Per 
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX has been approved by the O5 Council to serve as a training site for Operation OKLAHOMA.
SCP-XXXX is to be contained within a Class-IV Reality Bubble in order to prevent reality breaches. The entity is to be surrounded completely by reinforced barrier arranged in a north-facing pentagram. Signals originating from within 15 kilometers of SCP-XXXX are to be monitored for cognitohazards. All staff containing SCP-XXXX are to perform or attend some form of religious or meditative ritual at least once per week. Under no circumstances are the words "sinner," "demon," "devil" (proper or otherwise), or "temptation," or their cognates, to be spoken aloud in any language within the perimeter.
A facility is to be constructing surrounding SCP-XXXX, containing housing and accommodations enough to service 45 Foundation and GOC trainees each. They are to be trained regularly regarding hazard safety, cognito- and otherwise, negotiation with sentient anomalies, anomalous analysis, and containment of hostile anomalies. All training sessions are to be monitored by the Site Manager or his assistant, who will immediately halt the session in the event of a threat beyond the training's scope.
Description: SCP-XXXX is a location in northern Ethiopia, consisting of a circular wall surrounding a partially-outdoors, precisely three square kādam (an ancient Tamil unit of length similar to a kilometer) complex of ziggurat gardens and various indoor accommodations. Several extinct species have been discovered, extant and with stable populations, within the perimeter. The complex is bisected by eight perfectly straight walls and one curved wall, which have been noted to create three superimposed holy symbols: the cross of the Christian faith, the Star of David of the Jewish faith, and the crescent moon of the Muslim faith. It is unknown what, if any, significance is held by the fact that these are all Abrahamic religions.
The structure is composed of gardens constructed in a "ziggurat" style, consisting of stepped pyramids ranging in height from four meters at the perimeter of the entity to nearly half a kilometer in the center. It is unknown how such structures refrain from collapsing, as they appear to be constructed of naturally-occurring Antalo limestone, a material that is not of a high enough compressive strength to suspend such a structure.
Between the hours of 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM, the entity emits a series of low vocalizations resembling speech, with the Latin phrases "Liberate tutemet ex Inferis," (save yourself from Hell) and "paenitentiam" (repent) being the most common.
Situated on the perimeter wall, spaced seven meters apart, are life-sized statues of various deities and deific figures. They appear to shift subjects roughly once per week. The most common subjects are Jesus Christ, the prophet Mohammed, and Michael the Archangel. Once again, the significance of Abrahamic religion is unknown.
In the center of the entity, there is a substantially larger statue atop the center ziggurat, roughly 20 meters tall and displaying a supreme deific figure carrying a scale in their right hand and a sword in their left. The most common subjects for this statue are Zeus, Buddha, and Odin.
Patrolling the grounds of SCP-XXXX are metaphysical, humanoid entities dubbed SCP-XXXX-1, which superficially resemble the "ball lightning" phenomenon. They display anomalous properties in their abilities to rapidly change spatial location or "teleport," travel at supersonic velocities, achieve hovering and gliding flight, and infect media within 60 meters with cognitohazards. Direct contact with an SCP-XXXX-1 instance is fatal in 60% of cases, with those having expired having shown signs of severe overheating and charring of the internal organs suggesting electrocution. However, those who survive said encounters appear unharmed.
Certain areas of the complex are also cognitohazardous, manifesting an illusionary serpentine entity resembling Python sebae, or the African Rock Python. Said entity appears sentient and capable of speech, and will attempt to convince its victim to pick a fruit from the so-called "Tree of Knowledge," an anomalous tree (Dendricius tenebrae) not of any terrestrial genus and radio-dated to be roughly 13.9 billion years old, predating the beginning of the universe, with fruit resembling that of Punica granatum, or the pomegranate tree. If its victim obeys and picks a fruit from the tree, one of several outcomes will occur.
Afterwards, regardless of outcome, a voice, either male or female, will emanate from the center ziggurat, speaking the phrase, "As the Armor defends the Skin, so the Rot will break the Body."
This is audible to a distance of 15 miles. This is followed by a burst of anomalous energy from the apex of the pyramid, which lasts for 3.7 seconds precisely before being replaced by a burst of dark energy lasting for exactly 6 seconds. This has been known to cause local universal expansion in the surrounding area with potentially destructive effects, hence the reality bubble.
