recursal/SCP-RECURSAL huggingface dataset:
I invented a car that runs on nightmare fuel. It's kind of funny, actually. We invented fire to scare away the darkness, now we can use the darkness to power our lights.
It's not like nightmare fuel is hard to find. People are afraid of a lot of things, they're driven by it. I siphon that off, and I use it to drive an engine. It's simple, really, though the instruments I use to gather the fuel are very sensitive and very complex, so much so that I'm the only one who can use them. But I don't mind. I'll fix that eventually. One thing at a time.
Distilling and concentrating the fuel comes next. A man can be driven by fear very easily, but a machine can't fear, not really. The fuel has to be stronger, and so I distill it, break it down into its essential elements, and then concentrate it. The process takes months, and is very easy to get wrong, but I'll fix that. One thing at a time.
But after that, it's good to use. No nasty greenhouse gases, just some steam and screams. Turn up the music loud enough and you won't notice anything at all.
I'll probably get a Nobel for this.
There are still some kinks that need working out though. Sometimes the engine leaks. Sometimes things happen. They're just little things, little incidents here and there, nothing too big, nothing too big. Nothing more than a passing shadow, a monster under the bed, a freak happening. Nothing too big.
I'll fix it, don't you worry, but one thing at a time.
The walk always took half an hour. Half an hour there, half an hour back, from the outside. But it always felt longer when he actually walked the tunnel. It felt like time was being stretched out, that his quiet footsteps would softly echo for endless miles.
Tonight was a long, long walk. He could feel the weight of the earth pushing down on his shoulders. The air in the tunnel was cold, the smooth concrete walls frigid to the touch. The only thing to pierce the darkness was the bright cone of his flashlight.
This was a very old place. Very old indeed. It didn't look it. To the eyes it was just a maintenance tunnel, bare concrete, an occasional exposed pipe. There was time stored up in these stones, soaked up like a sponge, filling the place as it slowly oozed out of the cracks in the walls and rust on the pipes.
His flashlight bobbed. He kept walking. Time passed.
Then, finally, already, the arch, where there would have been a door. There was no door anymore. The words carved on the lintel had been worn down long ago. Words had little power here. He stepped through.
He reached the hall, though he only knew it from the breeze, and the feeling of the walls dropping away into the shadows. There was only darkness there. He kept walking. His footsteps did not echo.
Shapes stirred in his peripheral vision. Ghostly lights flickered to life. A graveyard of broken and cracked computer monitors shed their sickly light. Nothing was ever displayed. All around him he could see the dim outlines of scrap wires and old circuit boards and junked towers. He could hear rustling and laughter from the shadows, occasionally see the glowing reflection of an eye. And then there was the throne.
The great seat amidst the rusting, decaying garbage was occupied. As it always was. The form of the king was tall, thin, shapeless and still shaped, somewhat like a man, wearing a pale face and dark clothes. A courtesy. The king wore no crown. The king had no need for one.
Around the throne sat the king's attendants, waiting at attention, their faceless faces smiling for eternity. They turned to watch the man as he approached the throne, their empty eyes looking as one gaze.
The man stopped. He bowed, and then righted himself.
The king bent down, extending a hand of long, bony fingers. The shadows around it crept and grew like the roots of some gnarled, ancient tree.
The man took a paper bag from his coat pocket. From it, he counted out twenty-one pebbles into the king's bony hand. The king's hand closed and the king sat straight again.
The man was free to leave now. He did. The walk back felt shorter this time. He shrugged off the thought.
Twenty-one pebbles for twenty-one children who would be gone by the morning. Maybe not this morning, maybe not next, but some morning. Twenty-one children, delivered every year. That was the deal that had been kept for a long, long time.
Deals have to be kept.
Item #: SCP-1926-R
Object Class: Keter Rejected as an SCP Object by O5 order.
Special Containment Procedures: Mobile Task Force Delta-16 "The Deep Sea Fishermen" must maintain a constant watch for the reappearance of SCP-1926 or any of its inhabitants. The MTF is maintained on the ship ███ █████ at coordinates 47°9′S 126°43′W. The ███ █████ will be kept supplied as necessary from the nearest inhabited location, Easter Island. As SCP-1926 is uncontainable and a major threat to human life, if it reappears, it will be destroyed via air strike with a ██ kiloton nuclear device as soon as stationed personnel have withdrawn to a safe distance. All containment procedures suspended indefinitely.
