Kothardarastrix's Sandbox

To-Do List

Things that are mostly finished:

• The Curse of Mount Abraxas
• The thing with MacLean and Moloch
• CupidCon Entry
• Chaos Insurgency collab with Ethagon

Things that aren't done at all but would be quick to write:

• Sea Sloth
• The Deal of Death (a specific arrangement of 52 cards that would destroy reality)

Things that are, like, halfway done:

• Stone Cold Pyre
• PACt-MAN

Things that are still quite a lot of work from being done:

• VNP-6314
• I'm Broken
• The 27 Club

Test Log Additions

SCP-826

• Test it with a blank journal.
• Use a current nonfiction book and compare it to the real place. If they match, this may be of use with historical fiction or ancient works of literature.
• Use the same fiction book with two different people, to see if fiction is created based on the description or from the imagination of the subject.
• Enter 2030 to get a good look at Laughy McLaughersrion.
• Have someone conceive a child with a fictional character, then bring the child out.

SCP-682

• Try to turn its adaptive abilities against itself by provoking some kind of allergic response or giving it an autoimmune disorder.
• Use 484 to get into its memories.
• Torture it to make it more compliant or even get it to attempt suicide.
• Try to make it less hostile by teaching it how to cook or something, like 5031.
• See if SCP-657 can predict its death.
• Shoot security footage of it with the exposition gun.
• Use the suffocating Sesame Street anomaly on security footage of it.
• Finally convince 073 to do it. 682 has a brief conversation with Cain, wherein the lizard assures him that he, too, will one day outgrow his remorse and his pain will become others'. Cain asks if he can leave yet, to which 682 says "I'm not going to attack him, if that's what you're waiting for." Then it lays down and goes to sleep. 073 is allowed to leave.
• 058. Drop 682 in there instead of a cow. 058 rapidly dismembers and consumes it. Hours later, 058 ruptures from within as the regenerated 682 claws its way out. The injured 058 tries to fight 682 again, but 682 talks to it and it goes to cower in the corner instead. Both anomalies are incapacitated with a ridiculous amount of antipersonnel explosives, after which time 682 is retrieved.
• Use 2733 to decapitate it. Body grows new head, head grows new body.
• Make it watch a 5266 video by telling it 079 is on the computer.
• 5562. Tissue test is denied by the O5 council because they know something they don't want anyone else to know.
• several different instances of 092

SCP-3780

• SCP-140 is activated in the future, bringing the Daevite Empire to that time period.
• Someone uses SCP-2733 to steal JFK's head from the past.

SCP-3922

• Samurai Jack - how do the Three Moons fight Aku, vulnerable only to divine weapons?
• Something Series - can they defeat Speedrunner Mario?
• Little Runmo - they help Runmo get across the pit, so he never delves into the horrors that lie beneath. The narrative either continues to follow him, with background evidence showing 3922's defeat of the Dring King and Meatball Man, or it follows 3922 as they do so.
• The Zapruder Film, altered as necessary to be considered fictional.
• FOOTAGE OF THE MOON LANDING
• Knife, Scream, Cut to Black - the situation comically escalates, with the killers continually increasing in number and producing duplicates of whatever tricks 3922 comes up with. Alternatively, 3922 manages to defeat the killer with no issue before the interactive portion begins.

SCP-978

• 939-101 - the teenage form of little Keter, hugging her "dad"

Project Isorropia

• SCP-2600 and the shapeshifter that's always trying to be better than you, constantly attempting to out-spook each other.
• SCP-5140 vs SCP-1529
• 082 and 4820 being best buds
• Some interaction between Mr. Lie, SCP-645, the Liar's Cradle, and the truth-detecting quarter.

SCP-3636

• Last Living Dinosaur - several dinosaurian anomalies headbang, play air guitar, and otherwise rock out
• Metal Will Never Die - the ghost of Dio appears and rocks out with Dr. Carlson, then assures him that metal will never die as he fades away.
• a song from a band that Dr. Carlson was in as a teenager, before they broke up

CupidCon Entry

outtakes

---

"Ah!" Mr. Fish screamed.

"Ah!" Katie seconded.

"Fuck!" Guy shouted, blinking at the fluorescent lights of SCP-527's containment chamber. The blue forest and sunset vista had become more of the same old drab gray walls, and the cliff had become a bed that - until very recently - Mr. Fish had been sleeping in.

It didn't take Katie long to get her bearings, and she did not take it well.

"No! No, dammit!" she grabbed Guy's arm in a two-handed grip that was almost painful. "Take us back!" she wailed. "Please!"

All he could do was helplessly shake his head.

"No! No!" she jumped up and started running around the room, looking for a way out that she knew very well didn't exist. Her elbow jostled a table, and Mr. Fish cried out in concern as his potted cactus wobbled precariously. Guy paid him no mind, instead springing to comfort his panicking friend.

