and discussed amongst themselves for a few moments, 
and one departed briefly, returning with a truly ancient book which 
they examined while conferring further. | wondered if reciting the 
verse in its original form might have only confirmed their accusation 
of me, when my bonds were removed and | was ordered to follow 
the chief judge to his chambers. 


Seated behind a magnificent desk of fine ebony, the chief judge 
informed me that | had correctly recited the verse in question as it 
had existed in the ancient Bible, before the Second Coming. Those 
old texts were forbidden to the public; even the heretic sects made 
do with modern versions, and the only known copies in existence 
were in possession of the church fathers themselves for their 
personal study. The book he had examined was the only ancient 
Bible in the entire city, and before today had not been removed from 
safe-keeping for over fifty years; and yet, | knew its verses by heart. 


Therefore, he said, it was obvious that | was at the very least a Holy 
Father, one of the third-highest echelon of the clergy, who had 
travelled incognito to his land for some purpose. Though he had no 
power as a mere Blessed Voice to compel my obedience, he asked 
why | had come, and what | had been doing in the Unfertile Lands 
with a heretic's cross and a strange weapon that was useless 
against the Unclean. 


An opportunity had been granted to me, and | chose to take 
advantage of it. | was, | informed the Blessed Voice, a senior 
member of the church's scientific research division, conducting tests 
on the development of improved weapons for suppressing or even 
killing the Unclean. | told him my destabilizing musket was the 
product of this project and it had shown promise in tests against 
tissue samples, and | had been delegated to test it myself in the 
field. Unfortunately, it had not lived up to its promise, and further 
refinements would obviously be needed before it could live up to its 
full potential. The cross, | claimed, was merely a trophy | had taken 
from a heretic in the priesthood after | exposed his treason. 


To my surprise, the Blessed Voice did not question my account at 
all. So great the respect for and fear of authority is within this nation, 
| suspect, that the mere supposition that | was his superior was 
enough to put me beyond reproach. By the end of our meeting, he 
had offered me access to a laboratory in the Blessed Militia's base 
at the edge of the Unfertile Zone. | accepted his proposition and 
today | found myself examining a facility which makes the laboratory 
in my own estate look like a child's play-thing. It is fully appointed 
with every instrument a man of science could want for and several 
that | do not yet even understand the purpose of. There are full 
stocks of chemicals, as well as tissue samples acquired from the 
Unclean, samples of their ichorous discharge, and a variety of 
medical nutrients and fluids, including the mind-altering substance 
called the Lord's Tears. 


| have been given private quarters within the base, and the 
militiamen give me a wide berth - | have noticed they avert their 
eyes as | pass them in the halls, and all conversation ceases when | 
enter a room. They believe | hold power over their very lives - for 
now, at least, | shall make no effort to disabuse them of this notion. 


It shall take me some time, but perhaps with this equipment and the 
samples provided me, | can learn enough of the nature of the 
Unclean to genuinely construct a weapon capable of causing true 
damage to them. If only Deeds were here - at least | would have a 
capable lab assistant. 


February 27th, 1876: 


| have made a truly horrifying breakthrough in my research today. | 
do not even know if the most senior leaders of this world know the 
truth - some of them must surely know, if a heretic from another 
world was able to figure it out so quickly - and they have gone to 
great lengths to hide it from the world in their lie of a religion. 


The beings called Unclean are not devils or beings of pure sin, but 
gross mutations of the human form itself. The key is the Tears. | 
know not what the true origin of that compound is or from whence it 
comes, but it is more than a simple tool of mind control. When 
human flesh is exposed to a significant enough concentration, it 
changes - the bonds that hold the atoms together peel away, and it 
becomes mutable and elastic, folding around and absorbing all other 
life introduced to it. A single mutant becomes two, and then three, 
and four, growing larger and larger, becoming less and less human 
in form, until it becomes Unclean. 


