Thoughts of her homework are instantly vaporized by the 
sudden grip of fear in her stomach. The R.A. is standing 
in the doorway, looking... worried? What the heck? 


"Uh, Kelly? Can you leave us alone for a few minutes?" 
asks Beth. 


Kelly looks nervously between the two of them. "Sure. I'll 
be over in the lounge if you need me." 


Kelly leaves and Beth takes a deep breath and tells her, 
"I'm so sorry. Jesse was in an accident a couple of hours 
ago. Someone was speeding and hit him as he was 
crossing the street. His R.A—" 


Beth continues speaking, but what's she saying? The 
words are fading away and don't make any sense. This 
can't be happening. Jesse's okay, right? God wouldn't 
hurt someone as nice as him, right? | mean, at least it 
could just be that Jesse— 


"—is in critical condition at the hospital. | figured you'd 
want to know." Beth's just standing there, so awkwardly. 
Doesn't she know that something monumentally terrible 
has happened? Jesse's hurt, Jesse might die and oh god 
did she tell him she loved him when she saw him earlier? 
What kind of witch would she be if he... passed away... 
not knowing that she loved him everyday forever and 
ever? 


"Janine? Do you want me to drive you over to the 
hospital?" Beth gently laid a hand on her shoulder, which 
immediately jerked like a rubber band snapping. Nope, 
can't handle that, no touching right now. Gotta, shit, gotta 
get it together. 


"Yes, yes, | need to go there right now. My wallet, 
where's my wallet? And my keys? And should | bring 
something? | mean, they won't let me bring flowers | 
don't think and that's kind of tacky anyway and oh god 
what if his parents are there they'd think | was crazy 
bringing him flowers while he's so bad off and oh god | 
just can't." 


Why is her face wet? Oh god, is she crying in front of 
someone? She can't look weak, not when she has to be 
strong for Jesse. That's right, just wipe it off, grab the 
purse and go. 


Ah, that was better. A strong sense of happiness with that sudden 
burst of despair at the end, sparking off each other in a delightful 


another infinite concrete wall. This second door leads to the normal 
destination room of the door on which SCP-860 was used. 


A number of other anomalous events have been reported by 
personnel conducting explorations of SCP-860-1. These are 
explained in more detail in Documents 860-I through 860-IV. 


Following the events of Exploration IV (described in Document 860- 
IV), only level 4 personnel may perform tests on SCP-860. 


Incident 860- -12:On // , days after Exploration IV, SCP-860 
was found on Dr. 's office table, | m from its containment unit. 
The item's containment locker had not been opened. Video 
surveillance from : AM shows the key suddenly materializing on 
top of the table. It is currently unknown how or why SCP-860 was 
moved. The incident had a profound effect on Dr. . Psychiatric 
evaluation is recommended. 


Addendum: Below are the transcripts of Explorations | - IV. Level 2 
personnel and above may access Documents 860-I and II. Only 
level 4 personnel and above may access Document 860-III and IV. 


Document 860-I and II 
Document 860-II] and IV 


« SCP-859 | SCP-860 | SCP-861 » 


interplay. Definitely a better bite than the first, and worth the wait. 


And now that the orange was finished, it was time for another sip of 
water, then on to the last course: a double shot of espresso. If she 
was lucky, it would complete the set in a wonderfully complementary 
way. Now, the decision was whether to sip it slowly and draw out the 
experience, or down it quickly for something more intense. 


Intensity would be a perfect capstone to the meal, though. 


That motherfucker is just standing there. He's not even 
upset. How dare he walk around living and whole when 
Jesse is dead? How DARE he’?! 


Well, he won't be for much longer, he's going to get 
what's coming to him, isn't he? Bet he doesn't expect 
someone to tap him on the shoulder from behind and— 


"Yes pal 
BLAM 


Oh, exquisite! Short and intense, just as expected! And such a 
wonderful vignette, too! Perhaps she should try her little experiment 
again to see if she could elicit any similar results. 


Smiling faintly, she waited until her heartbeat slowed, then 
unhurriedly collected her trash into a small plastic bag and put in all 
in the lunchbox, on top of the small vial containing a sliver of 
preserved brain tissue. Lunch completed, she returned her lunchbox 
to her locker, then walked back over to scrub back in before starting 
the next autopsy. 


A coroner's work is never done. A gourmet's pleasure, even less so. 


Grandchildren Frost 


The icemen slowly crossed the mountain pass, moving with utterly 
implacable confidence. A good two or so days since they had left the 
Cloud, but the mission was one of utter importance. They could not 
fail. They could never fail, not when their Tsar needed them. The 
peaks of the Urals stretched very high above them, but only one—a 
lone straggler stumbling somewhat near the backlooked up and 
them. Whether he saw anything, it was hard to tell, what with his 
lack of eyes. But still, the straggler shrugged gently, as if in sigh, and 
continued to push onward. He marched in unison with the rest of 
them, identical to the rest. They were moving as one carefully 
coordinated organism. One organism composed of so many frozen 
parts interlinking and interlocked. A siphonophore of soldiers. Their 
guns were identical, their faces identical. 