Addendum A: With the enactment of Operation OKLAHOMA, SCP-XXXX has been selected, among others, to serve as sites for training entry-level staff. It has been chosen for its relatively mild effects and levels of danger. Due to its exemplary potential for this purpose (Possessing weak cognitohazards, low-danger entities, and mild reality-warping), it has also been designated as the headquarters for Operation OKLAHOMA, which is situated in a reinforced bunker underneath Area-89, designated as "The Eden Complex." Notable graduates of The Eden Complex's training process can be found below.
PLACEHOLDER FOR INCIDENT LOG XXXX-A
Society seizes to exist in America after a nation wide breach caused survivors to move into bunkers underground. 30 years later a survivor writes about her memories, losses and her education about the SCP Foundations failure.
James Kaiser, or as the Foundation called him, Junior Researcher Kaiser, tightened his tie in preparation for what was to come. This was his first (technically second, but the first was a 14-hour flight to Ethiopia for the training course) day as an employee of the Foundation, a clandestine organization with the sole purpose of making sure all the monsters in your closet don't strip the flesh from your bones with a flick of the wrist. Kaiser laughed as he remembered the look on his handler's face when he saw that Kaiser had cut a strip of bulletproof cloth from a guard's backpack when they weren't looking and was sewing it into his lab coat, spaced just close enough together to deflect small-arms fire but still be an efficient use of the limited fabric he had.
For context, Kaiser had never been "normal." Whether it was his account on Parawatch (something his hometown regarded as something of a digital crackhouse), or his Borderline Personality Disorder, those around him always found ways and excuses to avoid him. By the age of fourteen, he had become estranged to the concept of authority, something he saw as built of people that didn't understand him. Almost four years later, it hadn't come back. Ironically, in the clutches of one of the most controlling groups in the world, he had never felt more at home.
When the Foundation had come for him four days previously, he had rigged a shotgun up to the door so it would blow the head off anyone who entered without doing a little jig with the door. He didn't think the first guy would actually trigger it. Next thing he knew, he was clutching the fallen soldier's head, trying to use what little medical knowledge he had to stem the bleeding and ignoring the team right behind him. Next thing he knew, there was a pill shoved down his gob, and his limp form was shoved into their vehicle and retrieved. Once waking up, he spent two days in a cell before being invited for a meeting with Dr. Glass.
He had accepted their request before they made it.
Now, the C-130 brought him, along with thirty-odd initiates, to a landing in the little airfield besides SCP-6066. Judging by the bewildered looks of the rest of them, they weren't here by choice either. Kaiser counted himself lucky for being one of the few to actually believe in the paranormal. It felt less like diving headfirst into a pool of shit, and more like wading in step by step. He had already deduced that there were hostile entities (there were too many eyewitness accounts, Parawatch and otherwise, to deny that), and that they would vary in levels of danger.
He skimmed over the booklet handed to him. On the first page was a supposedly-handwritten letter from O5-7, treating the recruits of Oklahoma like they were superheroes or something. He browsed past explanations of Safe, Euclid, and Keter, along with Disruption Classes and Risk Classes. They all sounded the same to him. He was just reading it for the pictures.
Kaiser's attention was caught by a photograph of a man wearing 14th-century medical garb, his hand outstretched as if to beckon someone or grab something. The label underneath read SCP-049. There was a quick summary of what it did, which was apparently a supreme example of a "skip." If killing you with a single touch was a basic thing… he couldn't tell if he was nervous or excited.
Kaiser had requested all the SCP files he could get his hands on when he got to the facility. His tablet dinged as it received dozens of files. Kaiser couldn't keep the euphoria down, and giggled like a toddler as he perused the stacks of compiled knowledge. To a cryptid enthusiast like Kaiser, access to Foundation files was like giving a kid a billionaire's credit card and steering them in the direction of the nearest candy and/or toy store. Though several could probably stop his heart just looking at him, the sensation of it all was intoxicating. His bunkmate looked at Kaiser like he was insane. It was probably for good reason.
"What're you looking at?" He asked. "Skips." Kaiser replied.
"Skips?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because they're cool looking."
"You won't care when one's turning your GI tract inside out."
