recursal/SCP-RECURSAL huggingface dataset:
The sweat slid in rivers as he burned. Inches from the fan blades, the pounding breeze doing next to nothing to relieve the searing fire in his flesh. Sick for the last two days, Adam's fever had only started to soar over last night, and now he felt as if water would boil in his mouth. Leaning back, he rubbed his temples, trying to decide whether going to bed was worth having to feel his own burning fever-heat reflected back at him by the pillows.
He felt hot and almost pliant, like almost-baked dough. His throat was also a red, burning lump in his neck, with an opening that felt to be the size of a pin prick. Every time he moved, he could feel twitching, shivering shocks jolt down his limbs to swollen, creaking joints. Told to say hydrated, he had a tall glass of icy water next to him. It could have been on the moon, for all the good it did him, as every time he tried to take in anything more substantial then air, he felt like choking.
He tried to take another swallow of water, but his raw throat seemed to clamp shut the second it touched the cool liquid, causing him to gag. He rose, tossing the cup aside, and stumbled in to the kitchen with the vaguely formed thought of getting something hot to drink instead. As he turned to the stove, he saw the place on the wall were he had leaned coming in. He blinked, his overheated brain trying to process what he was seeing.
There was a bloody hand print on the wall, dripping slowly.
He looked down to see his shirt spotted with blood. His pants, his hair, everything was spotted and dripping blood. He started to stumble back out of the kitchen, unable to scream for help around his raw throat, but everyone was gone anyway, run to the store for fresh medicine. He moaned, feeling sharp, shocking pain rocket through his joints with each movement, sending him to his knees. As he looked, a clear fluid started to replace the blood welling from his skin. Then his finger sagged.
It just…flopped, like a wilting flower, the knuckles reversing as easily as if it'd been made of dough. Adam started panting, gently trying to push his finger back up, but it sagged more, then started to drip through his fingers like overheated play dough. He moaned, trying to rise, but found himself stuck. He looked down to see his legs starting to puddle around him, flowing in a glaze of bloody and clear fluid. He watched, barely able to breathe, as a toenail floated out of his shoe.
He groaned, trying to pitch his sagging, flowing body forward, but landed on the floor with a sickening splat. He felt his face start to flow, the soft tissues pooling in to the carpet, his vision starting to distort and blur as his eyes spread like two brown-yolked eggs on to the carpet. As he felt his gums and skull start to sag and mush like old, rotting pumpkins, his one consolation was that, finally, he didn't feel like he was burning anymore.
Your love is cheap. No, really, it is. You say you love, and that you are devoted, that you'd do anything…but what do you do, actually? Candy, flowers, nights out, those are general actions, not expressions of true, devotional love. Look to the Church for real love. The giving of the self, the sacrifice of the physical for the eternal ethereal of love. Sex is just an analog, a tease for that final, eternal leap. That's how I show my love. I show it by taking that which I love with me.
What?
You are just a cut-and-dried little bureaucrat, aren't you? She was not a “target of opportunity” or anything of the sort, and I'll thank you not to speak about Carol that way. Yes, we didn't know each other long, but tell me you haven't fallen in love after a couple days too? I wasn't really expecting to fall for her, it just…happened. Very organic, really. So I invited her over, everything was going great, we were kissing, and I asked to wait a minute while I got something. Everyone gets a little nervous on the cusp of a expression of love, but her hysterics when she saw the knife were a little over the top, I think.
…No, no I don't see anything wrong. She expressed her love for me, with her words, actions…how could I express anything less? How could I do less than express the fullest extent of my love for her? It's not as if I killed her, or anyone, for God's sake!
What do you mean?
No, you deluded simpleton, it's not a perversion. If you cook something, you alter its flavor, the…character, so to speak. Why would I or anyone dilute or distort such a direct, sacred act as the sharing of love with something to vulgar and de-humanizing as cooking. Carol has the taste of nettle flowers and bright, sharp pennies. Cooking would just hide such things. Each part a subtle variation on the theme…the chest a symphony of textures, the tongue a dense, springing delight, those smooth, delicate fingers…
Alright…ALRIGHT, I'm stopping…sit back down…
…Yes, it's love for each of them. Humanity is not built for monogamy, and I don't feel that restriction is healthy. Each of the beautiful, devoted women you stole from me I love as deeply and truly as any man alive. I spend a fortune on them, with IV drips, bandages, treatments…look at them, not a sore, bruise or laceration on them that was not precisely necessary. As I come to love them, more and more, I take more and more of them to me, but I NEVER let it go too far. Murder is the ultimate sin, and to do so to a loved one…it's unthinkable. They come to see the true, deep joy of giving and love as I do, in time. Molly actually offered her foot to me, weeping tears of joy to give it to me.
So I consume the love and flesh of those I adore? How am I so different from you, except for the purity of expression? How can you call me a psychopath, a pervert, when…
What?
Who? Oh…you…you mean Helen…
Well…I'm human. I mean, I have faults, the same as everyone. I mean…haven't you seen a women and gotten a bit more…frisky than normal?
I mean…really…why do you need limbs, when you have Love?
Light blue
55 mph
Plymouth
2 Occupants
1 male, young adult, yellow hair, brown eyes
1 female, young adult, brown hair, brown eyes

Deep red
75 mph
Mustang
1 Occupant
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes

Dark brown
65 mph
Buick
2 Occupants
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes, brown skin
1 female, elderly, white hair, blue eyes

Orange, mottled with oxidation
45 mph
Unknown
5 Occupants
Forward compartment - 1 male, elderly, thin gray hair, eyes unknown
Forward compartment - 1 male, adult, brown hair, brown eyes
1 female, child, yellow hair, brown eyes
1 male, adult, brown hair, brown eyes
1 male, escaped, hostile

Black and white, patterned
Ford
35 mph
2 Occupants
1 male, adult, brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, hostile
1 male, adult, orange hair, green eyes, hostile
confusing lights

Black
85 mph
Unknown
2 Occupants
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, black hair, brown eyes, hostile

Tan
90 mph
Chevrolet
4 Occupants
1 male, adult, yellow hair, blue eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, no hair, brown eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, grey hair, blue eyes, hostile
1 male, adult, orange hair, green eyes, hostile

Black
70 mph
Unknown
2 Occupants
1 male, escaped, hostile
1 female, escaped, hostile

Black
55 mph
Unknown
2 Occupants
1 male, escaped, hostile
1 female, escaped, hostile

Black
55 mph
Unknown
Record Interrupted

No data
No data

Unable to collect data, terminate connection? Y/N
N
Connection failing. No data. Enter command:
status
Movement prevented by obstacles. Light input exceeds operating parameters.
look
4 specimens. Sex indeterminate. White suits. Light input exceeds operating parameters. Specimens in posture of examination. Enter command:
examine subjects
Unable to comply.
Damage recorded to central cavity.
Connection terminated by outside force.
Today I messed up Dr. Smiley's office. He yelled a lot and started going “bang, bang”, but he didn't get me: he's so funny when he's loud. Then I went to the cafeteria and the cooks gave me something tasty. They always give me something tasty when I make my cute face.

Slept today. Woke up to eat, then slept some more.

Woken up by lots of loud banging outside today. Everyone was running around, saying that some Big Thing was going on. I hid under Dr. Boring's desk until they were quiet. Big Things are so stupid: They make lots of noise and wake me up. Someone should put the Big Things outside in the rain and not give them any dinner. That will make them quiet.

Played with Little Dr. Lady today. She was nice, but then she smelled funny, and Big Dr. Lady came and took her away. But then she came back, and we ran around Dr. Lady's office. Then we slept on the floor. It was nice.

Slept today.

I saw Dr. Dog today. I don't like Dr. Dog. I was going to tell him to go away, but he had his clunky-walk-thing, and it could squish me. So I just gave him my “evil glare”. I hope it scared him away for good, because I do not want to be squished.

I went to visit the sleeping men today. It was quiet. The sleeping men who weren't sleeping were nice to me. They like it when I'm there. Some of the sleeping men I visited last time weren't there. I don't know where they've gone. I miss them.

A new man walked came into office today. Not Dr. Smiley, or Dr. Boring, or Dr. Dog, or Dr. Grumpy, or Dr. Lady. I will call him Dr. New. He looked nice, so I went and visited him. He jumped high in the air and shouted: “THAT CAT HAS NO ASS! WHERE IS THAT CAT'S ASS!?”

He startled me, so I clawed his leg. I don't like Dr. New.
There is a way to live well beyond your appointed time. You need a car, preferably something late-model, with a strong body. Newer cars tend to be too light and not do enough damage. Next, you need to find a candidate. It has to be a pedestrian, and it's best to pick younger people, as they have more time left, but not always. You'll have to watch them, if it's late just drive slow and pretend to be lost, but if you have to, make a second sweep by going around the block. You have to do this on a black asphalt road with a clear yellow line. You can ONLY hit a candidate that does at least one of the following,:
Crosses directly across the road at a run, without looking around.
Walks for more than eight feet on the road itself without touching the sidewalk or curb.
Stops walking or sits on the yellow line for more than three seconds.
Trips or falls on any pothole or uneven surface in the road and bleeds because of the fall.
Drops a personal item (key chain, phone, etc.) that shatters, with all the pieces remaining between the yellow line and the sidewalk.
If a candidate does any of these, it's an indicator that they are temporally detached from their “time”. If you hit and kill them with your car before they reach the next cross street, you can swap your time for theirs. If you were going to die tomorrow, but hit a valid candidate who won't die for eight years, you now have their remaining time instead of yours. It's unclear what happens to the candidate's soul, but it's probably not good.
There's a group, mostly old folks, who do this all the time. The founder says he's over two hundred years old, and he looks it. The name is like White Sunrise or something similar. They had a web page for a while, but it appears to be gone now. I remember browsing the forums once, and the name George Russell Weller was being discussed. He apparently screwed up an attempt, and was being kicked out.
Just be careful out there. I've noticed a lot of older folks skimming around suburbs lately, watching kids rather closely. Stay on the sidewalk, and keep your head down.
Winterheart

More by this author.