This time, there would be no belligerents, no enemies for the Tsar to 
stop. Today they carried only the most basic of their vast capabilities 
for weaponry. There was still a purpose, however. They could not 
live without a purpose. Two days earlier they had arrived at the 
Cave, an ancient thing tucked away in a foothill. Within the cave it 
was still cold, and so they simply went through the motion of making 
a campfire. The real thing would be too dangerous to their fragile 
forms, but they collectively felt in their frozen chests that it was the 
correct thing to do in this situation. Following this shambolic parody 
of a camp, they attended to their tasks. It was a rare burst of 
individual time for the community, ordinarily not permitting 
themselves that kind of frivolity. A select few gathered snow from the 
bitter windswept hill, and took to work polishing their weapons. Most 
kind of wandered about, miming meaningless arguments and 
bumping into walls. 


There were a scant handful though, who looked up in wonder at the 
scratchings and figures decorating the cave walls. The straggler was 
among them. They stroked icicle fingers across a female figure, as 
ochre as a field of wheat. Between her legs, exactly twenty-eight red 


dots spilled down the rock plane, forever falling towards the cave 
floor, forever stuck halfway up the wall. The straggler stroked the 
dots tenderly, simply. Behind him, an iceman cleaning his gun 
mimed an especially rude gesture, something private, sexual, and 
singular, himself unaware of it's true meaning, but feeling it was 
correct towards the softness of the straggler. The straggler of 
course, felt his comrade make the gesture, but made no indication of 
awareness, of consciousness towards it. Perhaps not of 
consciousness at all. He simply stroked the dots at an exalted pace. 


They marched another two days through the Southern Urals. In 
actuality they were not far from their base at all. From the Tsar. The 
entire region was stuffed to the bursting with 6nka, but none seemed 
to the icemen to be at all correct. 


After four days from the Cloud, the straggler wandered ahead and 
found an énka that seemed satisfactory, and so alerted the rest of 
his squad, who in turn, alerted the rest of the army. As one, they 
turned and drew broad, strong axes of ice, and began to March to 
the beat of some simple drum. Around them the Urals were still, 
their collective footsteps echoed off the lonely mountains. The deep 
snow muffled their movements, pushing them back. They had no 
cares for this. It just was. They simply pushed the snow, reaching far 
over their heads in places, back. There was as much thought and 
contemplation in it as a man putting on his shoes. 


At the énka, instinct took over. Memory knows nothing compared to 
time and the thought patterns of an all. An all which has thought in 
the plural for as long as they have lived. In the minds of the iceman 
there was a calm peacefulness, as muffled as the snow from which 
they emerged. In essence, they were snow-creatures, blessed with 
the inner peacefulness and calm chill of snow, the instinctual drive 
towards grace and simplicity. Even in combat, where they performed 
the most heinous acts of violence to serve their Tsar, there was no 
passion, no rage, no inner violence to match the battlefields. Calm. 
Calm. 


The rhythmic chopping of seven or so ice axes, sturdier than they 
would appear for their material, was soon replaced with a cracking 
of wood, and a great crumbling. Methodically, but with haste and 
speed they moved out of the way and the great énka, the spruce 


which for over a hundred years has stood in the snow of the Urals, 
fell topping down into the expanse of rock and white. The straggler 
raised his arms, and with grace directed his comrades. From an 
outsider's perspective, he seemed to be nothing more than a 
conductor directing some vast, terrible and inscrutable orchestra. A 
Eugene Ormandy of the mountains. A Leonard Bernstein of 
Sverdlovsk Oblast. It is clear now, to that mysterious outsider figure. 
Perhaps they have been watching the iceman since they left the 
Tsar, perhaps he has noticed the straggler's seeming individuality. 
Far from a straggler, this is a leader. One granted the tiniest bit of 
command so that all perform more efficiently. Together they hoisted 
the mighty tree onto their backs and set out for home. Or is it home? 
They turn in the opposite direction from their destination. They must 
know where they are going, however. 


Glance now at the one who was the straggler, observer. See now, 
know that he has achieved his goals. That he, bestowed with 
whatever faint shadow of a mind granted to him by the Tsar, has 
done his job. See how he leads onwards through the thick snow, 
downhill, downhill, downhill further still under the mountain's 
shadow, until the forests untouched turn to forests razed by the 
industry of the Tsars in days gone by, and even then downhill, 
downhill into where the burned wood, and petrified stumps give 
ways to vast fields of rock and snow deeper and wetter then on the 
mountain. Less still, more sorrowful. There is no life here. Observer, 
you are only with your icemen. 