"That doesn't change that they're cool looking."
His bunkmate paused, then laughed. "Does anything faze you?"
"Yeah."
"Like what?"
"I- don't want to talk about it." Kaiser could see the brain matter splattered on the doorframe.
"Ooooooh-kay."
"What's your name?"
"Don Tresco."
"What's the Foundation got you in here for?"
"Something called Mobile Task Force." Whatever that was, it sounded like it could use people like Tresco. The man was built like a bull, even though he couldn't have been much older than Kaiser. He'd need to stay on his good side so he wouldn't use him like a toothpick.
"I'm James Kaiser, Junior Researcher. Pleasure to meet you." They shook hands.
The next week or so was a blur of activity, mostly involving briefings and trainings on the most basic the Foundation had to offer, mostly how to contain (or assist in the containment of) skips. The Researcher course had a lot on gunmanship, which was worrying to say the least. At least he was a decent shot.
But now- here, the fun began. Kaiser had sped through the introductory course (he did that a lot) and was now about to be sent, alongside several others, into the skip the facility surrounded. From what he'd heard, it was the Garden of Eden.
The fucking Garden of Eden.
Just like he had a week before, Kaiser tightened his tie. However, unlike a week before, the next thing he did was slide a .45 pistol into its holster, hidden within Kaiser's unbuttoned labcoat. Clipped to the other side of his coat was something called a "Reality Pen." Apparently, clicking it would generate a field of reality stabilization that would protect him from anything that manipulated spacetime. However, since it had to fit in a pen, he was supposed to use it sparingly due to its drain on the battery. Beside him was MTF Cadets Grati and Tresco. Grati had an antimaterial rifle with an intimidating scope strapped to the back, and Tresco had an assault rifle of some sort, though with his physique he could probably fire one in each hand and be fine. What sort of mission would require this group of heavily-armed trainees?
A scavenger hunt.
Through a three-and-a-half square kilometer maze.
Filled with anomalies.
Fuck.
Kaiser had four magazines of ammunition in his coat. Two were classic full-metal-jacket for corporeal enemies, and in the case of the lightning-things that haunted this place, they also had special Anti-Static Rounds, which would, upon touching an electric anomaly, burst into a cloud of insulative material, severely hampering the anomalies' ability to do harm if not disabling them outright. He also had some sort of energy bolt gun, that would stun anyone it hit like a Taser, but they were instructed to only use it on enemy teams, since using it on the lightning anomalies would only charge them up more. They would be watched from camera drones flying all around, so if they got into any real danger, the trial would be stopped immediately and they would be retrieved. In addition, they were told that two additional anomalies would be released into the perimeter, but not told their abilities. Kaiser knew it was to keep them on their toes.
However, they were told that the first team of three to locate all the objects on the list, along with an anomaly of their choice, and document it, would be granted a bonus two hours of recreation time every day for the next week. Anyone who needed to be retrieved was immediately disqualified. They were going to play two games. One was a cooperative game, where the teams were to locate and cooperate with their GOC counterparts to find the objects, with both teams getting the bonus, and one was a competitive game, where the Foundation and GOC teams were competing to find the objects and only one bonus would be given. There was no time limit, but more anomalies (all incapable of physical harm, of course) would be introduced to the competition as time went on. There were five teams each on the GOC and Foundation sides, all teams of three making thirty in total.
"All personnel-in-training, please prepare for deployment." A voice rang out over the intercom. Kaiser started running in place. The Cadets looked like they were suppressing laughs.
"Deployment in three, two, one…" An airhorn rang out and Team Blue entered the complex through the western gate. Immediately, they were greeted with stepped pyramids of exotic flowers and herbs. Some looked more appetizing than others. "Careful, we don't know which one of these are poisonous." Grati said. The pyramid fields were bisected by a road of perfectly-hexagonal stones, which continued in a straight line into a gate of some sort. Then, it went down, down to somewhere. Kaiser climbed up one of the taller pyramids and surveyed the area. As far as he could see, the triangular sector they were within was, aside from the pyramids, completely featureless, and the tunnel was the only way to got further without climbing gear.
"There's no other way to get further. What're we looking for?" Kaiser asked Grati, who had the list. "First thing is a statuette. Probably anomalous, so maybe don't touch it?" Grati replied. "If I were a statuette, where would I be?" Kaiser thought aloud.