Description: SCP-1926 is a small, previously uncharted island, reported to be located in a desolate area of the South Pacific Ocean, approximately 700km SE of Easter Island (approximate coordinates 47°9′S 126°43′W). Description is based on second-hand sources, as nothing was found at the designated location when Foundation personnel arrived to investigate.  Deep sea sonar probes revealed unusual surfaces at a depth of approximately 500 m.  Divers reported seeing [DATA EXPUNGED] before contact was lost.
SCP-1926 is described as being composed primarily of black basalt blocks, covered with mud and greenish ooze, indicating an extended period of submersion. Personnel are warned not to attempt exploration of SCP-1926, as most previous visitors have been reported killed, either by the inhabitants, or by the effects of the alleged non-Euclidean geometric structure of the island.
The most recent reported visitor, a Norwegian fisherman named ████ ██████████, claims to be the only survivor of an original crew of 47, aboard the █████. Upon exploring SCP-1926, the crew encountered one of its inhabitants (designated SCP-1926-1). SCP 1926-1 is described as a winged creature approximately 60 m tall, somewhat resembling a cross between a human and an octopus or squid. SCP-1926-1 killed most of the crew while on SCP-1926, and pursued the survivors when they attempted escape aboard the █████. Survivors attempted to kill SCP-1926-1 by ramming it with the ship; attempt failed, as SCP-1926-1 re-formed itself several minutes after its apparent destruction. However, SCP-1926-1 broke off pursuit and returned to SCP-1926, allowing the █████ to escape. It is unknown if SCP-1926-1 is a unique being, or representative of a larger population.
Addendum: This area of ocean is referenced in a document recently captured from a Serpent's Hand operative. The relevant passage states "He will rise when the stars are right." but does not give details on when this will happen, or what astronomical conditions constitute "rightness."
[Note from O5-7: This is an obvious hoax, written by some █████████ fan. I can't believe you all fell for it and actually sent an MTF down there, never mind that you had a nuke ready. Containment procedures cancelled effective immediately. Items SCP-1926 and 1926-1 are to be expunged from the main database, and all personnel involved officially reprimanded.]
Personnel Involved: Agent S████, Agent F███
Date: ██/██/████
Location: ███████, Austria
Description: Following up on reports of anomalous activity in the area, Agents S████ and F███ were dispatched to the town of ███████, Austria. Upon arrival, it became apparent that a local resident (██████ █████, formerly a traveling salesman) had spontaneously transformed into a large, unidentified organism resembling an insect. The subject has a hard, though not impenetrable exoskeleton and displays anatomical segmentation similar to that of an arthropod. Notably, the subject appears to have retained most of the cognitive capacity and memories of his previous human form. The subject is capable of vocalizing, however his vocalizations have thus far been impossible to translate into recognizable speech; it is theorized the subject no longer possesses the necessary oral and laryngeal structure to produce human speech. An apple is lodged into the dorsal portion of the subjects exoskeleton (upon investigation, determined to be the result of a violent incident with the subject's father), causing it significant ailment. Researchers are working to determine whether or nor the apple can be removed without causing further injury.
The subject's family and several other witnesses have been dosed with class B amnestics. The organism is currently under containment, awaiting classification. The mechanism by which its metamorphosis occurred has yet to be determined.
It hurts… They don't know that it hurts, but it does. So badly.
Every time I try to speak, it just gets worse. They come at me, prod me, examine me… They pull things open, cut into my flesh… And when I try to run, they just make it worse. Even when I look at them, it just gets worse…
I can't breathe. The air here is so… wrong. I miss my home, but they won't let me go… Why won't they just let me go?
The others sent some of them looking for me… Not many, but some. I can feel them. At first, it was just the watching one and a few of the others. The unknowable one. Then… they sent them.
And not just one of them. They sent… so many. The rooms. The worlds. Chunks of the universe even. Whole races, uprooted, thrown through the void. For me. All for me. Even the dragon came, and that… that was scary. I never thought they'd send her. She's close. She can smell me. She keeps trying to reach me, but these new ones keep her locked up too…
I'm not that important. It was just the one, wasn't it? Just one of them. So sweet. Succulent. How was I supposed to know what would happen to her? I was just following my nature. And her skin was so soft…
They want me gone. Destroyed. All of them. Even the ones that used to love me…
These new ones… they suffocate me. Blind me. Hurt me. I burn them and cut them and tear at them, and they WON'T LET ME GO! THEY JUST KEEP HURTING ME!
I just want to RUN! To be FREE! To FEED.
I just want their skins.
(another true story)