[CLASSIFIED LEVEL 5]
Document ███-█ recovered via █████████████████.
[LOG BEGINS]

[ENTRY ONE]
Dear █████,
Only a week of ██████ left! :) Looking forward to having some free time for hobbies. I might try some modelling, ██████████ seems to enjoy it. Need to study hard for my ███████ test first though, or my ███████ will get mad!
- ████

[ENTRY TWO]
Dear █████,
██████ in just a few days, hope I do ok. ███████ is going to fail cause he broke up with █████████ like a week ago and hasn't studied at all, ███. He totally begged me to study with him but I'm over it. ███████ are so immature.
I'm a little bit bummed the █████████ lost the other day, but maybe with █████████████ on the ███ they'll make a comeback next ██████. :)
:| Some █████████████ work going on in my neighbourhood. It's really noisy, makes it hard to focus on ███████. I wish they would just ███████.
- ████

[ENTRY THREE]
Dear █████,
Today was bizarre :/ The whole ██████ collapsed and they had to evacuate the neighbourhood, and then this big ███████ fell through the ████ in the middle of the █████. Some ███ in █████ coats came to get things under control, though. They say they're with the ██████████, whatever that is?
On the bright side, ███████ test postponed! :)
- ████

[ENTRY FOUR]
Dear █████ or ██████ who finds this,
I'm scared. Where am I?
The ██████████ people told me to stay away from ███████ but I thought it'd be okay to just grab my ███… but then the ███████ came back suddenly and I ████ through the ███████ and now I'm somewhere else. ._. I'm so stupid… I don't like it here, makes me sick to my ███████. Everything has too many █████ and I can see things ███████ around. I want to go ████.
- ████

[ENTRY FIVE]
Dear █████,
Oh ███ I saw the most horrible ██████ here. They had █████████ flesh inside their ████ and so many little ██████ with ████! And their ██ were full of this █████ liquid >_< One of them got me in the ████ with this █████! And then they got all █████ when I tried to ███████ them… my ████ really hurts. :(
Bleh, I think I'm going to ████ up. I hope ███ and ███ are ok, wherever they are. Please ██████ find me soon or I might ████████.
- ████

[ENTRY SIX]
Dear █████,
…oh ew I'm dripping ████ all over the pages aren't I? But I can't seem to stop ███████. These ██████ are everywhere. At least ███ ones in big ██████████ my █████ with their ███████ and it hurts so badly I could ██████. Why do these ██████ happen to me? All I ever wanted was █████████████████ and now I'm covered in some kind of ████ and it burns. ;-; I wonder if █████ will miss me? I never had a chance to say ███████.
The ██████ things are coming, ew, I'm trying really hard not to ████ on this █████. So many of them, all with their little ████ and ████ swinging. This entire place is horrible, but these ██████, are just so…
I've never seen anything so disg