"Probably indoors, so let's start there."
They headed down the tunnel, and Kaiser noticed as a tiny, gray protrusion in the wall swiveled around to look at them. Probably a Foundation camera.
As they entered, Kaiser gestured for Grati to hand him a set of NVGs. She grabbed her spare and handed it to him. Kaiser had to take off his glasses to accommodate them, but it wasn't like he couldn't strain his eyes a little. The pitch-black corridor lit up with pale green light. Tresco activated his laser sight. They continued on like this until Kaiser noticed a doorway in an alcove in the perfect wall. It looked like a normal office door, but in such a strange environment, normal things were the exception.
"We should check it out. Maybe they have something we need." Grati spoke. Carefully, Tresco opened the door and pointed his gun inside.
There was an agonizing pause.
"Clear." Tresco said. His voice seemed abnormally loud. Kaiser and Grati entered next, seeing a hallway with a dozen doors on each side, a door on the end, and mirrors in between each door. When Kaiser walked in, however, he saw a dozen copies of himself, all looking slightly different. In one, he was the MTF agent, and Grati was the Researcher. In another, he was wearing an orange jumpsuit with a blindfold around his head. The most disturbing of the mirrors was one in which there were three misshapen heads, attached by crooked and sticklike necks to a melded, singular body. The worst part?
One of those heads was wearing Kaiser's glasses.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" Grati said. Only Grati was to Kaiser's right, and this Grati was coming from the left. Kaiser turned to the source to see yet another mirror, with Grati standing on the other side, facing Kaiser.
"We've got an anomalous mirror. Well, really anomalous." Kaiser said awkwardly.
"What the hell…" Grati whispered, approaching the mirror. The other Grati remained still. "Can you hear me?" The other Grati asked. "Y- yeah, we hear you. What's wrong?" Grati #1 asked.
"Help me! You need to- you need to help me! They're almost here, I've locked the doors!"
"What's happening!?"
"Help me! Please! Let me through!" Grati #2 sounded desperate. Grati #1 pounded on the glass, trying to reach through to grab her hand.
"NO! THEY'RE HERE! I-" Grati #2 doubled over in apparent agony, then went still.
"Grati?" Kaiser asked in horror. Grati #2 rose to her feet, but now her look of panic was replaced with a cold, almost sadistic smile.
"Grati, be a dear and help me through." Grati #2 said, reaching a hand out to touch the glass. There was a look in her eyes that suggested something, close to insanity, but much, much worse. As her fingers touched the glass, the surface began to bulge inward, the glass coating her like some kind of infernal oil. Kaiser thought nothing, just pulled his pistol and fired a full magazine into the glass. The bullets pinged off, like he was shooting tank armor.
"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Kaiser yelled. "RUN!" Tresco turned and fired two bursts into the emerging glass creature, to no effect. They burst out of the door leading back into the tunnel, only for a bolt of cyan energy to glance past Kaiser's head. The glass creature burst from its mirror prison and slipped through the doorway, ignoring Team Blue and sprinting towards Team Green, the ones who had shot at them. In the dark, it would be almost impossible to see, even with NVGs.
"RUUUN!" Kaiser screamed with all his might. The Cadet that fired the bolt had only a moment to register what was going on before the glass creature's hands wrapped around his head and wrenched it to the side with an awful crunch. The Researcher was next, having only the time to let out a strangled gasp before a single .50 round from the former Grati's rifle left her without a head. The other cadet was luckier, getting one or two shots off before three more to his abdomen downed him. The creature lifted him off his feet by the neck. The Cadet made a strangled, desperate noise of two syllables before the creature mercilessly crushed his windpipe.
"Mommy!"
"Command, what the hell did I just see!?" Kaiser said into his radio, hunched with his team behind a tall pyramid.
"Team Blue, description." The cold voice replied.
"We were in this hall, and there were doors and mirrors, and something that looked like my teammate just crawled out of one and fucking murdered Team Green!"
"Are you sure they're dead?"
"It snapped one Cadet's neck, crushed the other's windpipe, and reduced the Researcher's head to fucking mist!"
"Oh, God, ohhh God." Grati said, rocking back and forth in a ball.