"Katie! Katie." Carefully, he put one arm around her, to keep her from running around and maybe hurting herself. As soon as she stopped moving, she collapsed. He wrapped the other arm around her as well. Katie hugged him limply back and sobbed into his shoulder.

"It's okay, it's alright. We're safe."

"I wasn't ready," she sniffled. "I wasn't ready."

"I know, I know. I wasn't either." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Guy found his own eyes welling up too. "I'm sorry."

PACt-MAN

GOOD IDEA IN THIS THREAD. USE THAT. AMBITIOUS, MAYBE GET HELP FROM ARCADIA EXPERT.

UPDATE 3/28/2022
After some discussions in the Discord, some thoughts and ideas:

• the demon-escapes idea is still kinda cliche
• one guy thinks the demon's appearance is just okay
• What if, rather than having the demon escape as a result of Mitchell's greed, it's the Foundation's hubris? They use it to stop breaches and defeat GoIs and do stuff like that, but end up using it too much?
• I just need to find a way to make the ending better!

http://scp-sandbox-3.wikidot.com/pact-man

Update 6/3/2022

• before the test log, explain where it came from
• After the breach, have the Arcadia guy show up and be detained. He explains the situation to the Foundation, and they reluctantly agree to help him recapture the demon.
• the final confrontation with the demon
• a revised document describing the anomaly's new form, trapped in the 2600

[[/collapsible]]

Drooling Snippets

---

As she had done every evening for the last six years, Cindy Parker stood atop a makeshift wall, clutching a handmade crossbow. She had been a DMV clerk once, but now she was just one of many desperate survivors, clinging to life and civilization amid an endless expanse of high-quality furniture. She and the other sentinels of Kitchens watched in silence, listening for the shuffling footsteps of misshapen Staff, or their calm reminders of IKEA's hours. There had not been any activity yet, but the lights had only shut off a few minutes ago.

The first sound they heard that night was not the Staff, however. It was a gunshot.

---

Within the SCP Foundation, it's widely believed that everyone working in the Surrealistics Department has gone completely insane from agnostic use. This isn't entirely accurate, as many of them were already bonkers well before their teeth started falling out.¹ On the more practical side of things, it's also helpful to have at least a few people in your band of merry madmen that still remember how to think, if not straight, at least in the same coordinate system as people who haven't sacrificed their ability to speak literally on the altar of mind-affecting nocebos. It was these (comparatively) grounded, (relatively) clear-headed "realistics liaisons" who represented the Department outside of Site-that-curly-square-symbol-you-know-the-one, partly for the purpose of dealing with surrealistic anomalies that didn't require dissociation from reality to deal with, and partially to make sure the "serious" and "sane" scholars in the organization didn't start to think Surrealistics was an elaborate inside joke like the alleged "Antimemetics Division," or worse, think they didn't exist at all. No one wanted to be confused with the Department of Unreality.

The realistics liaisons were probably also part of some very elaborate, vaguely passive-aggressive, and distressingly important containment procedure,² but regardless of its importance to the Foundation, Earth, three-dimensional reality, and the coherence of thought in general, it's not terribly important to our story. The only thing you need take away from this passage going forward (other than the contents of this footnote, which you should not under any circumstances look at³) is that not everyone in Surrealistics is a Surrealistic, and that's why, despite being part of a department famous for its lunacy, Dr. Conrad Scott is (currently) a (somewhat) sane and balanced (enough) individual (for now). He's also stationed at Armed Bio-Containment Area-14, though, so one of those things is probably going to change sooner rather than later.

A Starry Night, A Campfire Light

CUT THE 3999 PART, USE SOMETHING ELSE

Somewhere in Texas, a thousand head of cattle have stopped for the night. They doze or graze, some lowing softly in the dark. Long, curved horns glint in the light of a campfire. Thirteen cowboys sit in a circle around it, taking shelter from the cold desert night. They are just finishing their dinner, a plate of hot beans, bacon, and biscuits with some dried, sugared apples for dessert. With small variations, this was what they'd eaten every night for the month they'd been on the trail. But this hearty dinner was not the only evening tradition among the cowboys of P&W Ranch.

It was always Rick, the trail boss, who started.

"Well," he said, setting his plate aside, "it's a mighty dark night tonight, ain't it boys?"

Some agreed heartily, grinning in anticipation. Others gave only solemn nods.

"Dark enough to make you wonder what might be out there, in the night." His intense gaze surveyed the other cowpokes, alighting on each for a single tense moment. "Watchin'." He leaned forward, the firelight casting the lines on his face into deep, eerie shadow. "Waitin'."

One of the tenderfoots couldn't help himself; he looked nervously away from the campfire. He saw only the occasional glint of a cow's horns in the firelight, but Rick's dark eyes still caught the movement. He smiled slightly.