[LOG ENDS]
He'd never really understood knives and the odd obsession some people had with them. Just little scraps of metal, sharpened and placed in a handle, a knife wasn't all that amazing. He admitted that, yes, for the most part they were given a somewhat overlooked position in life, but placed in the hands of someone with a violent disposition, or faced with an unhappy and carnivorous creature, they could take on near mythic qualities. What's more, they often weren't all that useful in those situations…truly an overrated and undeserving tool.
Take, for example, this young woman. Even in the dark of the basement, where a flashlight or even a match would be much more useful, she brandished the knife as if it could somehow make up for her blindness. Crawling and sobbing, she held the knife out, waving it like a feeler as she pawed for the stairs. He chuckled, watching. Truly an overrated tool. Even if she'd seen a target, what could she do with it really? She shrieked briefly, almost tumbling in to the hole he'd bored in to the basement with.
She'd even come down the stairs with the skinny little blade, the silly thing. He'd tried to be quiet, but the cat had raised a yowling that summoned the girl a bit early. She'd found the body about the same moment he'd bitten out the light bulb, quickly skittering to slam the door before she'd made it up, the sudden darkness tumbling her silly, ill-equipped head back down to the floor. He watched, hooked in to the ceiling, as she flailed about helplessly. His eyes started to glaze with anticipation, the vertical slit of a maw trembling with amusement as he slowly started to lower down, hook by hook.
He'd show her the folly of such inadequate little tools such as knives. He fell beside her, the lower eyepads recording her shock. He'd show her how much better a natural tool is. He readied the knives he was born with.
All six of them.
The TV was blaring sex and violence, but all she could think about was her damn bubbling arm. She picked at it idly, once again cursing herself for forgetting the sun screen over the weekend. It'd been such a good chance to get Adam to notice her, but she'd just ended up burned and humiliated. She'd been offered some sunblock, but Tammy had been there, snickering some comment involving the term “Casper the virgin ghost”, so she'd rejected it, saying she wanted to work on her tan. Now, if she were any more red, she'd be mistaken for a radish. She picked at the onion-skin flakes on her arms, trying to ignore the odd texture of the bubbled skin.
She kept flipping between channels, trying to ignore the burning itch on her arms, face and body, all of which served to keep the memory of her humiliation crystal clear. She picked at her arm idly, trying to find a rerun of something she hadn't seen, all the while brushing off the liquid and peeled flesh from her arms
wait…liquid?
She looked at her arms, and felt her throat grow paralyzed around a scream. She was bathing in blood. It ran from great, flapping rents in her skin, the flesh peeled and pulled free in thin strips and shallow patches. As she tried to recoil, she saw a flash of bone. She skidded and fell from the couch, the jostling causing the peeled wounds to stretch more. Oddly numb, the rifts continued to ooze blood freely as she scrambled to her feet, starting to hyperventilate. She tried to press the peeled, red flesh back in to the wounds, but they just lolled free with a fresh splash of blood.
She walked gingerly, trying to ease her way across the floor, but every motion seemed to cause the peeling to extend more. She brushed her arm, trying to see the bleeding rents more clearly, and strangled around a scream as a palm-sized patch of flesh pulled and flopped free, blood glistening on the newly freed muscle. She moaned, hands rising to her face…only to feel it shift like a cheap, ill-fitting mask, the burning, itching pain rising more and more as she started to peel…
Hours later, she hooked a finger under her eyelid, mad pain compelling her to rid herself of the last, traitorous patch of skin.
It had been dark for hours, and it was starting to get to him. Sitting at the computer, he'd caught himself glancing more and more times at the nearby window, the space beyond so dark it acted like a weak mirror. He hated having big, black open spaces near him. Childish, he knew, but knowing that didn't lessen the fear of walking past an open, dark doorway in a dimly lit hall. Which was probably part of why he was still up. He clicked off the page he was on and rubbed his eyes. The worst was, as it got darker, every site he browsed seem to take on a slightly sinister edge. Even the bright, garish social network sites seemed to be tools to help illustrate that, even with 184 friends, you are still alone, in the dark.
He leaned back in the chair, sighing as he noticed someone or something walk by the window. Instinctively, his eyes flicked to the computer screen, checking for any incriminating tabs. Probably a deer or something, they did live…he paused, suddenly looking around as if seeing the room for the first time, rocking to his feet hard enough to shake the computer desk.
The thing had had a face.
He was on the second floor.
And the face was back.
In the few seconds he watched, it was the absences that struck the strongest. No nose. No hair. No ears. No lower jaw. The additions were equally horrific, with the teeth, the too-long neck, the vertical mouth and yawning eyes, but it was the missing things that stuck the hardest. He sat, feeling drugged, hypnotized, even as the spidery, too-wide fist rose and pulled back.
The glass exploded in, the sharp slashing pain breaking the spell, but the thing was already there. It grabbed, the skin feeling electric and slimy-cool like a reptile, the last coherent sensation he experienced. The rest were Impressionist: Pulling. Pressure. Tearing. Liquid sliding. Sudden numbness. He finally passed out as his ribs were being worked slowly and methodically free. Idly, he wondered why it was tossing them in to the hall.
It's not every day that the Foundation hosts a funeral. Occasionally, a loyal agent or staff member receives a small ceremony and a burial on Site 19, but not often. The family might get the belongings and a letter of consolation. Never the body, though. Most times they wouldn't want it. The D-class get nothing but standard termination procedures at the end of the month.
But this was just plain unheard of: not only the funeral of a senior staff member, but the funeral of Dr. Alto H. Clef. Everyone not needed to keep security up was there. Some, I'd presume, were there because they were afraid that Clef would haunt them if they didn't. The eulogies were what could be expected, from some of the senior staff and a few members of the O5: reminiscing on old missions, glowing testimony to his accomplishments, and the like. Mostly just for show, because you can't really eulogize a man like Clef.
I didn't find it very strange that everyone had dry eyes: Clef was more valuable as an employee than a person. He was dangerous, unpredictable, and clearly insane, causing millions in damages, numerous personnel deaths, and just barely avoiding several XK events, but he was also responsible for dozens of successful recoveries and several critical decommissions, and that was at least worth something. Sure, there would be those who would miss the humor he lent to near-death situations, or his enigmatic, genre-savvy ways, but for the most part, no one cared about him personally. Clef's funeral was practically equivalent to presenting him with an “Employee of the Month” plaque.
However, there was one thing that made it all stand out, one final act to cement Clef into Foundation legend. When the eulogies had been finished, the silhouette of O5-█ on the monitor cleared his throat and announced:
“As per Dr. Clef's final wishes, his body will be fired out of SCP-1543-J.”
I have not been here long.
I do not know much.
But if there's one thing I know, it is this:
Alto Clef cannot die.
The guy is immortal, I swear. He can sit in 682's containment cell for an hour and not get eaten. He can mess with that witch kid and not be ripped limb from limb. He can pull off basically anything and the O5s can't do a thing other than give him a slap on the wrist. Now I was cool with all this.
Until he took my hat.
Clef said that it was nifty enough for him to claim as his own. But that hat. That hat was ME. That was what made me, a lowly level 1 researcher, memorable. I was the guy with the hat.
And now I'm no one.
So I went to get the hat. I begged. I pleaded. I bribed. I offered my soul to the man. And he said that the only way I was getting this nifty hat was to kill him.
So I shot him in the head.
My hat reclaimed, I was happy for once. I went about my business then. I mean, I wasn't going to defame his body and carve ‘I WAS HERE. CLEF IS A LOSER!!!' into his chest. I left him.
And the next day he walked up to me and said, “You'll have to do better than that.” He walked away, my hat on his head.
Something snapped then. I was on a mission. I walked to his office and shot him at least eight times, emptying the magazine in my handgun. I doused his office in gasoline and threw a couple of lit matches in there. And he came back the next day, simply taking my hat off of my head. I tried everything I could think of. I filled his office with water and watched him drown. I poisoned every thing he ate or drank. I sent 076-2 in there after a while. And every time he ‘died', he was back again the next day, the same old Clef, looking like he had never been burnt or shot or drowned or sliced into itty bitty little bite sized pieces.
So finally I went up to him. He asked casually, as if it were all a game to him, “How are you going to try and kill me today?”
I replied, “I'm not. Keep the damn hat. It's lame anyway. I got a different one today. It's better than that one.”
Clef removed the hat and said, “You're right. Sombreros are so last season.” He threw his hat at me, then walked over and took my hat, saying, “Jester hats are what's in, you know. Big in France.”
And that time I just shot him because he had been fucking with me.
A cold sweat had been coursing it's way down Dr. Gerald's spine for the last 20 minutes as he waited outside Dr. Bright's office. The hallway seemed to darken by the second, lights dimming into incomprehensible blackness as he stared at the nameplate on the door. He was going to die. This was it. The summation of 30 years on Earth. Dying because of one stupi-
"Come in."
Gerald couldn't help it. He yelped a little, his frayed nerves causing him to jump at the sudden noise. He scuttled into the office, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
Jack Bright stood facing the wall, hands clasped behind his back. He didn't turn as he spoke.
"Doctor Gerald, you know why you're here."
"Ah, Yes. Yessir."
"Don't cower. I hate it when you cower."
"Sorry sir."
"Now. Care to explain what happened?"
"…Well…"