"Team Blue, remain at your position, we are extracting all teams from the entity!"
Kaiser looked back at the tunnel. There was no telling if or when that thing was going to come after them. "Negative, we cannot stay here!"
"Team Blue, if you do not remain at your position we will not be able to locate you!"
"Then we're dead either fucking way! That thing ate half of Tresco's mag and one of mine like it was nothing!"
"Cadet Grati is equipped with a 50-caliber anti-materiel rifle. You are ordered to fire upon the entity with it."
"Grati, get your rifle! If it's got tank armor, we're gonna try the anti-tank gun."
"Y- yes, sir." Grati said hesitantly, climbing the pyramid to steady her gun at the top. With that, she was given a five-meter-high vantage point. They waited for the thing to leave the tunnel. Several minutes ticked by. Then, just as they were about to say that it was gone, the creature leaped from the tunnel and sped towards them at what must've been fifty kilometers per hour or more. "FIRE!" Kaiser ordered. Grati fired one shot, then two. The creature staggered back with the first, then fell to its knees on the second. Its glass was visibly fractured. Grati fired her entire magazine into the thing, leaving it a crumpled heap on the ground.
"Command, entity contai-" Kaiser began, only to see it stand up and begin staggering towards them at a pathetic pace.
"Command, the entity was slowed but not terminated."
"Roger, Team Blue. You are free to disengage. We will be landing an MTF chopper in the center square, do everything in your power to make it there."
"Affirmative. Everybody up, we're moving!" Kaiser spoke. They began a brisk jog, watching for anomalies, but strangely enough, the electric ones were absent.
As they wandered the sector adjacent to the starting one, they climbed the taller pyramids closer to the center to survey the area. The center quadrant was a giant hexagon, divided into fourths by a set of walls, leaving room for a small square in the center with a towering, monolithic pyramid before it. From so high up, it seemed kilometers away, and Kaiser felt a feeling of hopelessness, his mind telling him that he would never make it through the maze in time.
Suddenly, someone called out to them. "Hey!" A female voice called. The entirety of Team Blue turned, raising their weapons. "Don't shoot! I'm not trying to hurt you!" The voice said. Cautiously, the team descended the pyramid and looked to the source to see an ajar door in the wall. Tresco entered first, rifle raised. Kaiser entered second, and Grati covered the rear. Tresco flipped his flashlight on.
Standing before them was a woman with orange-and-brown fur, gazelle-like horns, and a predatory, foxlike face. Something about her simultaneously put him on guard and at ease at the same time. The way she held herself indicated some form of docility, but the look in her eyes was unmistakably human, and unmistakably cunning. "Come on, I know a shortcut to the center." She said, taking off into the darkness. They had no choice but to follow. She ran just fast enough to stay at the edge of the light, but just slow enough to still feel the twilight.
The corridor opened up into a large chamber with an empty podium at its center, probably designed to hold some display case or something. As Kaiser inspected the room, something snagged his eye. There was a pedestal hanging from the top of the room, holding a golden chalice filled with red liquid, both cup and contents defying the laws of gravity.
It was then that he noticed Grati and Tresco staring at him incredulously. The fox-person halted in her tracks as well. "Oh, yes, that. You're welcome to take a drink if you so desire. Just hold out your hand."
Calmly, Kaiser stretched out an open palm, without even paying attention to what he was doing. Just like that, he felt something hit his hand, and his fingers wrapped around it without him even thinking. Looking at his hand, the chalice rested in his right hand, having fallen from the ceiling and not spilled a single drop. Impressive.
"If you want to drink, be my guest. In fact, you want to drink too, don't you? I can sense that you're so thirsty…" The fox-person said slyly. As a matter of fact, Kaiser was parched. The stuff in the cup gave off an intoxicating aroma. The fox-woman wanted him to drink, and he would not disappoint…. it looked…. so tasty….
Kaiser had begun raising the goblet to his lips when a gunshot startled him out of whatever trance he was in. The fox-woman gave a gasp, and Kaiser turned around to see her as she stumbled, fell to her knees, and hit the floor, mouth agape, saliva laced with blood. "Cognitohazard 101, Kaiser. Also, how the hell did she convince you to drink- shit and blood!?" Grati said, pulling the goblet from Kaiser's hand and pouring it out. However, after five straight seconds of continuous tipping, the chalice seemed nowhere near empty.