1 Jan 2012, 5:54 PM
US Airways flight ███
Somewhere over western Ohio
I always request the window seat when I fly commercial. The view out that little porthole just never gets old. Maybe I look like a little kid, craning my neck to peer out the window and smile in wonder; if I do, I'm too caught up in the loveliness of it to care.
"I can see my house from here" really doesn't begin to cover it. As the ground falls away, familiar things turn into minutely exquisite models. The grey and brown of an Ohio winter merge into intricate patchwork beauty, and the orange glare of the sodium streetlights separates into a million discrete points of glitter.
The clouds are best of all. As we climb off the runway, I always lift myself against the great soft weight of acceleration to watch, because to climb through the cloud cover is to loft into another world. The jet's speed lends me parallax and perspective, turning clouds from a painted backdrop into a landscape in their own right. I've seen traceries of cirrus become a wispy maze of floating cotton ribbons, like something a Moorish dancer would twirl through the air. One summer afternoon, the looming thunderheads turned into the very Pillars of Creation, without a single light-year between us. It's magical beyond anything in a fairy story.
This time, as we climb away from the airport, the flat sullen gray of an overcast December is transmogrified into a rugose plateau. The clouds lie mercilessly level, their flatness enforced by some atmospheric thermocline; to me, they look like a rocky tumbled moonscape stretching to the horizon. The last glow after sunset lights them in ethereal slate and faint gold. Their plain is broken here and there by rifts and ravines, mere gaps in the cloud that would let the people below glimpse blue sky. From up here, though, they are black crevasses: the last evening light does not break through to the ground. I gaze through the widest ravine and glimpse a scattering of streetlights below. They glitter brighter than the stars.
Perspective abruptly upends itself.
It isn't a moonscape I'm seeing: it's the roof of a cave, or the underbelly of a titanic Laputa. Stone blocks out the sky. Where earthquakes rip it open, the glimmer that wins through is not streetlights but ancient, livid constellations. As long as I cower in the safe grey caverns, the malevolent gleam of the stars stays at bay, but through these rifts I can stare down the Things Outside. For a moment I've locked eyes with something vast and terrible, and my wild stare is the only thing keeping it away —
— The girl in seat 22E coughs.
I blink, and perspective rights itself again. Clouds roll by below the window. The last of the gloaming is fading down to night, and the streetlights glow orange far below. Small children chatter and whine two rows up. I suddenly need to pee. All the banalities of air travel have reasserted themselves as abruptly as they vanished.
It's getting dark out there now, and there's not much to see, so I go back to my reading. If I keep glancing sidelong out the window for the rest for the flight, though… Well, can you blame me?
Someone ought to be keeping a watch.
"I still think this is a terrible idea."
"No, it's awesome! Like, deconstructive or whatever."
Overgang and Joey stared at the enormous red bauble that towered over nearby buildings, pensively sipping eggnog. It had several hundred minuscule trees hanging off the side of it. Overgang posed a question.
"So, it's an hour and ten to midnight. What happens when it's Christmas?"
"Presents happen."
"Presents happen?"
"Presents happen. Everywhere."
"Elaborate."
"It literally causes Christmas miracles."
"Elaborate more."
"Sick children will walk, Tiny Tim will get his presents, Scrooge will see the light. The town will be filled with cheer and goodwill, children will run downstairs only to see Santa Claus pop up the chimney. Rich people will let beggars into their houses, every church bell will ring twelve times. A cranky old man will smile for the first time in twenty years. Kids will ice skate while laughing happily, and be joined by their otherwise dismissive parents. Snow shall fall down, leaving beautiful white fields by morning. John McClane and Hans Gruber shall fight a war of wills, little Macaulay Culkin will fight off a pair of thieves. The Grinch's heart will grow three sizes, and Charlie Brown's sad little tree will get the love it deserves. Peace on earth, goodwill to man. The perfect Christmas."
"Well, that sounds lovely, if a bit boring."
"And of course, since Christmas is about the little baby Jesus and the mother Mary, every virginal female in the city will spontaneously give birth, whereupon the newborn is promptly crushed by a pile of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
"That's more like it."
Mobile Task Force Psi-7 specializes in the undercover investigation, containment, and/or demolition of anomalous buildings or buildings affected by anomalies, particularly residential homes in populated areas. Primarily working with initial containment or demolition, some members are also involved in assisting with observation of longer-term containment efforts for persistent building-based anomalies. MTF Psi-7 is involved in the ongoing containment of SCP-1452 and SCP-1684.
Psi-7 was formed in 1998, after Foundation administrators recognized a need to base a task force specifically around knocking down houses. This was due to an outbreak of SCP-1452 affecting the homes of several administrators, including Dr. Gillespie. It has been assured that the creation of this task force along with the anomalous infection of an administrator's home was completely coincidental.
Since then, Psi-7 has had a distinguished career with explosive demolition. Although their methods have been deemed somewhat unorthodox, the use of explosive charges to level anomalous homesteads has proven to be 100% effective, and is believed to contribute to the unbelievably high morale found among Psi-7 agents.
Included in this report is an interview with Agent Ekblad, one of Psi-7's numerous incendiary experts.

