Content warnings:

+ Show content warnings:

- Close content warnings:

References to attempted suicide
Suicidal ideation
Self-loathing

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

▓▓▓▓▓

Me

uhhh
hello?
who are you?

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ of ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

hello!
I'm here to inspect trilobites!
wait can you read this

Me

why can't i read any of your messages
how did you add me??
I'm so confused!! 😣😣

Re▓koning of Trilobite▓

i can fix

▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓
Reckoning of Trilobites

HELLO THIS IS EXPERT TRILOBITE EXTERMINATOR GUNHEAD ANOMALOCARIS I AM HERE TO MAKE A CHECKUP

Me

wait yourew
you're that anomalocaris I saw in site-201? 😮😮
also I don't know what you're doing with your text size but could you please make it smalliwr
smaller i mean 😆😆😆
it takes up so much of my screeeb
screen
whoops typos 😅😅😅

Reckoning of Trilobites
oh sorry technology rectangle lady
yes I am the anomalocaris of tribulation for tri-lobers
proof:

Me

😅 haha well okay
for real how did you add me?
don't think the scfo
whoops scp guys would aporv😅😅😅
approve

Reckoning of Trilobites

it is very simple
I got put into a story because I got of the containy box when you were around and I then left that story into another story where there some noisy thing and a dude that nearly beat me to death with a chunk of metal debris then I left that and accidentally fell into here

Me

😮

Reckoning of Trilobites

and now I'm talking to you!

Me

that's rlly weird 😲😲

Reckoning of Trilobites

and now I do a checkup!

Me

wait
what's the chexjuo
whoops
checkup?

Reckoning of Trilobites

it is Super High Clearance Secret
for removing trilobites
by order of the Anomalocaris Trilofart-Shooter Army President
(I'm the President)

Me

do you need to spam message me for it?

Reckoning of Trilobites

HOW DID YOU KNOWwhoops
it does

Me

😄 well uh
that's cool but i've already done an inspection
by the anomalous teens against trilobite schemes!

Reckoning of Trilobites

but you could have a SECOND inspection
maybe a sneaky trilobite is still here and needs killing

Me

thanks but i'm not up to talk right now

Reckoning of Trilobites

sound scares the cephalonshitheads
there is no sounds but they are dumb and messages confuse them
like a human elder spawn that downloads danger onto technology cubes while making younger spawn annoyed when they try to help

Me

again, i'm not up for it

Reckoning of Trilobites

o
but
would you
be up to
listen to old stories of the First Trilobite War
the war
that was the first
with the trilobastards!!!

Me

i'm sorry but I don't want to listen
not in the mood

Reckoning of Trilobites
don't you want to hear about how I vanquished this beast??

look at the hatred for all life it has!
Me

look it's just
I've been dealing with personal issues
i don't want to talk right now

Reckoning of Trilobites

oh no!
what did the trilobites do to you???
did you do the thing that one man warned about
about gazing long into the trilobites
and the trilobites gazing back into you????

Me

it isn't fucking trilobites okay?

Reckoning of Trilobites

that's what the trilobites would say

Me

i've been dealing with personal stuff today
i don't want to deal with your checkup crap

Reckoning of Trilobites

were you forced to talk with yourself-but-outside-of-technology-rectangle and had an argument and felt unsure of your identity and felt glum?

Me

I
how did you know?

Reckoning of Trilobites

secret maneuver

Me

well
yes
that happened
get why I don't want to talk?
i can't keep pretending like i'm fine
like she's fine

Reckoning of Trilobites

but you'll both be fine when I finish the checkup! :D

Me

could you take this shit seriously?
what she did
it
it makes me feel sick and I don't know how I can feel that way when I'm in a phone

Reckoning of Trilobites

control+h found no menaces
the sneaky monsters are elsewhere!

Me

i'm trying to cope and you aren't helping things

Reckoning of Trilobites

I can fix!

Me

what?

▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓
Me

hello?
are you still here?
what are you doing?

hello?