"And the shit never ends!"
Team Blue made their way still towards the center. Despite her… shortcomings, the fox-woman had spoken truthfully when she said that there was a shortcut. And it only costed a bullet, James thought. Though, here, one bullet could certainly be the difference between life and death and- whatever the shit goblet was. "Fucking furries," Tresco mumbled under his breath.
"That's what they want you to do." Kaiser replied.
"God, Kaiser!" Grati and Tresco said simultaneously. Kaiser chuckled.
By this point, the seemingly insurmountable maze had almost melted before them, leaving a clear trail to the exit.
That was when they heard the hissing.
"OH GOD SNAKE!" Tresco yelled, hastily making his way towards the square.
"Why do you fear me?" A low, scraping voice spoke. The very sound sent a terrible feeling down Kaiser's spine, like a nail had been driven between every vertebra. Kaiser turned to see a humanoid creature, but everything about it was wrong. It was covered in brown scales, its eyes were slitted and yellow.
It was a snake.
Not only that, it was a snake contorted and coiled in ways that should not have been possible. It somehow had four tails, one for each limb, even though James saw that its body never split. "Lower your weapons. It would do neither of us well for me to attack you." Kaiser sure as hell didn't follow that command.
"What the hell are you?" Kaiser asked.
"Someone who's here to assist. A… friend, so to speak. Don't worry." It hissed. With that, its eyes pulsed with glowing white, sending a shock across Kaiser's brain. His thoughts began to dissipate into the static. Recognizing what was happening, he wrenched his head to the side, grabbing Grati and covering her eyes. With his other hand, he pulled his pistol and fired two shots at where the sound came from.
"Now that's no way to treat a friend." The snake-thing hissed from behind. Kaiser whipped around, eyes shut, and fired twice more. Then, it hissed an incomprehensible phrase at him from his left. Without Kaiser wanting to, his pistol went to shoot the thing.
Through Kaiser's head.
Kaiser dropped his weapon, only for his hand to go for his throat. "Yes. Die in the dark, as they say." With that, his other hand began to spasm, reducing his ability to not strangle himself. Frantically, he reached for the pen in his pocket-
Click.
Immediately, whatever foul presence taking over his body immediately dissipated and the snake hissed with pain. His risked opening his eyes to see that he wasn't affected anymore. Grati yanked a chain with a crucifix on it off her neck and began swinging it at the snake frantically. When it connected, it didn't seem to do much, but the snake still recoiled as if in agonizing pain. It let out a disturbingly human scream, and then moved for Tresco. He, not having resisted the cognitohazard, wasn't in much shape to resist as an impossibly long tail extended from the thing's "arm" and began dragging him behind it. It was dragging him towards a tree with pale, skin-like bark, branching green leaves, and low-hanging purple fruits. "If we're in the Garden of Eden, then that's the Tree of Knowledge! TRESCO!" Kaiser shouted. Considering the last time someone ate that fruit…
It was too late for Tresco now. The snake had him in its grip. "Are you God?" He said weakly. "No, Donovan." Grati said, her voice cracking as she lined up her shot.
"That's Satan."
Bang.
The round ripped through Tresco's body a moment too late, just as his arm gave a yank on the nearest fruit.
Like that, he was gone.
"Tresco?" Kaiser asked in horror. Silence. Then, he noticed that the light coming from the outside was warped, the complex seeming to get taller and bending to intersect the line formed by Kaiser and the core of the Earth. "Grati, GET DOWN!" Kaiser said, leaping behind the walls of the square.
BOOM!
The entire world went white and all sound was replaced by a horrible ringing in Kaiser's ears. All conscious thought withered away in the firestorm, and Kaiser could do nothing but crawl further behind the wall and curl into the fetal position. Everything was burning hot and freezing cold all at once. It was a solid minute of this, though that felt like every eternity in the multiverse to Kaiser. Shards of rock rained down on him, which would've cut him if not for the armored cloth he had the foresight to sew into his coat.