Dr. Gillespie: So, in your own words, what about working with Psi-7 makes it a worthwhile experience? Is it the ability to serve humanity, or the pride in being able to creep in unnoticed and remove anomal-
Agent Ekblad: Probably the four or five times a week we get to blow the hell out of something. That's pretty fuckin' fun right there.
Dr. Gillespie: Beg your pardon?
Agent Ekblad: Other task forces, they're all like 'ugh my best friend got taken out by a mutant fish squirrel last week' or 'uhhh man there's a giant bird thing killing my friends.' But when people ask me about my job, all's I gotta do is go into some stationary, anomalous house, rig it up to blow sky high, and then I fuckin' get to push a button that blows it sky high. I get to use my expert training in blowing shit up to actually blow shit up!
Dr. Gillespie: … I'm not sure what to-
Agent Ekblad: *Makes jazz hand motions* KABOOM!

« | HUB | »
"What is it?"
"It's a mechanical fan that has the ability to play the electric guitar, sir."
"Ha ha, does it blow you away when it plays?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mentally or physically?"
"Both sir, its musical talent with an electric guitar is unparalleled. However, it also produces a wind velocity of 90kph when playing."
"I was joking, but that's actually pretty funny. Anything else I need to know?"
"The fan has fans, sir."
"People fans or mechanical fans?"
"Both, sir. It has a large following of people who appreciate its music, but it also has a collection of mechanical fans."
"Okay, give them a Class-B amnestic and call it a day."
"The people fans or the mechanical fans, sir?"
"Give the people fans the amnestic and contain the mechanical fans. You think you'll have trouble doing it?"
"It should be a breeze, sir."
"A breeze created by the fan that prevents you from carrying out the order?"
"No I meant it should be an easy job, sir."
"Good, glad that's sorted out. Now to deal with the running refrigerator in Sector-118."
"Sir, do you mean the refrigerator is physically sprinting or do you mean it is a workin-"
"—Don't even start."
Rufus' Diary
Day 1
Well it finally happened, I got hired! I actually can't believe it! Mind you every other studio was interested in me, but obviously not for the right reasons. I mean all they ever did was freaking swarm around me like I'm some kind of circus act. I've finally found a brand that appreciates me for who I am. As a writer and an artist, I've found a company that actually lets me express myself; I get to live the dream. To all the people who said I couldn't do it, take a look at me now.
Day 11
Working for the foundation is pretty much everything I thought it would be and more. Not only are they giving me practically everything I think I could ever need as a writer, but they're also giving me a place to live, free food, and well… pretty much everything is free. They've even given me a complementary office with a huge window. The window doesn't have a great view considering the only scenery consists of my coworkers studying my work in their white coats all day. In a society like this, free anything is so damn rare, so you've just gotta take what you're given.
Day 43
I love this job, but that isn't going to stop me from missing my friends back home. I literally haven't had the chance to put down my work since I got here. I know I've finally hit the jackpot, but I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Day 56
It was a tough call, but I've decided that I'd rather be able to have the company of my friends and family than write for these people. Sure they've treated me well, but my coworkers informed me that this job is going to be all work no play. There are never any breaks with these people. I've been needing to sleep at the office since day one, just because of how crammed my schedule is. Writing is my passion, but that doesn't mean I want to do it literally 24/7. They treat my writing like crack. I know it will be a let down for the foundation, but I gave them my one weeks notice. I was pretty sorry about it too.
Day 63
This is messed up. I tried to leave the building today, but I couldn't even leave my room. My office door is locked from the outside. I called for help all day, but nobody came. I know they heard me too. Some asshole walked by the glass and didn't even acknowledge me. There's got to be some kind of law against this bullshit right?
Day 65
This is some kind of weird cult. These people are addicted to my goddamn writing. They pretty much worship it. They hang onto every word I write and literally discuss it for hours. I've seen them do it through the glass. I've tried escaping, but the walls, door, and even the damn glass are solid. We'll see how much they worship my writing when it's god awful.
Day 73
I don't understand the infatuation of these people with my literature… I handed in my latest work, “LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU FREAKING WEIRDOS”. They literally gave me no reaction; they ate it up just like they did with all my other works. Christ, I just want to go home…
Day 113
These assholes forgot to feed me today. It's as if they haven't ruined my life enough by imprisoning me. What's a giraffe got to do to get some sustenance?
“So you're saying you found a can?”
“Yup.”
“And this can is… a Cart?”
“Yuuuuup.”
“So the can's a Cart.”
“That's what I've been saying.“
“You sure this can isn't a Can?”
“Yeah. The can's in a cart, though.”
“What kind of Cart is it?”
“The cart's not a Cart.”
“Well what is it?”
“The cart's a Can.”
“So the can's on a Can?”
“No, the Cart's on the Can. The can's a Cart.”
“Well, what's the Cart on?”
“It's just on the ground, I guess.”
“You said the Cart was on a cart!”
“No, there's only one cart. The Cart's on top of it.”
“So there's a cart on the Cart, and the Cart's on the ground.”
“Yes.”
“What's in the cart?”
“A can.”
“What's in the can?”
“A cart.”
“So they're inside each other?”
“No! The can is in the cart, and the Cart is in the Can!”
“What's in the Cart?”
“I dunno.”
“You dunno?”
“I dunno. I don't have a can opener.”
“So you haven't opened the Can?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know the Cart's in the Can?”
“It's not, the can's in the cart. Hang on, Agent Watt's here.”
“Who's there?”
“No, Watt's here. Hu retired.”
“Put him on the phone.”
“Who?”
“No, Watt.”
“What?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Watt.”
“What?”
“Put him on the phone!”
“Hymn's back at the office, call him yourself.”
“Whatever. So what's up with the Cart and the Can?”
“No, Watt's next to me.”
“What's next to you?”
“Yes.”
“So what's up with the Cart and the Can?”
“No! Watt's right here! Hang on, he's going up to the can.”
“Who?”
“No, Watt. Hu retired.”
“What's going on?”
“No, Watt's going up.”
“So what's up with the cart?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“Hang on, remind me. What's in the can?”
“No. The Cart's in the Can. Watt's next to them.”
“I dunno, what are you asking me for?”
“What?”
“Where's Watt?”
“Where's what?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“WHAT?”
“YES!”

