Nobody dances alongside her. She believes herself happy, to see 
her beloved so joyful despite the ignorance. Sophia's smile made all 
the light in the world seem dim. 


It is well into the night when Sophia stops her wild spinning and 
surveys the darkness. The field seems suddenly empty; she is 
struck with a terrible pain from no source she could imagine. A loss, 
a grief welling up like vomit in her throat. And yet she still did not cry. 


Nobody reaches over and wipes away Sophia's tears, even as she 
herself weeps. 


SCP-875: War Criminals 


Item #: SCP-875 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-875 is to be marked on all 
maps as a military base, and all satellite images taken of the area 
are to be altered according to Procedure Watson-24. Any civilians 
approaching SCP-875 are to be brought into Foundation custody 
and dosed with a Class-A amnestic. After dosage, civilians are to be 
returned to the nearest city to SCP-875, 


SCP-875-1 stings are to be treated by on-site medical personnel 
using alkali prescribed in Medical Chart 875-1-1. In extreme cases, 
amputation of affected limbs is authorized. 


No research personnel are to enter SCP-875 without an escort of 
two (2) members of security. Six (6) maintenance personnel are to 
be on duty in SCP-875's reactor room at all times. SCP-875's 
reactor is to be checked for breaches each hour. In the event of a 
breach, SCP-875 is to be evacuated immediately. 


In the event of specimens of SCP-875-3 becoming active, security 
personnel are to respond immediately and subdue specimens in a 
non-fatal manner. Specimens are then to be transported to Site, 
where research staff will take over the operation. 


Description: SCP-875 is an underground pyramid estimated to be 

years old and located in the Desert. No evidence of 
SCP-875's construction exists in records from the period, although 
evidence suggests that SCP-875 was man-made. The outer layer of 
SCP-875 is made of regular sandstone, but possesses an inner 
layer composed of an as-yet unknown alloy. 


The first floor of SCP-875, accessible through the entrance tunnel, 
possesses the layout of a maze or labyrinth. Mechanisms contained 


| Wish To Be An Asteroid, Burning To Nothing 


|am asecond, human-shaped moon circling around my home. That 
lie comforts me when | am at my loneliest. 


| am a forgotten, lost human, whose efforts will be remembered by 
no one. That truth reminds me when | am at my most lucid. 


Lucidity doesn't come often. It's easier to try and sleep the years off 
of me. Sometimes, when my dreams are generous, | can be nestled 
in these comforts for a small eternity. But | always wake up to the 
silence in my suit, in my helm. | used to hate it some time ago, but 
all the hatred has bled out of me like all my tears. 


My visor is covered with dust that cannot be wiped off. | have tried 
everything to remove it, including my spit. It's just another mystery 
that is my existence, now. | used to dwell on myself a long time ago. 
Panic struck me often in those times, where I'd fear | was no longer 
human, no longer alive nor dead. At one point | was afraid that | had 
somehow ascended the paradigm of life and death, and so was 
beyond even the grim reaper's kiss. 


Now that all my fears have been confirmed, | am no longer afraid. | 
am no longer sad or angry. One can call it acceptance, but | don't 
think | can accept what | don't understand. 


lam a vertigo state, not quite falling and not quite rising. My 
thoughts, too, are not solid around any concept to explain what | am 
now. | have let go even of the solidity of my name, as there was no 
point of having a name when no one is there to call you by it. It is 
easier this way, to think fluid as my body is. 


My home is bright as a New Year's ornament, reminding me that 
even if | am not down there to continue it, the world continues itself. 
When | am at my loneliest, the web of lights over the earth keep me 
company in a way that the far away glow of the stars cannot. 


| look forward to the night, when the web glows brightest. 
Sometimes | imagine that the web lifts off of the world to swaddle 
me in a net of warmth, gently pulling me down and returning me 
back home. But then | wake up from my dreams and find myself 
here again, cold and alone. 


The lights probably began to dim a while ago, but | only notice it now 
on this night when | am lonely and empty and looking to my web of 
light to guide me into comfort. Some of the strings are thin, worn, or 
cut. A small black out, perhaps. Still, it slides worry into my flesh and 
that worry proceeds to infest my intestines with doubt. The itching 
sensation of concern flashes hot on my skin like oil from a pan. 


Desperate to run from my emotions, | shut my gaze to sleep. 


When | am again awake, | remain trapped in my anxiety and find the 
lights have not been this dim in a long time. | would give everything 
to be on the ground again, if only to be able to ask what is 
happening to cause things to go dark. It is easy to delude onesself 
that this is just some new technology that moves cities underground; 
any kind of excuse or explanation would do. But | know it is not that 
simple. My years shackled to my fate teaches me to assume my 
deepest anxiety is the truth. 


| stay awake for as long as | can. My stomach tells me to be 
nauseous but there is nothing to vomit except the fear lodged in my 
intestines. | try to network my brain to the webbing of the lights, 
perhaps in a desperate attempt to be with my kind before they slip 
away and leave me behind. "/'m still here! I'm still here! Don't leave, 
I'm still here!" 