| wondered how these creatures first came to be created. Did the 
church fathers make weapons of them, to unleash upon those 
renegade nations that refused to submit to their will? Perhaps they 
use them for that reason still - | had found numerous reports in the 
history books of cities and country-sides being attacked by Unclean, 
suddenly loosed from their Unfertile Lands, whenever sentiment in 
that land had turned against the church. Even now they continued to 
throw millions of people into the Tears every year to better control 
them - some of them surely mutating as the result and becoming the 
basis of a new abomination. No wonder there were railways leading 
into the Unfertile Zones - it was necessary to dispose of the persons 
so changed. | wondered how many were sacrificed intentionally to 
make the Unclean more powerful and more menacing as weapons 
of terror. 


| wondered what might happen if news of this horror became known 


to the people. How many more heretics would the elders throw in 
the Tears? How many cities would they loose the Unclean upon to 
suppress the threat to their power? How many uprisings could they 
manage, how many mutants could take form, before the Unclean 
became uncontrollable and society itself was brought to its knees? | 
shudder to think of it. 


But with this horror has come revelation. The Unclean are born of 
using the Tears to allow people to absorb others into themselves. 
What if a compound could be produced that weakened those 
bonds? | think | can develop a way to produce a variant of the Tears 
that will counter the effect the original has had on these poor souls. | 
owe it to the people of this world to try. 


March 20th, 1876: 


Today is a day | shall remember the rest of my life. After weeks of 
research | have produced my weapon, a serum which | have with no 
small amount of pride named Blackwood's Tears. | have tested it on 
tissue samples of the Unclean and watched them dissolve before 
my very eyes. It took several days experimenting with one of the 
most sophisticated repeater-rifles used by the militiamen of this 
world, but | have developed a custom rifle that fires syringes filled 
with Blackwood's Tears. Upon impact, the force should activate the 
plunging device and inject the serum directly into its target. | have 
produced several hundred rounds of the the serum and loaded them 
into magazines; if my calculations prove true, it should take only a 
few dozen to destroy one of the abominations. 


Yesterday, | spoke to a colonel of the militia-men who confirmed that 
the trains into the Unfertile Zones are used to carry people who the 
fathers have declared "incurably sinful", though he did not know the 
true meaning of that infamous phrase. He said a highly purified vial 
of Tears was contained on each train which lured the Unclean to it; 
thus, the incurable were disposed of and the Unclean were kept 
from wandering too far. | arranged for the train to be sent out this 
morning empty but for myself, my weapon, and the purified Tears. 
Before | left, | gave him a copy of my findings and made him 
promise to read it entirely, including my opinions on what might 
happen if this knowledge becomes widely known, and to make sure 
that Blackwood's Tears were being manufactured around the world 


before the day when that knowledge comes out. He nodded in silent 
agreement as the train pulled away. 


Shortly before noon, the train parked itself at a dead end in the 
middle of the desert. | readied my weapon and waited in a blind 
outside the train as the stench of the Unclean began to fill the air. As 
| watched the abomination approach, | sighted its face through the 
remarkably sophisticated scope on the weapon and loosed the first 
round. 


The Unclean screamed with a fury unimaginable. | almost dropped 
my gun and collapsed in agony; but as | watched through the scope, 
the creature lurched and seemed to grow a few feet smaller than it 
had been before. | fired another round and a piece seemed to 
vanish from its head; but now it had sight of me and it was coming in 
my direction. | loosed several more rounds before | was forced to 
run. Pieces of flesh seemed to be sloughing off the creature as it 
dragged itself in my direction, its screams piercing the air with a 
deafening madness. | ran blindly, turning occasionally to fire in its 
direction, changing magazines from time to time. Alas, | had been 
paying more attention to the creature behind me than the terrain in 
front of me; and | found myself boxed in. | turned to fire again, and to 
my horror | discovered the gun had jammed. 