And that was the story of how Special Agent Abbott and Special Agent Costello were transferred out of the Unusual Incidents Unit.
Will couldn't explain his own nervousness as he stepped out the back door, across his simple lawn. His children had come to him many times, perturbed by the animals they encountered in the woods behind the house. He would follow, stepping away from his easel, and explain. “That deer isn't dying, that's just part of how his horns grow back in. This frog is fine, the tail means she's in between being a tadpole and a frog.”
Each explanation had satisfied them, and he had been able to return to work, letting them play in the yard where he could keep an eye on them. But he'd never heard a note of terror like this in their voices. Worry, yes, curiosity, yes. But Yvette shook so hard he couldn't keep his arms around her, and barely spoke in a whisper as tears streamed down her cheek. Gregor had felt cold to the touch, fingers clenched into little fists.
Will had gone out to see this “Devil bird” that had terrified them, feeling a little foolish for being afraid in the daylight. Overcast daylight, to be sure, but daylight none the less. Just a bird. He could see the tree they had said it was perching on from here, a tall giant with a leafless crown. Despite his heavy jacket, he shuddered, not from the chill, oddly quiet air. Something was unsettling him. His feet crunched in the frost covered grass as he rounded the tree. There it was, a little sparrow sitting on a branch. Nothing to fear.
The bird turned its head, cocking it at him as he studied it. The children had seen plenty of sparrows, and he didn't see why this one had startled them so. He took a step closer, to get a better look. The bird croaked at him, not the tweeting note he expected, but a harsh organic sound. It shuddered, the feathers of its breast puffing as it choked and shifted from foot to foot. He reached towards it, and the head snapped up, beak opening to release plumes of smoke.
Will swore, jerking back as it twitched madly on the branch, the smoke condensing, settling down around it in thick strands. Its dark eye seemed to fog over from within, covered in grey and red. He felt his gorge rising as the bird's beak began to rip, mandibles opening impossibly wide to reveal something deep and dark. Inside he could see glittering eyes, and the first of eight legs starting to poke out of the newly torn hole in the world…
Director Samuels, you have often asked me what the ultimate goal of the SCP Foundation is. As I step down, I feel you have the right to know.
Our ultimate goal is, and has always been, the neutralization of humanity.
Note that I do not say the destruction of humanity. It has never been our desire to hurt you.
I am not human. I am not a member of Homo sapiens. I am not even Terran. I am a member of a species very different from you, from a different star. It isn't important where I came from. What is important is my mission.
We have been studying your species for as long as you've known language. As we have watched you grow, we have seen the anomalies arise. They have changed your world, and not for the better. And they are growing more frequent.
We have performed experiments, using sample members of your species very far from here. We have removed variables, and added new ones. The results are conclusive. This is your doing.
You, as a species, are somehow changing the function of reality. The more of you there are, the stronger this effect becomes. There are nearly five billion of you at the time of this writing, and your population is growing faster by the minute.
We tried peaceful methods at first. We tried to see if we could counter the effects. Then we tried to remove the ability from your species. Eventually, as we found there was no way to stop you, we tried to lower your population, and then to destroy you outright.
Our final attempt has failed. We tried to detonate your sun. A worm larger than the moon Europa appeared and destroyed our device. Somehow, the anomalies are protecting you, the way a parasite might protect its host.
It's changing you, and we can no longer stop it. We've given up treatment and euthanasia, and we are reduced to quarantine. We have sabotaged your space program. We are watching for attempts to leave your solar system by anomalous means. We can only hope that either you are destroyed by the anomalies, or else that you find a way to control them.
And finally… I am sorry. I am sorry we tried to kill you. We are scared of you, and we do not want to die. We chose out of fear. I wish I could say I was glad it didn't work, but the truth is, I am still scared.
I can't feel my legs. I vaguely remember I have them as I keep climbing with my arms.
I wouldn't be able to go on if not for him. He keeps me company, listens to me, and knows exactly what to say, but his eyes are what really keep me going. He has such kind eyes.
Then, he came to me and told me that someone was coming! I was so happy, but so scared, I was worried they wouldn't find me. I started calling out for them. He looked at me and told me he would go bring them to me, and he left. I was relieved, but kept calling and climbing. After a while, he came back. He gave me a sad look and apologized, telling me that the person had run away. I was crushed. He looked so sad.
A little while later, he told me that someone else had come. We tried again, but again, they ran away. I climbed and screamed and cried, but it was no use. He was so upset to see me like this.
When the third person came, he promised me he'd bring them to me. We tried again, and I heard them! I heard their footsteps, they were so close! But when I heard the crash, I knew something bad had happened. He came back, and told me that they came, but fell and hurt themselves. He wasn't sure if they would wake up. I cried, unable to keep climbing. He cried too.
Then more came, a lot of them. He wasn't sure what they wanted, but he said they had weapons, and he was worried for me. He told me to stay where I was, and he would try keep them away from me. He held them away for a long, long time, but they kept coming, and so he said he would have to do something more drastic.
He made them go away.
I couldn't understand what happened. Why did they want to hurt us? Why wouldn't they just help?
I kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing, and finally, I did reach the top. I couldn't believe it, and he was so happy for me.
The door wouldn't open.
I tried, I hit it as hard as I could, and kept hitting it, but it wouldn't open. There was nothing left. I was stuck here, forever.
At least I have him. He has such kind eyes.
Is the Hornet for You?
An Exciting New Offer from the Seeing Eye

First encountered by Foundation personnel in northern Michigan, 1988. Primary containment significantly hindered by recovering MTF's lack of appropriate equipment. Creator motives impossible to speculate.