Then, just like that, it was over. Kaiser couldn't hear anything- in fact, he could feel the blood dripping from his ears- and with his burst eardrums, he had no sense of balance. The entire world spun around him and his sight was blurred and unfocused. Without thinking, he let out a silent scream. A few seconds later, two images of one figure appeared in his vision, wearing a red ribbon tied around their right arm. Kaiser tried to remember what that signified, but found that he could not. The figure lifted him into their arms and began carrying him towards a source of repetitive vibrations, like an engine of some sort. Before his consciousness slipped away entirely, he heard a voice say:
"As the Armor defends the Skin, so the Rot will break the Body."
Kaiser awoke on the helicopter, still completely deaf. He tried to lift his head, but he couldn't tell which way was up and almost vomited. Someone stood over him, holding a syringe. Their helmet was imprinted with a white six-pointed star, indicating an MTF medic, and read MTF G-8. They brought their needle closer, and Kaiser didn't even feel the prick before he was out again.
The next thing Kaiser knew, he was in a clinic, smelling of antiseptic and needles. An alarm went off as his heart rate increased, and before he knew it, there was a doctor with him.
"Can you hear me?" He said.
"Y- yeah." Kaiser croaked. The room wasn't moving in waves under him like before, so that was a plus.
"Good. Junior Researcher Kaiser, I'm sorry to say that you have just experienced your first containment breach."
"My first?"
"Most of them aren't as bad as that one. It was a learning opportunity, though."
"Meaning?"
"The mirrors you encountered would be classified Safe. The creature that left the mirror would be classified Euclid. The serpentine anomaly would be Keter. In fact, me and a few others are submitting a proposal to reclassify the zone Keter."
"Yeah, but how bad is it, doc?"
"The breach or your injuries?"
"Both."
"A total of twenty-two trainees, mostly from the Foundation, were killed, alongside four staff for a total of twenty-six deaths. As for you, you were found with both severe hypothermia and second-to-fourth-degree burns over a significant portion of your body, paradoxically. We had to replace much of your skin with synthskin. The synthskin will take a few days to fully integrate with your body, so you'll have to stay on bed rest until that time. We also had to surgically repair your ears and eyes. On the bright side…" The doctor pulled Kaiser's glasses off. "Hey! I need-" Kaiser grabbed for the glasses, only to realize that he was seeing perfectly well without them.
"Well, that's interesting. What happened to my team?"
"We haven't located Tresco; if he disappeared like observed, he may have been removed from the universe or timeline altogether. As for Grati, she was crying and would not have noticed the oncoming explosion if not for you. In fact, she was substantially less hurt than you. She was able to walk on her own and stayed by your side the whole trip back."
"How long was I out?"
"About thirty-six hours."
There was a knock on the door. "Come in." The doctor said. Two people entered the room. "Kaiser! You're awake!" Grati exclaimed, moving to hug him, but Kaiser stopped her. "New skin." He said. They settled on a handshake instead. The second person was a Researcher, his ID revealing his name as Dr. Nathan Halloway, Head Researcher. He said nothing, only took a small stack of papers in a folder from his coat, laid them on the bedside table, and left.
Kaiser grabbed the papers and began flipping through them. As he read them, his eyes brightened and he pumped his fist. "What is it?" Grati asked.
"I got a promotion!"
Afterword: Junior Researcher Kaiser was promoted to the position of Researcher and assigned to work under Head Researcher Halloway in the OXIDA Project, the official name for actions against "The Church of the Broken God" with intent to slow or halt its acquisition of technological or religious artifacts. During the course of this, a raid was performed by the GoI on his outpost, where he was captured and implanted, along with the entire staff of the outpost, with an anomalous cranial implant rendering him immune to most cognitohazards, being one of two staff to survive the procedure. Dr. Kaiser has not expressed any desire to have this implant removed, considering the incident that started his career left him with a severe aversion to and fear of memetic agents and cognitohazards.
Dr. Kaiser spent his first two years at the Foundation working for Dr. Halloway in this endeavor, using his grasp of paranormal engineering to study, catalogue, and even reverse-engineer Mekhanite entities. When the primary objective of the OXIDA Project was realized and it was disbanded, Dr. Kaiser was reassigned to analysis of SCP-6025 for a period of six months. After distinguishing himself during the "Weeping God" Incident, he was relocated to Site-19, where he now resides as Head Engineering Researcher.