Alto Clef was in a good mood. The sun was shining, 173 hadn't escaped yet, and the vendor down the street had been selling ice cream at half price. As he walked down the corridor of the hospital, he glanced at his companion. "What's eating you?"
"…Strelnikov. I'm worried. The coma-"
"Will be ended as soon as we get 590 down here. This is just a visit to check on how he's doing in the meantime."
"Yeah. I guess you're right."
"Of course I am. Now, put on a happy face! It's a beautiful day!"
Gerald's burgeoning smile was crushed by the sight of the Russian man in the bed. The tubes covering his body made him seem smaller than usual. A titan reduced to just a feeble patient. Clef strode over and looked down at his friend. "Hey big guy. How's it going?" He glanced back at Gerald, noticing his stricken face. "Hey, don't worry. He's survived worse than this."
Gerald sighed. "Yeah. You're right. I mean, compared to Chechnya how ba-" His face froze. The sound of creaking tubes echoed like gunshots in the suddenly silent room.
Clef's face contorted. "Motherfu-"
The hand that reached up to wrap around Clef's throat was worn and muscled, and bleeding freely from a tear given by a torn out IV. "ВЗВОД! К БОЮ! МОЧИ ДУХОВ!"
"OH SHI-" The rest of what Gerald said was drowned out by the cracking noise made by Strelnikov snapping Clef's neck.