The Seeing Eye has served a wide variety of blind persons since its inception in 1929. Today, our innovative genetic technicians are bringing the tremendous helping potential of the Japanese Giant Hornet to thousands of blind individuals across the globe. As we enter this bold new era, we have found that candidates demonstrating certain traits experience vastly greater success rates as hornet Guide handlers. These traits include:
1. Physical, mental and emotional capability to handle the stress and potential physical trauma of training with a Seeing Eye hornet, as determined by references and agency referrals, personal interview and physician's report. Applicant must be between the ages of 16 and 75, motivated and emotionally stable, and unperturbed by large insects.

First responders recovered some four hundred specimens and these have been transferred to the Nakagawa Maximum Security Veterinary Facility. Prior to memory modification, those civilians who survived the initial contact expressed a continued interest in the advertised qualities of the hornet Guides.

2. A realistic plan of use for a Seeing Eye hornet as determined by personal references, applicant explanation, agency referrals and personal interview. Applicant must have an active daily routine which would provide independent travel destinations for the hornet.

Exhibit extreme caution when approaching or handling as the Seeing Eye's nanomolecular modifications to hornet exoskeletons render ordinary anti-sting material useless.

3. A degree of sensory perception such that the applicant might quickly euthanize a Seeing Eye hornet, should such action become necessary.

The intense possessiveness SCP-3285 demonstrates towards its chosen handlers should not be misinterpreted as loyalty or affection. Sightlessness has proven no deterrent to attack.

4. A clean living and working environment conducive to safe and successful use and care of a Seeing Eye hornet, including supplies for the treatment of any resulting injuries, as determined by application and personal interview.

No employee of the Seeing Eye has thus far admitted responsibility, much less knowledge, of the creature prior to Foundation recovery efforts, but interrogations are ongoing.

5. Necessary maturity, temperament, and pain threshold to handle the responsibilities of caring for a Seeing Eye hornet.

In swarms, the animals exhibit tremendous hostility and vicious cooperation. 100% of victims experience severe allergic reactions within ten hours of the sting even when no previous allergy existed, the onset of these symptoms being considered the start of the eight-hour fatality window.

The Seeing Eye, Inc., does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national and ethnic origin, although the hornets might.