Stacey Lee lays in the well-worn dents of her bed and pillow, facing the containment chamber wall and staring through it into nothing. The wall is spotless. The rest of the chamber is from it. Behind her is a kitchen, a "living room" with a television and a dull blue couch, a false window that renders whatever serene outside environments she wanted to see. Pithy motivational posters hang from the walls. Fake sunlight, shifting from morning to midday hues, drifts in.
She doesn't look to or think of any of it. The wall is gray and featureless, letting her wholly defocus and think equally featureless thoughts. Tiredness minus sleepiness weighs down on her. She quickly glances at the calendar above the patch of wall. November 3rd, 2018. Two months since Snapchat led to her indefinite confinement, one month since she started to doubt her identity, one week since her wrist was stitched back together and her cell had to be safety proofed to prevent her from using a razor blade like that again.
Unknown months until she can be finally allowed to leave.
Wind suddenly sweeps into her back and something behind her thuds against the ground, metal clinking against the floor. She jumps, rolls over, and sees— oh. It's that thing.
"Hi! Gunhead Anomalocaris, Expert Trilobite—"
"Yeah, I know."
"You knew?" It cocks its artillery amalgam head. Above it a portal — leading to a white void with snapchat messages looming within — shrinks to a speck and fades out.
"Heard about what happened in Site-201. From researchers."
"Did they talk about how cool it was that I blew up all those trilofucks? They were in the walls but I could tell they were there and they went boom and—"
"You nearly killed someone."
"…What?"
"Benny. They've been hospitalized because of you."
It's blindingly obvious that the anomalocaris is breaching the Foundation's "containment." This doesn't matter to Stacey. From what she can tell, events like this always end the same way: the anomaly is found again, locked up again, and everything returns to normal. She stays in her bed, looking at the creature and knowing her life won't change today.
"I didn't hurt anybody! Well, trilobites got hurt but they eat pain for breakfast like how they eat poop for brunch so all they cared about was not being able to be villains."
"Fine. Whatever."
She rolls back over to face the wall.
"I'm going to perform a checkup for trilobites! I can smell them here."
Stacey doesn't respond. The anomalocaris seems to wait for an answer before she hears the sounds of it flopping along the ground. The couch is moved, grinding against the ground, and a cacophony of metal impacts kicks in. She can barely drift off at first, but the clanging and the BANG of miniature cannons become a white noise to her ears that she tunes out. She thinks blank thoughts.
Then it stops.
"I should tell you a thing," it says.
"I don't want to talk right now."
"I was talking with you but not you who's in the technology rectangle!"
It takes a moment to digest what "technology rectangle" means. Then it hits her. "…Don't bring that up."
"I now have done the brainstorm and have ideas about both of you."
"Don't fucking bring her up."
"And I know what's happening!"
"I've been trying to not think about that for all of yesterday and today and you're screwing that up." She pulls the pillow out from under her head and presses it into her face, like it would miraculously block out all sound.
"A few months ago you were being normal when… Wait what's your name?"
No reply. Cold steel nudges against her back.
"Hellooooo?"
"Sta—" She pauses. "…SCP-3009-C." A sinkhole opens in her stomach.
"That name is weird," Gunhead Anomalocaris says. "Anyways, you were being normal and going to that place where people put their faces into books of lore when something crawled into your technology rectangle. It thought the technology rectangle was shiny and thought your images of you in the rectangle were shiny — which isn't actually wrong — and then wanted to steal those from you! But it had brunch so its brain was poo so it only made a copy."
Was that supposed to mean anything to her?
"That something was a trilobite!"
"…No."
"No?"
"Could you take this shit seriously?"
"I am being serious!"
She sighs. "Don't you get it? This just happened. That's it. Nobody did it. One day the real me got put into her snapchat account and I just existed. That's all." Her voice trails off. Too tired for conversation.
"You are the real you!"
"No. I'm SCP-3009-C. She's Stacey Lee. She acts more like me than I do."
"Ahah, that's what the trilobites want you to think!"
"There's no fucking trilobites, okay?" she shouts. "There's none."
"W—what?
"None of those fucking creatures have been around this entire time and every time you try to hunt them you only screw things up."
"I've killed triloghosts! Narrative trilobites! Disguised trilobites!"
"The only stuff you've nearly killed is innocent people."
"That's not true!"
"They've been extinct for thousands of years."
"That's what trilobites w-want you—"
"Is that all you can think about? Does nothing else matter to you? At all?"
"I—"
"Is that how delusional you are?"
"…"
She takes a deep, shaky breath in. "Please… Just leave…"
For the first time since Gunhead entered, there is silence. Then she hears a quiet noise. Quiet, repeating. It's weeping.
"I… I watched…" It can barely keep talking between sobs. "My friends die. Everyone I knew died. I don't want… that to happen again. It breaks down."
"Please, just…" Her voice trails off before she can finish talking. It doesn't come back.
She drops the pillow, staring at the wall while the sinkhole in her stomach grows and, eventually, becomes large enough that it doesn't matter anymore. Some part of her tells her, shouts at her, that she should be crying right now, apologizing now, consoling, but she doesn't because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Stacey Lee would've never done that.