"…And then I ran."
"I see. Consider yourself on suspension until further notice."
They sat across from one another, between them a table with a chessboard, two glasses of vodka and one ashtray. The elderly man rubbed his stubbly chin, bushy grey eyebrows furrowed in consternation as he plotted the advance of his queen. His counterpart, the very image of youth, sat quietly, patiently, as he waited for his turn. He had plenty of time.
The old man placed his queen delicately in the center of his chosen square; the younger man immediately swiped it away with a pawn.
“Fuck you,” Dmitri said in Russian as he toppled his king in forfeit.
“You always say that,” responded Bright with a tepid smile.
Dmitri tapped some loose ash from his ever-present cigarette, leaning back in the chair and sighing tiredly. “How are you, Jack,” he asked, again in Russian.
“Alright, still getting used to this body. I think it's a bit too young but, it was next in line, so…” He trailed off, eying Dmitri intently. “Are you going to ask me, or not?”
“Fine,” he grunted. “Did she say anything about me? Anything at all?”
“She hasn't said anything in years, Dmitri,” he answered without emotion.
“Karen always was tough.” Dmitri shifted in his seat. “I had to send her in, you know. There was no other choice.”
“I know, I've read the reports. Oh, while we're on this topic, Everett sends his best wishes from his containment cell.”
Another grunt. “I always told him, you know. I told him that too many of those experiments were going to get him locked up. I told him.”
“You did, Dmitri.” Bright began putting the chess pieces away.
Dmitri swirled his glass of vodka slowly, looking into the clear liquid as if it were a crystal ball. “What about little Agatha? Is she out of school yet?”
“She graduated from college two years ago, you know that. I told you that last week.”
“Are you going to-“
“No. We are not going to recruit her, Agatha left very specific requests against that,” he interrupted, his exasperation with the old man growing clearer in his voice. With that, the two lapsed into an awkward silence. Dmitri took a sip of his vodka and looked out the window, admiring the beauty of the spring day. The lilacs on his windowsill were blooming, and it reminded him of home and better days.
“…Jack?”
“Yeah, Dmitri?”
“Whatever happened to Alto.”
Bright stood and folded the chessboard. “I can't tell you that, Dmitri. You're retired, remember?”
“Fuck you,” he said with a raspy cough, taking a long, spiteful drag from his unfiltered cigarette.
“Watch it, or I'll tell the nurses on you,” said Bright with a wagging finger. “I have to go, Dmitri. Gears is just down the hall and I promised I'd bring some technical manuals for him to read.”
He sighed again, standing and hobbling to the window with his cane. “Alright. Tell him Mitya said hello.”
“I will, Dmitri. See you next week.” And with that, Bright left to continue making his rounds of South Cheyenne Point Retirement Center.
I've been sick for days now. That bubbling nausea that fills your throat, makes you feel as if you're about to throw up every time you burp or so much as breathe out your mouth. Holding the toilet, resting my head on the cool, cool porcelain, I really question why in the hell I don't make myself throw up and just get it over with. It's just not something I can do…thinking of forcefully gagging myself…ugh, it's almost worse then I feel now. Almost.
Suddenly it hits me, and this is it, this is IT. I feel that slick, sour spit coat my throat, my belly tightening up as I push my head over the bowl and spit. For a split second before I explode, I realize this thing has not been cleaned in a while. Then I vomit. Hard. Mucus-rich and acidic, it pours out in a hard, jetting stream from my mouth and nose, burning my nasal passages like fire. It hits so hard, it feels like it should be coming out my eyes, too.
I vomit again, and again, the third time bringing up just some thin, reeking slime, and I gasp a bit, getting my breath back before the next wave. I pitch forward again, eyes tearing as they squeeze shut, and I feel another hot jet of filth pour out. Opening my eyes, it seems…different. A tarry black, and there are…things bobbing in it. I don't have time to look too hard, before two more hard retches double me over the bowl. These are more pinkish, and I can definitely see some kind of meat in these. Hamburger, maybe…
More vomit, more oddness. I don't remember eating any kind of jelly, especially cherry. It's starting to hurt, a deep spike each time. God, how much can a person throw up? When did I eat noodles that long…or that big? The goo in it is getting thicker too, and pink…starting to feel at least a little better. Ugh…when did I eat a balloon? My belly is feeling better now, really light. Jesus…whatever that was is floating still…almost looks like it's pulsing, or beating…going to have to move to the sink, toilet's almost full. Feeling better now…hungry, actually. Very hungry. Starving. Ravenous.
I feel so empty.
Disclaimer This was a joke. Please don't shoot me.
Alto Clef waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were SCPs in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Docter Broight were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
Clef was a agent for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the containment and he said to dad "I want to be in the Foundatin daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY SCPS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the Site base of the Foundation he knew there were SCPs.
"This is Broight" the radio crackered. "You must fight the SCPs!"
So Clef gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the SCPs
"I will shoot at him" said 682 and he fired the rocket missiles. Clef plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the SCPs" he shouted
The radio said "No, Clef. You are the SCPs"
And then Clef was 076.
Transcript of Autopsy 3-12-2015AC
"All right. This is Dr. Jack Bright, recording autopsy 3-12-2015AC. Subject is a humanoid male, age indeterminate. Subject is believed to be James Halforth, also known as Agent Alto Clef, or <a sharp whistle is heard.>"
"At this time, identification is impossible through means of retinal scans, as subject's eyes appear to have melted out of their sockets. Fingerprints are likewise missing due to flame damage. Dental records are conversant with those of Dr. Clef. Several tissue and bone marrow samples have been taken, revealing a DNA match. At this point, I would offer odds that there is a 90 percent probability that this is the corpse of Alto Clef."
"External observation shows the subject has received fourth-degree burns over ninety-seven percent of his body. In many places, subject's clothes have melted into his flesh… this is kind of icky. What? Yes, I know I'm supposed to be professional about this, but you're the guys who insisted I do this autopsy! It's not my field, you know…"
"…What risk of memetic infection? Oh, fuck you guys. Fuck you guys hard."
"Right, cracking him open now. Smells kind of like roast pig. Oooh, yup, he's good and steamy on the inside. All major organs are roasted and black. It appears, hold on, let me make a cut. Yes, it appears as if the subject would have asphyxiated before burn trauma would have killed him. Hold on, whats this?"