None of my shouting does anything. The lights cannot hear me. No 
one can hear me. | am being pulled across an expanse of ocean 
and ice. | am an aurora borealis across the dark sky with no one to 
witness my flight. 


The lights grow ever dimmer. | can help. | am an intelligent man who 
knows all of the latest technologies. | have even watched the 
technology evolve. Please net me down. Scoop me from the sky like 
a fish from the ocean. | can rebuild; we can rebuild. | resist the 
forces that pull me, screaming insanity into the far-away earth. The 


world is callous in its rejection. 


Once, | awaken to find the world darker than | have ever seen it. | 
learn what it means to be sad again. | re-learn how to mourn. It is so 
much more painful to become reacquainted with this kind of sorrow 
now that | have nothing at all to comfort me. The stars reject me as 
callously as the earth and | am alone with my thoughts, reliving 
anew the grief that is being conscious in this cold state. 


In a dream, it is many years into the future. The sun expands, 
consuming half the solar system. It swallows my tiny body whole, 
gulping me into its searing heat. 


| am burned away to nothing. 


| imagine it is the embrace of my family and friends as they welcome 
me home. 


| Wish You Weren't Here 


Gabriel was not exactly a novice when it came to Kit’s suicide 
attempts. 


He tried to believe that this change in behaviour couldn't possibly be 
due to the over-exposure to amnestics, because then guilt gnawed 
away in his gut. Instead, he found himself staring at the back of pill 
packets as he brushed his teeth — ‘If you, or your houseguest, down 
the whole bottle, call emergency services.’ 


Something like that, anyway. 


At some point in time, cuddling in the dim moonlight, Kit’s tone had 
gone from a sultry but satisfied one to something very quiet, and 
very grim. 


‘Pills are so unreliable. Next time | try, it'll be a sure thing.’ 


Gabriel thought maybe Kit thought he was asleep, but the 
assumption was wrong. He heard the words, and felt his heart tense 
up, beating empty, then beating hard; panicked. He hid all the 
medication in the house, though that didn’t seem to faze Kit, who 
had often turned up at his place high on something that he could 
never identify. 


Regardless, their relationship ended the next week. 


But thinking of that time reminded Gabriel of the scant amount of 
Kit’s stuff he had left behind. One of his more well-worn 
sketchbooks, which contained embarrassing sketches of them both, 
naked and exposed. The ‘Free Tibet’ t-shirt he used to sleep in 
sometimes, even though Gabriel doubted Kit cared at all for Tibet in 
any sort of meaningful way. A half-crushed pack of cigarettes that 
had littered the coffee table for a while, until Gabriel summoned up 
the strength to put it all into a bag. 


A bag, of course, that he was holding now. 


What was he doing with his life? It seemed so desperate, to want 
any chance to see Kit, that he would collect up such meagre 
belongings and prepare to take them over. Instead, Gabriel 
schooled his face into a neutral position as he walked down the 
street. 


He wasn’t going there for him, not for a hope of catching Kit just out 
of the shower, draped in a towel and nothing else. He wasn’t going 
there hoping Kit would invite him in for coffee and maybe, just 
maybe, it would all end up okay. 


He was going there for Kit. He worried about Kit constantly — all he 
had to do was remind himself of the times Kit had scared him 
before, and it was easy to change his outlook from a selfish one of 
need, to a more concerned ex-boyfriend outlook. 


The locking mechanism outside the block of flats had been broken 
for some time, so Gabriel let himself in and tried to control himself 
into a casual stride up the stairs to Kit’s flat. 


He knocked, three times, a pause, then two more. A code, so Kit 
wouldn't hide away and pretend he wasn’t home, scared of who was 
on the other side of the door. When the door didn’t open after that, 
Gabriel pretended not to be bothered. He had come all the way 
here, so he may as well try the door, and dump the stuff, and then 
go home, and try to forget all over again. 


Gabriel wasn’t alarmed when the door was unlocked. Most of the 
time, it would be, because Kit would forget his own name if... well, 
he forgot his name on a regular basis, and that’s why the door was 
rarely locked. 


He stepped in, nose rankling at the smell of stale cigarette smoke 
and a cat who he never saw but had been assured was somewhere 
in the flat. After all, having a cat was like having a poltergeist — Kit 
would shrug and say she was around there, somewhere, and later 
they would hear mysterious crashes and see mysterious messes, 
like a little kitty crime scene, with the perpetrator nowhere to be 
seen. 


Gabriel kept his shoes on, acutely aware of the filthy floors beneath 
his soles, and headed into the combined living room/kitchen. 