Within this bleak landscape there used to be mines, where men 
would sacrifice health and life digging up the ores and minerals used 
to fuel the Tsar. The icemen came across one such mine, where 
vast swaths of marble and gemstones were hauled out of the earth 
in tonnes. A few of the men in the back, not carrying their tree, 
began to pick up the scraps, sifting through the snow and venturing 
down the shaft, spider-like, to scavenge what had been plundered 
sO many years ago. Their dextrous weapons soon freed a meager 
bounty, and they scuttled out into the darkness again. The sun had 
set so long ago. These were the dark months. There was still a 
purpose, however. 


The straggler watched them gather their bounty into woven, crystal 


sacks given by the Cloud for this sole purpose. The straggler didn't 
understand what they were doing exactly. They had their 
gemstones, they had their 6énka, now what? What was the point, if 
any? lf the Tsar wanted it, still it would be done. the straggler 
shrugged and scooped a handful of rock into a crystal sack of his 
own. Then he fell in line. 


He did not deviate from the group for the entire four day hike back to 
the Tsar. There was no need for him to be on lookout right now. 


At the Tsar, under the Cloud, they hoisted the énka into a large, pre- 
dug put, and bolstered it upright with snow and rocks. Clambering 
up, they placed the gemstones reverently within the branches and 
then waited as the Cloud formed new weapons. A long string of 
exposed lights. Strips of metallic ice. The straggler stepped forward 
for the first time in a while. This was the final moment. He served the 
Tsar, the Tsar served God, and God served the universe. This was 
everything. This was the moment. The Tsar wanted a tree, the Tsar 
wanted it decorated, it shall be so. 


He clambered up the branches and began to string the new 
weapons. He vaguely wondered how they would be used to claim 
belligerents, but since he did not think much at all, these thoughts 
never came forward. It was only now he thought, once he finished 
this task he would no longer be apart anymore. He would never 
think again. 


The énka glowed, a spruce on fire in the middle of the Urals. The 
radio station where the Tsar lay asleep and commanding shot 
straight up into the night sky. This was all they could see. Them to 
the Tsar to God. God above all. God who made the Cloud and the 
Tsar and their weapons and their belligerents and them. The Tsar 
made them circle the tree; their weapons fell to the ground. Joining 
hands, they felt their ice-sculpture fingers freeze into each other. As 
one, they craned their heads up to the skies. 


They were one. 


Addendum 2617-9: The following message is decoded 
from transmissions emitted from SCP-2617 on January 
7th, 1974. 


"ANASTASIA, COME SIT BY THE FIRE. HALFWAY 
OUT OF THE DARK. IT'S SO DARK. | WILL BRING 
THE LIGHT. MOTHER, WHEN DOES GRANDFATHER 
FROST ARRIVE? | CAN'T SEE. THE SAVIOR! THE 
SAVIOR!" 


Green 


November 17th, 1996 


Francis yawned. Another night spent in the office, surrounded by the 
Paperwork Himalayas. 


Dammit Iceberg it is not that easy... 


Perhaps half an hour earlier he had peeled his head off of his 
desktop planner and out from under a rather irritated Josie. The cat 
had taken a liking to him in the last month and a half, or at least his 
head was the most comfortable. He went through the motions of 
morning routine in a daze: five minutes under a frigid and 
unforgiving shower head, a quick brush of the teeth and look in the 
mirror. Tussled, dirty blonde hair and not nearly enough sleep. 


Then again, nobody slept a lot anymore. 


Try as he might (which was not trying very hard at all), Francis 
couldn’t shake the daze from his head: his brain felt like pudding ina 
cotton bowl. He knew he was dressed, but couldn’t recall actually 
doing It. He knew it was morning, but had no clue what time it was. 
He knew it was Sunday morning, and if he was here, then it wasn’t 
his weekend off. Shit. That meant that most of the staff was home: 
fewer than a hundred people in the entire place, most of them 
guards and maintenance. That meant that mooching off of someone 
who had gone to the grocery store and had more than old ramen in 
their cupboard was going to be far more difficult than it usually was. 
This left the only reasonable stand-in. 


Breakfast roulette. 


Francis wasn’t sure who had started the “game”. It wasn’t really a 
game, though. Challenge? It wasn’t particularly challenging. Thing 
people did? That worked. It was a thing that people did. The thing in 
question consisted of five steps 


1) Go to break room. 

2) Input “something suitable for humans” into the coffee machine 
(“random” and “your choice” had ended messily.) 

3) Feed the vending machine 500 Yen (change available nearby.) 
4) Eat breakfast. Generally. 

5) Regret your decision. Usually. 


Francis opened the door to the break room. Step one, complete.