Me

i'm guessing you aren't here anymore

Me

i know I didn't want to talk with you but
there's nobody here for me to talk to
benny is still recovering
xiulan is working on something else
everyone else is busy
it feels alone
if you could be here it would be nice

Me

still gone?

Me

i'm only now noticing how weird it feels to not be taking to anyone

i don't feel anything
i don't even know what it is I am seeing
like the phone screen is all there is and outside of that is
uhh
what's the word
oh, right
like beyond my phone screen is my peripheral vision
and it's a blur

i think that's why i keep using bitmoji and emoji so much
i can't think of when the last time i saw my own face was
I can take selfies but i don't really know what happens there
they just start existing
it's the only way i can take myself away from this place

fuck
how long have I been acting all positive?
am I that good at lying to myself and everyone?

i think i know how 3009-C feels now

Me

gunhead
if you are still here
tell 3009-C i'm sorry
i'm sorry for making her question her identity
i'm sorry for saying she's been acting this whole time
i'm sorry for thinking either of us were actually the original
i don't know if sorry is enough after hearing what she did a week ago
god, it's all my fault isn't it
sorry can't change anything
i'm an awful person

i hope she's okay

Gunhead has been silent for the past few minutes. Stacey Lee SCP-3009-C Stacy Lee SCP-3009-C clutches the pillow to her chest, motionless save for her breathing. The wall no longer offers anything to her, so her eyes drift between the mattress, the calendar, and any mote of dust she could use to tune the world out. Her eyes don't defocus; everything else does.
She was never Stacey Lee. She only exists because something just had to be there for the real Stacey Lee to have her life changed forever. Maybe she doesn't even exist because of that.
Maybe she has no reason to "be" at all.
She'd be meaningless, then.
She is.
"Hey Gunhead?"
"…"
"Are you still here?"
"…Yes." Snivels.
She isn't doing the talking. It's like her body is doing it for her while she is floating out into a gray thoughts. "I was… Lying. About the trilobites." She isn't bothered by it. It's fine.
"…"
"I'm a trilobite puppet," she states in monotone.
"…" More snivels.
"Could you… Could you…" Her body tries to hold back what it's about to say, then relaxes. "…Could you kill me?"
It's fine.
Heavy moments slip past. The air is vacuous and heatless. Metallic gears, far out of her body's vision, whirr while a ghostly machine constructs itself behind her. The pillow falls from her grip, her whole body relaxing. The world is gray.
"Hey, Stacey?" Gunhead says in a whisper.
The world is gray, soon to be colorless.
"One of my trilobite hunting pals told me a thing once, when we were patrolling at night through clouds of glowing bacteria."
The world is gray, soon to be colorless; that is just fine.
"It was that good people make bad liars."
That is just fine.
"They are right."
The world around SCP-3009-C shatters.

Reckoning of Trilobites

▓▓▓▓▓

Me

oh, you're back?

Reckoning of Trilobites

💥 boom 💥

The world around Stacey Lee shatters.

Stacey Lee and Stacy Lee open their eyes to a bedroom. On one wall is an endless sea of posters for Korean dramas and soap operas, interspersed with childhood crayon scribbles; on the opposite is a shelf of knick knacks collected from around the globe. Behind them is a bed with hot pink sheets and a rotund bear plush that smiles invitingly, the window above it letting in the oranges of warm, afternoon light through the slits of the blinds. A poster for the Central Park Zoo sways above the pillows.
Stacey Lee takes baby steps forward, staring at everything there is to see. The other Stacey Lee runs her hands along herself and the bed's edge, taking in the physicality they have not felt in months.
They're back home.
On the floor is a gunmetal gray box with a radar display and handle attached. A paper note with barely legible handwriting is taped to the side.

Here's a thingy that has a thing in it. I don't know how the things do things but the screen will show any trilobites that are near you, each red dot being a menace. The blue dots are Supreme Cephalon-headed-tri-lober Punisher Foundation people, who actually aren't Supreme Cephalon-headed-tri-lober Punishers and just say that to make me not leave their containy box and will probably try to put both of you in a containy box too.
Feel better soon. :)
— Gunhead Anomalocaris

The one from reality falls onto the bed, curling into a ball, crying harder than she ever had before. The one from the phone sits next to her. When their parents find them they are still laying there, embracing.

This was written as part of the SCP Original Character Tournament, Round Two, between my own Gunhead Anomalocaris and keyii's "Stacey Lee".
Be sure to read keyii's entry, Anomalous Teens Against Trilobite Schemes, which is superb!

Derailment By Prehistoric Artillery Strike

DESTROY ALL TRILOBITES

To Be Continued...