He saw the chair laying spilled on the floor before he saw the bare 
feet, suspended in mid-air. He felt the bag drop from his hand, felt 
like he left his own body for a moment. 


’‘He’s done it. This time, he’s really done it.’ 


The thought echoed in his head as he momentarily disassociated, 
his mind trying to protect itself from the sight of Kit hanging like a 
puppet on a string. It occupied him for maybe a few seconds, but it 
felt like minutes before he leapt into action. 


He grabbed the same chair and picked it up, pulling himself up to 
nearly where Kit swung, having to stand on his tiptoes to cut the 
rope with the handy folding knife he always kept in his back pocket. 
Gabriel's arms grasped around Kit’s body before he could fall to the 
ground, and, just for a second, it was like they were dancing. 


It was a New Year's Eve party, something oddly formal that Gabriel 
had been invited to. 


It was in-between amnestic administration number three and 
number four. Kit wasn’t that crazy, not yet. But Gabriel knew he was 
only there for a job (1 don't want to want him) 


It was Kit who had grabbed his hand and dragged him onto the 
dance floor during a slow song. It was nearly midnight, and Gabriel 
felt acutely aware he had no-one to kiss. It never normally bothered 
him, but, with Kit’s head on his shoulder, his breathing soft, it felt like 
maybe (| don't deserve this) h€ was missing out. 


It was Gabriel who took the lead that night, after the dancing, 
leading him outside where the fireworks had been exploding all 
night. He led him gently into a kiss, which kit greedily accepted. 
They were both tipsy but not drunk; Kit was quirky, but not crazy; 
and Gabriel was breaking who knew how many rules. 


Afterwards, Gabriel held Kit’s hand, gave it a squeeze and let go, 
allowing it to fall between them again. 


Ignoring how much he wanted to keep holding it. 
To hold it forever. 


Kit’s head was lolling on his shoulder again, but that soft breathing 
was absent. His face was dark, purple almost, and his neck was 
covered in scratches — the body had known nothing but to fight in its 
last moments, even if Kit had truly wanted to die. The silence in the 
room was tense and oppressive. 


And then, it was broken. 


Something slammed into the front door, and there was yelling, a 
garble of words that didn’t reach his grief-stricken ears. Gabriel 
barely noticed he was now kneeling on the floor with Kit held close 
until someone grabbed his shoulder and spoke, softer this time. 


“Let go of it, Romero.” 


Gabriel recognised the voice as Neil Hull, one of his teammates. 
That meant the Alpha team he was regularly on was here, but why? 
Gabriel couldn’t arrange his thoughts properly, could only hoarsely 
whisper. 


“Him. Kit. Not it. Never it.” 
Agent Hull knelt next to him. 
“It's not him. It was never him.” 


Gabriel looked back to the body in his arms, and it wasn’t Kit. It 
really wasn’t Kit. It was a being that looked more mannequin than 
human, with a blank face, stiff plastic limbs. He still didn’t want to let 
go. That image was still burnt into his memory. 


Later, Gabriel would learn that this uncontained threat had a twisted 
version of playing with people. It could manipulate its voice, so 
someone would believe a phone call about a loved one dying in an 
accident; it could become a scent of the cigarettes a grandmother 
used to smoke; and it could transform into a person and hang 
hopelessly from a rope. It prayed on people with rocky relationships, 
and the Foundation had been tracking it for some time. 


But that would be later. That would be after they pried him away 
from the ‘body’, after they attempted to debrief him, after they 
argued amongst themselves what to do with him. All Gabriel could 
see the entire time was Kit’s face, cold and dark, and all he could 
hear was muffled. Eventually, they decided to send him home, on 
leave for ‘possible memetic contamination’. 


Gabriel stood in the shower for an hour, trying to wash the memory 
away. He found he had, on automatic pilot, taken the bag of Kit’s 
belongings back home with him, and he slipped into the ‘Free Tibet’ 
t-shirt even though it was too big on him and stunk of smoke and 
something undefinable; the smell of Kit. 


When his hands stopped shaking so much, he typed in Kit’s number, 
despite knowing how rarely the flaky young man checked his phone. 


“Hey, Kit, it’s me.” He let the awkward silence fill the air, just glad 
that it wasn’t as heavy as the air in that terrible kitchen scene. “I, uh. 
| just wanted to check you were okay. And uh... to say | miss you. A 
lot. | was just... | wanted you to know someone cares for you 
because | know that’s... that’s easy for you to forget. Uh. You don’t 
have to call me back, just... I’m here, if you need me. I’m not a 
million miles away.” Gabriel hung up the phone and buried his face 
in his hands, breathing hard. 


Back at Kit’s flat, and the man himself stumbled in, two days gone 
on a Bloom high. He was more than a little confused about the state 
of his kitchen — immaculately clean, as if someone had gone through 
and disinfected everything, cleaned up every little thing. Someone 
had even replaced the lightbulb, which was nice.