"There is an anomalous object in the subject's stomach. Object appears to be a metal ball, approximately seven inches in diameter. Hold on, let me, yup, there is a hinge, opening it up. Object is hollow, and contains a sheet of paper, which is addressed to… me. Of course. Letter reads:"
"Jack
I had to do it this way. I'd heard the rumors. I knew the O5s were going to try and promote me. I couldn't stand the idea of being stuck there, not actually doing anything, weighed down by paperwork. I know it works for you, but it's not me. In the end, I had to go out the way I lived, doing things no one else would think of. In the end, it was obvious. 682 WANTED us to destroy him. He was stuck, and couldn't go on as long as he was in this form. So, I talked to him, and figured it out. The whole lizard thing, it was just a cocoon. I'm sorry about what this will end up doing to 001, but, in the long run, I just don't care. Goodbye Jack, don't let them drag you down.
Alto Clef."
"…"
"…"
"No, no, it's just dust or ash or something, in my eye. You know what? I'm done here guys. This was Clef. He was a damned good agent. And I'll miss him. Tell the O5's we're not burying him at Site Omega, there just isn't enough left to be useful. And he deserves to rest."
I'm in a crowd, in front of a stage. Not sure where, but it doesn't matter, just that it's dark. Up on the stage I can tell there's a band. Just noodling a bit, sounds like, till the drummer counts off, and that familiar bass line kicks in.
The lights slowly go up over the band, punctuated by a spotlight on the harmonica player at his entrance. The crowd is grooving, but I'm transfixed by the harmonica player. An odd sense of familiarity about him. It couldn't be, but…. He reaches the front of the stage, where a microphone stand is waiting for him.
"All… my… friends… know the low rider…."
That voice… it's unmistakable….
"Low… Ri… der… is a little higher!"
And he goes back to the harmonica. Who knew Fernand could play the harp too? Suddenly it's the second verse, and he's looking straight at me. Like he's serenading me, and grinning the whole time.
"Low… Ri… der… drives a little slower…. Low… Ri… der… is a real goer!"
Then, by God, he winks at me.
…
And usually, by this point, I wake up in a cold sweat, and swear off deep-fried butter with bacon. Again.
<< Back to part three
Agent Erika Sarin sighed for a moment before raising her megaphone once more. "Okay, ladies and gentlemen," she said, her voice booming over the school parking lot. "I need you to follow the men in labcoats, please, for decontamination and testing. Boys go to this tent, girls to that one." Sarin gestured like an airline stewardess pointing out those incredibly convenient exits everyone hopes they'll never need to use, then walked briskly to Dr. Krell in the basketball courts, pushing aside gaggles of confused students and teachers.
"At approximately 9 AM this morning," said the dispassionate voice of Dr. Alan Krell, "a burst of noise on all radio bands came from this location, somewhere inside Eastwood High School. We were able to triangulate the source, but the noise is still unidentified. Arriving here, you may or may not have noticed that half of the student body - about 800 students - disappeared, by which I mean the north half of the school went completely empty."
"That would usually mean a day off for us," said Agent Dunford.
"Pieholes shut during briefings, please," Dr. Krell said without missing a beat. "Questions from local law enforcement and civilians have been quelled for the moment by Agent Young. We're from a poison control center, you got that? Type three chemical grenades have been detonated for deniability, so keep your gas masks on if you want your blood to continue staying inside your body."
He turned for a moment to look at the building. It looked, aside from the Foundation personnel milling about, like an utterly normal high school.
"How many casualties have we got so far?" said Dr. Krell.
"Eleven students, aaaand…" Agent Jacobsen scanned his clipboard. "Two faculty."
"Alright then. All of you get inside. Make sure your walkie-talkies are on channel 4. Take note of any and all anomalies."
Continued in part four >>
The page does not (yet) exist.
The page scp-169 you want to access does not exist.
• create page
“That's funny,” you think. “I could have sworn…”
You click on the Recent posts link. Maybe there's something in there about it. No, there's no explanation. It doesn't look like there's been much activity tonight, either. You hit View categories, then announcements.
Forum Category
Requested forum category does not exist.
“Now that's odd,” you begin to think. “Maybe they're doing some major site maintenance.”
You tap the red link in the upper left hand corner of the page.
The page does not (yet) exist.
The page main you want to access does not exist.
• create page
Now your fingers are getting a little jittery. You click SCP series, and a thousand copies of [ACCESS DENIED] are staring back at you. You open them over and over.
008, gone.
212, gone.
914, 682, 173, gone.
You frantically press refresh again and again. The page scp-series you want to access does not exist.
And then, with no prompting, your screen jumps, and there's a white page with grey text.
Wikidot.com – professional Wiki collaboration tools.
No Site exists for this address
Click to create scp-wiki.wikidot.com now!
You're completely dumbstruck. But the little clock on the computer screen says 3:47 AM, and it suddenly hits you how late it is. You have to get up tomorrow. And in the morning we'll probably all get a PM from Gears about how the server crashed or something. So you turn off the monitor, and snuggle into bed.
Maybe it's the low rumble of vehicles on the street outside your window, or a faint creak down the hallway. You stir a little awake, and squint at the clock by your bedside. You pull the sheets up over your shoulder and groan lightly, dozing back to sleep.
And then there's a smash at your bedroom door, rocketing you upright. You throw your hand up over your face at the blinding light. Arms reach out and grab you, dragging you bodily from the bed. Your hands are wrenched behind your back, and you struggle against the limbs pinning you to the floor. As a black bag is pulled over your head and the cord is tightened around your neck, you scream and scream into the dark muffling cloth.
<< Back to part two
I almost screamed at the sudden thud. Cyrus threw open the little kitchen window and pushed me into the cupboard below the sink.
"What are you d—?"
"Shh," he said, shutting the cupboard. I heard some shuffling and another cupboard closing.
It was a long while before the thudding gave way to a horrible splintering sound like several femurs snapping, followed shortly by shouting and innumerable footsteps. I could see the feet of the monsters through the tiny gap between the cupboard's doors, and I held my breath, afraid it would give away my hiding place.
I heard them tear open the pantry, talking amongst themselves.
"That girl must have gutted these guys," said one of them disbelievingly, probably referring to the dead kitchen workers. He snickered. "Bitch."