The Unclean was less than half the size it had been before. It 
dragged itself in my direction, slowed but still unrelenting as | 
furiously tried to clear the jam. It screamed as it raised itself up 
above me. Somehow, in its wounded state, the monster seemed 
more human than it had before. Across every inch of the giant's skin 
| seemed to behold a different face, and each furious proclamation it 
made seemed to echo with hundreds of voices in fear and agony. | 
was still trying to clear the jam when it began to bear down on me 
and | thought | was soon to join the souls that comprised that thing 
in their unceasing damnation. But when the titanic head was barely 
feet away from me, it stopped. The Unclean held itself motionless 
above me. It could have moved in for the kill at any time, but instead 
it waited as | cleared the jam, and seconds later, my weapon was 
ready to fire. | understood - the Unclean was an amalgamation of 
cursed souls in eternal pain and confusion, seeking a release that 
was forever denied to them. The thing before me wanted to die. | 


aimed my weapon, closed my eyes, and emptied the magazine into 
its faceless visage as it screamed a final time and the scream was 
instantly cut short, echoing across the desert before dissipating 
entirely. 


When | opened my eyes a scene of utter carnage lay before me. Of 
the Unclean itself, there was no sign; but instead, hundreds of men 
and women and children, naked as the day they were born, lay 
sprawled across the desert plains, dead or dying. | walked among 
them and saw young and old, gasping for air in their final moments 
(for none of them lasted more than a few moments before expiring). 
Among the crowd | spotted a face | recognized - the soldier of the 
Blessed Militia who had been killed, so | thought at the time, in the 
attack that saved my life. As | looked at the dying man, his eyes met 
mine and he spoke two words; 


Thank you. 


| made my way back west in the direction | had intended to flee in 
January, and boarded the train back to the City of Angelic Glory. 
The faster | can put this scene and these Unfertile Lands behind me, 
the better it shall be for my sanity. 


March 23rd, 1876: 


| returned through the mirror to London before dawn in the morning 
of this world, arriving back in my study just after noon London time. | 
was most thankful to find the gateway still worked; | had not 
expected to be away as long as | have been, and feared it might 
have ceased functioning or the disc removed from the mirror. | 
immediately removed it from the mirror myself and set it on the 
ground, whereupon it rolled back to the mirror and attached itself; 
but having not been placed there by a human being, the mirror was 
only a looking-glass; and the portal to that world and the horrors that 
populated it was, for now, sealed. 


| do not think | shall journey to that world again. The Unclean were 
monstrous enough, but there is a certain irony in the fact that, as 
alien and terrifying as they were, the greatest evil to populate that 
land was man itself, for it was the leaders of men who must have 
created the Unclean to begin with, and who continued to allow their 


existence in order to perpetuate their reign of terror. The gun and 
the Blackwood's Tears | have brought back with me shall likely 
prove of little use in this world; but | shall store them at my house in 
the country for now, for if the being that provided the Tears to that 
Earth ever visits our own, the compound may one day prove of great 
utility. 


| visited Mr. Belson again today at Bedlam. | told him of my journey 
to his land (but what | had learned there, | kept to myself) and that | 
had the means to return him there he so desired it. He declined; 
having been gone so long, and having vanished so suddenly, he 
would surely be under great suspicion if he returned, and would 
likely be put to the Tears, a fate that | now wished on no man. | have 
promised to vouch for him with the gaolers and earn his release; | 
told him that when and if he becomes a free man, there shall be a 
position available for him in my household staff if he desires one. 


Deeds was very fascinated by my tale of my adventures in that 
parallel Earth and suggested | publish it; but who could believe such 
a fanciful story of worlds accessible through a looking glass and 
gigantic horrors? Perhaps | shall present it as fiction in one of the 
penny journals that have become so popular among the working- 
class; for whether they regard it as true or not, | suppose it does 
make a most entertaining yarn. 


Lord Blackwood and the Thaumaturge 


Interview Log 1867-23 
Interviewer: Dr. Adam Bernstein 
Interviewed: SCP-1867