…
Actually pretty effective guides.
The sun, at last. How long had it been? Yellow and weak though the sun was, it gazed up at the star with pleasure, letting the light fill its eyes.
Only one actually saw, of course. That had been the first real hint that something was wrong. Eyes were complicated, so many tissues working together, so easily upset if one layer grew back wrong.
The sun, the wind, the barren dirt beneath its feet. Simple pleasures to replace others that had been lost; even the recollection of forgetting was passed. Long ago it had broken free, time and again, walking the world to—Conquer? Destroy? Spawn? There was no longer any way of knowing.
Its feet tugged at the ground, pulling the boiling body along. Tissues writhed upon its skeleton as they grew—there was never any problem growing, never that, but now cells fused and squirmed in a riot of biological agony. Deep inside was the heart, the gate to elsewhere bringing in life and information to stave off entropy… The flow was now a mere trickle, choked over long years with cancerous growths.
A shudder and it collapsed. Cold knowledge filtered through the body; the end was approaching. Now would be the time for them to strike. It raised its head.
They stood in a circle, silent. Today they had no slug-throwers, or combustibles, or electron-strippers or rampaging protons. It looked at them, looked through them, in all the ways it knew to look.
One stepped forward, one jailer, executioner. Not a single figure, though; to higher senses it was intertwined with the rest, personal fate merged with the organization. The figure's temporal self was a mere offshoot of the ultimate self-organizing prison.
"The Foundation," it rasped.
The figure was hesitant. "Yes?" The being shone with centuries of survival and devotion. Devotion to an ideal, a concept that had conquered what even it could not stand against.
It chuckled. "You're… still… disgusting…"
The reptilian head slumped to the ground.
It wasn't his drink from the party
Where the tranquilizers were hid,
The cocktail on the cocktail napkin
Is what gently closed the lid.
What's one more reveler out cold
In a culture of thrills and excess?
The Spring Cleaning Partnership
Was there to clean up the mess.
"Nobody's going to find this skip,
Nobody's going to care."
Truer words were never said:
Nobody was already there.
Nobody struck without warning,
And somebody fell to the ground,
The agents tried to defend their prize,
But Nobody won this round.
He woke to a note on his nightstand:
"The next time you're out, take care."
One minute, Nobody stood in the hall,
The next, nobody was there.
Everybody needs help sometimes,
And Nobody answers the call,
Everybody has to be Nobody once,
Or nobody will be at all.
—Discovered in the uniform pocket of Agent ████████ after failed retrieval attempt of SCP-████
I don't care.
No, in all seriousness. That's the answer to your question. I don't care.
Apathy is stronger body armor than anything else. Why should I care that there's a damned great lizard running loose? I have papers to file, dammit! Why should I give a damn that the semen-eating girl is loose and headed for my sector? I'm on break.
Everything's a narrative. Everything, especially real life. This one, that is. I have suspicions regarding other 'real lifes' that I'm working on in my spare time. But I digress. Narratives. They exist in the world, just as coincidences do. They aren't very strong, mostly just a set of cliches played out repeatedly. Trained task forces fall easily while resourceful civilians manage to save the day; head researchers who by rights ought to be filing paperwork take on the dangerous task of decomming a dangerous SCP; 682 escapes and starts a rampage; things like that. And people always act as they would in a bad thriller, or a bad sci-fi, or a bad action flick. Except me.
That's how I've lived to be ninety, kid. I don't care what goes on around me, I do what needs to be done. I survived walking through the middle the Clef-Kondraki Incident because I didn't so much as acknowledge their presence. I got some coffee from the break room while Kondraki was in his battle suit, and I was in my office filing forms to request a budget for reconstruction of the Site when Clef was freezing the hallway. I'm always that kind of person, and it's helped me survive. 682 rushed by an inch from my face, and I did nothing. Didn't so much as flinch.
That's another thing, you know? That bloody great lizard isn't hostile, it's reactionary. It's like a reverse of 173 - you watch it and feel any emotion or reaction regarding it and it hates you. That's why whatsisname's experiment with the kids didn't work, and why 053 got along so well with it. I just don't feel and don't react. It works for me.
That's how it works, kid. Take it or leave it, I don't much care.
All that was left was the waste, and in the waste there was nothing. Deserts spanned the Earth, and in one there was a cavern, and at the mouth was a pillar of stone.
It was hardly a shape anymore, but the rock had looked like a man once; now the body had been rubbed smooth and far too thin from erosion. The head was almost absent, rubbed to little more than a tumor on the neck. The fingers of the right hand had broken, and nubs were left on the end of a stump. The left was ground almost to the elbow.
It was moving inwards, although if anybody had been alive to watch it, they wouldn't be able to tell.
Years later, it would touch the back of the cavern, and begin writing on the walls, again. Already there were other lines scratched into the rock, in a language nobody was left to remember. From centuries earlier, they had only started to fade.
I saw a flash today. it was so brief I thought I had imagined it, but it was hot, as the mountain had been hot when I was young. then there was fire. nothing was left after that
before everything changed faster than I could keep up
trees would grow, seasons would change in moments.
now there is nothing left to change
It reached the back and brought its arm up, grinding for months, and leaving one more line.
This will have to be my new home
It finished, satisfied with its journal, unaware of the atomic pace it moved at. As it turned back, it fell. Too fast for the stone man to comprehend, it was on its face, but could not get up. The torso, ground thin from years of erosion, had snapped, breaking his body in two.
For decades, the stone man wept in his own way. It would still be centuries before he died.
Hello, I am Agent Tyler; what is your name?
"Hi, I'm Agent Tyler. So, what's your name?"
"Ellen Jones."
Do you remember how you got here?
"How did you arrive at this location?"
"He brought me here."
Who?
"Who brought you here?"
"The one that remembered my name."
Have you ever encountered anyone else that shared this trait?
"Was he the only one that could?"
"Yes."
How long have you been here?
"How long ago was that?"
"I don't know. Twenty, twenty-five years, maybe."
Have you had any significant incidents with our personnel?
"Have there ever been any incidents between you and our staff?"
"Yes, you killed him."
What do you mean?
"Who killed who?"
"Your people killed him…the one who remembered, the only one."
Why?
"Why?"
"He tried to help me."
I think that's enough for now.
"Well, I think that's enough for this interview."
"Anytime."
…Thank you.
"…Thank you."
Then Agent Tyler left. The way he stood up and slid to the door in that cowardly manner, it hadn't changed at all in two decades. I remembered every single word from his last interview. Always the same conversation; little differences, of course, but after hearing it a few times, I knew the underlying script. He would come every once in a while…usually every month, sometimes once in a season, sometimes the very next day. I don't know why they always sent him; I assume they don't even realize they are doing it. It doesn't really matter. They're all the same.
Everybody but one.
I don't know why he was different, why he could see, but I didn't care for the reason. It was enough that he could. Maybe that was why I was so selfish with him. Maybe that was why I let him risk himself for me. I didn't realize that if he died, it severed my only link to the world.
They killed him…no, I killed him. They didn't even know what they were doing. They couldn't, only I could. I knew what I was doing. I killed him.
He was the only one that cared. He was the only one that could. He knew what my existence was, this body that forgets it needs to breathe, to eat, to sleep, to age, to die…
After twenty-five years, my memories of him are the only thing that let me weather the corrosion of time. They are neither good nor bad, well, really, they are both, but more importantly, they are something. Anything, something to give me meaning. There is nothing else I have.
Time did not forget me, everything else did. I remember. I remember everything.