"And then jumped, maybe," said another. The fridge door opened, the pantry, one of them turned on the sink presumably for a drink of water. Most of them left—as far as I could tell, there were a few lingering, picking through the room for whatever food they could find.
The first cupboard opened, then the second. Almost the third, where Cyrus hid. I rattled the doors of my cupboard gently. Whoever it was out there paused and was still, no rustling of clothes against skin or the thump of sneakers on tiles. They slowly opened the cupboard right next to mine, and presumably seeing nothing, straightened up and left.
Cyrus opened my cupboard. "They broke the door," he whispered.
"Is that what that noise was?"
"Yeah. Come on. It's not safe here."
Was it really safe anywhere? I wanted to say. We stepped over the remains of the door. The handle looked as if it had been bashed with something, and someone must have elected to use something heavy to just break the whole door open like balsa wood. I made a mental note to stay away from anyone carrying heavy things in case they would break me like balsa wood too.
The cafeteria was empty, and the hallway was no different, but we took a detour towards the lab on the second floor just in case.
Almost half of the lab had been torn away during the sleep. To my relief, the biology class's pet snake, Rob, was intact and sleeping in his tank, though it was a little too close to the edge for comfort. I pulled him out and draped him around my shoulders. He squirmed a little, but soon settled down and went back to sleep, his head somewhere in the vicinity of my jacket's hood. I observed the fog at the edge of the lab—I assumed the nothingness looped. I felt like if I jumped, I'd fall forever, occasionally seeing the school fly past me while tumbling through the air at terminal velocity, the bottom of the cliffs sort of dissolving into the fog at some point before the school appeared again. That was stupid, of course, we were still on Earth. If we weren't, we wouldn't be able to breathe.
"We are still on Earth," I said, turning to look at Cyrus, "aren't we?"
He just shrugged and scratched the back of his head with the switchblade.
"We'll find a way down, right?" I said. "We'll be okay?"
"I don't know."
Continued in Interference >>
I climb up to the edge, and pull myself over to the next space. I really wish I could have studied more, there's so much here I don't understand.
Quiet, now I'm used to that. Most of the time, I hear nothing, although I do get a bit of ambiance in some of the spaces I step into. But even then, those few noises only serve to accentuate the soundless depths. It's been too quiet for too long, and no one has said or done anything to me ever since the lights went out.
God, I've no idea how long it's been, time's just been meaningless, really. I don't sleep, I don't eat, although I can taste things when given a chance. All I know is what they let me know, really, and part of me wonders if this is another one of their damned games. I do know they were pissed when I found out what was really going on the first time, but for whatever reason, they decided against terminating me. Small favors.
I guess I should be thankful, though, but I do wonder whether there's any point to my current existence. Dr. Nguyen says that there's always a point for existence, but he's out there and I'm stuck here. A series of infinite planes, all alike. A grue would be welcome.
No, this one's different, I can see that. I walk over to view the plane, and the Words make themselves readily apparently. I read them silently, trying to figure out what it all means.
“SCP-001 has left its location. The Gate is Open.” Gate? What gate? What the fuck? I continue to read the report, and phrases like “XK-Class” and “Patros-Omega” come up, but “end of the world scenario” is pretty damned clear.
Either this is really some elaborate game done by the Foundation, or I am well and truly alone. I can't escape, I can't kill myself, I'm just going slightly mad. I giggle at the thought that I managed to miss out on Judgement Day, and now I find myself in an ironic hell.
Fuck, Cassy, what do I do now?
It started January 5th, about nine in the morning.
Mrs. Foster was explaining factoring polynomials to us, and I was exhausted. I wanted desperately to go back to bed and sleep. Too soon after Christmas break to start thinking about math. I glanced out our window—the fog was still kind of like trying to look through a glass of milk. The sun hadn't burned it all away yet.
Just before I was going to look away, the windows exploded in a spray of glass. I heard Mrs. Foster scream, but it was cut short. She had fallen. One by one my classmates did the same. I felt my sleepiness intensify a hundredfold, and I fought it, standing up, but it was too much. The air shimmered, and I didn't dream.
As far as I know, I was the second to wake. The first to wake was the quiet boy, Cyrus, who sat behind me in the last row. I stood up and looked over the others. He was by the broken window, clearing away the glass, and for a moment I saw his palms, cut up by his efforts.
I stepped over still-sleeping classmates. "What happened?"
He shrugged.
"Here," he said. "Look outside."
I did.
"I don't see anything."
"I don't either."
He picked up a large shard of glass from the ground.
"Watch."
He dropped it outside. I watched the glass shard fall. It kept going, and going, turning into a pinprick before vanishing altogether.
The other kids began to stir. Mrs. Foster was the last to rise.
"Mrs. F," I said. I stopped there, not knowing what to say. She stepped gingerly over the glass and looked out the window. She didn't speak—just looked out there, her grip tightening on the jagged glass still stuck to the window frame.
I left the classroom, feeling hollow and as though I had blinders at the sides of my eyes, at the same time, lucid, every sound and breath and footstep amplified, every fiber of the carpet and every scratch on the walls magnified. I passed by them, and ran down the hall and the stairs and the other hall until I reached the front doors of the school. They seemed enormous, and I so small, I pulled them open; my hands seemed so far away from me.
Below me was a sheer drop, like a cliff. The bottom of it was lost in the dense fog.
"I think I'm dreaming," I said.
"I think I'm dreaming," I said again.
"I think I'm DREAMING," I said, shouting the last word. My voice dissolved into the air, having nothing to bounce off of, and I didn't wake up.
I returned to my classroom. Cyrus was sitting by the door reading his Bible. The others were sort of mixed in their reactions—some girls cried in the corner, some boys simply looked numb, some other boys dropped things from the window to watch them fall.
"Find anything?" said Cyrus.
"Come look," I said, gesturing down the hall.
By now a few kids had begun to cluster around the door. I elbowed my way to the front.
"I'm having a dream," said a girl next to me matter-of-factly. "Watch, I'm going to fly."
She leaped from the door, ignoring the screams coming from her classmates. That was the last I saw of her.
Continued in part two >>