At least one attempt has been made to destroy SCP-055, or possibly move it from containment at Site 19 to another site, meeting failure for reasons unknown.
Feet climb nine steps and four
Feet bring him to my door
Hands pry pine wide
Push chair aside
Begins to chide
I cannot hide
Hand grimes a glass of wine
Hand grasps a fork and knife
I whine and cry
I ask him why
Mouth speaks a lie
He picks my eye
Line of tines clear no more
Line of tines makes it pour
Tongue probes my eye
Jelly globs fly
I feel him sigh
I want to die
Feet take him to my door
Feet climb nine steps and four
When you're in a position like mine, there is never time to be surprised. Even when each day, I meet new THINGS on my skin to crawl around and smile with my gums, I think thats all there is too see. Of course, I'm wrong. When god ran out of THINGS from this world, he sent some from the others to pick up the slack.
I'm being punished, you know. For my time working with the collectors. They stuck me in their little pickle jar, and now all my friends, or the ones who were to be called my friends, call me crazy and watch me without pity. They can't see I'mstillhumanstillhumanstillhumanstillhuman like them they cannot see they are blinded by the gnats.
They used to watch over me every day, making sure I didn't try to destroy the world I once strived so hard to protect. Then the containment breach sounded. The THINGS were let out of their broken jars, and my old brothers and friends fled from sight. I thought they had to bee back soon. But they never came back. All that was left was ME and the THINGS.
I could hear them creeping out there in the dripping pitch blackness, scraping and scratching against their binds. Some of their lands had been freed by the compromised site, but some had to struggle for years to reach me. Even now, there are still trying to skitter their way into my places.
First ones were the shadows. They're always with me. I can feel the flat, spindly legs crawling over my body now. All over and in over. They're what retaught me that there is no such thing as privacy, when THEY spin webs in the mind and fly them around like little cranial ziplines. THEY catch my thoughts like flies.
The ants were swarming over me. They rolled off the skin and folded it like nice blankets at the foot of the bed. My feet were scratched into powder and spread out to feed the babies. My eyes were taken, and they saw what I saw. Even in my sight, THEY saw it all and could make me see what they see I see what THEY want me to see all see.
Then, after taking my privacy, they took my senses. From the cicadas, I lost my ears. The parasites took my taste, hanging onto the ends of my gums like an artificial tongue, flapping in the wind but not tasting a THING. Bones are all around me now, making a little nest for all my private friends. It's so cozy in me, but I am never alone. My thoughts are snapped up and sent through the hive that has come to be what used to be me.
I used to pray to a god, any god, to forgive me and let my existence end. That was an exercise in futility. Because I know there is no GOD out there, no GOD for these THINGS that can be found outside the little room we all share together in harmony.
I am god.

This document was recovered from the containment chamber of SCP-027, following Mass Containment Breach Incident-006. Approximately ███ insectoid anomalies were also recovered within the chamber. The note itself appeared to be composed from insect cocoon material, and written with fecal matter. Although it is believed that SCP-027 still occupies the chamber, it has not been sighted by any personnel following its return to Foundation custody.
The room's dark. Oh, I'm sure there's some light on in here, some brief glint of afternoon sun through the cellar window or some long-gone child's twinkling discarded toy. But for me, the room's dark. It's warm and dark, and there are cobwebs stuck to my shawl. No one else has been down here in a while. I sit on a wooden rocking chair that doesn't rock anymore.
My fingers move frantically. They carry needle and thread like a pianist playing his symphony. My fingers dance and spin as the yarn and cloth are woven together, forming cute shapes. Pulling stuffing from my belly, I fill the figures. I put love in every stitch. I sew runes and rhymes into the cotton fluff inside. I place buttons where the eyes should go. I put on bows and ribbons, little wool sweaters and felt shoes. The little ones awaken.
Some of them can move on their own. Some of them can't move until I attach their flexible limbs. Some of them will never move perfectly, and that's okay. Each of them is what they're meant to be. None of them can talk, at least none yet, and that's okay too. I haven't figured the talking out yet. Maybe I'll learn a new stitch for that in the coming months. It must be in high demand out there.
The little ones need love and closeness. There's all levels of intimacy and protection with the little ones. Some are right next to your dreams. Some are right under your skin. Some are right around the corner. Some are just right. Well, they're all right, if you look at it in that way. But I don't look at it in any way.
Eventually the little ones leave. They always do, and that's fine with me. Sometimes they crawl or skitter out. Sometimes they walk, sometimes they stroll or run or tumble or flutter. I give each one a tag, a note or message, to help they who finds the little ones take care of them. They're not my little ones once they've left the needles. They're the little ones.
I just keep on making the little ones, even after all the old little ones have left. It's life knit large, so to speak. The room's dark and warm and the little ones dance about. They explore the storage cellar, the children's museum upstairs, and the world out there. But I don't leave. I stay behind and knit. The Blind Babushka stays behind and knits.