"I've seen 'em, you know. The creatures of the night. The things that hide themselves in darkness. Things no man can explain. Evil things."

For a moment, the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the moan of the lonely wind.

"Now, let me tell you what I seen."

---

Sometimes if you listen close at night it sounds like the wind is calling your name. But you better never answer, because that ain't the wind. That's the red coyotes, the color of blood and the size of horses. They ain't got no eyes but they's scared of the light, so they only come out at night. They keep away from campfires, but they like to huddle just past the edge of the light and call out to ya in the voice of your sweetheart, or your folks, or whoever else they think might talk a lonesome cowboy into steppin' outta the light. But there ain't no sweetheart out there in the dark - just claws and fangs and empty bellies.

---

A tall, thin, masked, pale stranger on a quest for vengeance. He's some kind of ghost or revenant, walking relentlessly through the desert in search of the woman who betrayed him, the only person who ever saw his face.

---

Doug Millard, on SCP-058:

Well, uh, there was one thing. Couple of years ago, I forget just where, exactly, I was looking for work and heard some place called the DP Ranch had an opening. Ranch was about half a day's ride from where I was, though, so I waited for the morning to ride out. That might be the only reason I'm still alive.

I was still pretty far from the ranch when I saw the smoke. There was so much I knew something big had to be on fire, maybe a barn or even the ranch house itself. I dug my spurs in, got there as fast I could to see if anybody needed help. But it was too late for that.

The first thing I saw was a cow, but I almost didn't recognize it. It…it looked like it had exploded, somehow. Stretched out on its back, ribs cracked open, guts all over the place…but the weirdest thing was, I didn't see any blood.

The rest of them weren't like that. I mean, they were all dead, but differently. And there was blood everywhere. Legs missing, heads cut off, I swear some of them must have been ripped in half. At first, I thought it might've been Indians, but I don't know what kind of Indians could rip a bull in half. Maybe I should have stuck around and tried to find some tracks or something, but I was more worried about the fire. I just hoped the people hadn't been done like the cows.

Before I even saw the house, though, I knew it was no good. There were three dead cowboys at the top of the hill, parts all mixed up with their horses, ripped up same way as the cows. There was a…a…head, and I can't forget that, more than anything, it…he looked surprised. Like whatever it was had hit him so fast he didn't even have to time to be scared. To scream.

So, anyway, I had made it to the top of the hill. It was the ranch house that was on fire, but it was mostly just coals and ash by that point. No way was there anybody left alive in there. I figured I had best ride back East, warn everybody in town about what had happened, whatever it was. That's when I saw another plume of smoke, to the West. And it was a big one.

I pushed my horse as fast as he'd go. I was scared shitless, of course, but I had to get to that town before whatever it was that had done that could do it to the people there, too. I don't think I thought I could stop it. Maybe I was hoping I could save somebody. Or maybe I just wanted to see the thing that had done it. Either way, I was wrong.

I don't know how that thing moved, but it must have been fast as Hell, to have destroyed that whole town before the ranch even finished burning. Most of the buildings were on fire too, but some of them looked more like…I don't know, like they'd been hit, with a big cannonball or something. And there were bodies everywhere, of course, I don't know how many, a lot of them burned or crushed or…or…or in pieces…

Doug stopped for a minute, eyes and fists screwed tightly shut. He looked pale, even in the red-orange glow of the dwindling fire, and he seemed to be shaking. The others waited patiently; they knew too well what he was remembering. Tim Crews placed a comforting hand on Doug's shoulder and left it there as, quietly, he continued.

It was like Antietam all over again.

I thought if there was one building still standing, it would have to be the church, if it'd been made of stone. I couldn't see the steeple through all the smoke, but I figured it must be towards the center of town. Once I got there, though, I knew that I wouldn't have been able to see it even without the smoke. The church was stone, yeah, but that even that hadn't stopped the thing, whatever it was. Now the church was just a pile of rocks.

If I'd been smart, I would've turned back around right then and never come back. Maybe I would have, if I hadn't heard it. The heartbeat.

Doug tapped his boot on the sand to emphasize it - a slow, deep da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.

It sounded like it was coming from the church, what was left of it. I don't know how I could hear it over the fires, or through all those rocks. No human heart is that loud. But I knew that's what it was, a heartbeat. So I got down off my horse and walked up there to listen. I don't know why.

As I got closer, I started to hear something else. Sounded like a voice. I thought maybe there was still somebody alive in there, buried under the rubble. Maybe it was his heart I was hearing, somehow. Stupid, I know, but I didn't know what else to think.

I couldn't hear it at first, not clearly. I even put my ear up against the rocks, but they muffled it too much to understand. The weird thing was, it didn't sound like he was screaming or calling for help. Just talking. Or maybe praying.

I started trying to move the rocks. I had to dig that guy out of there, before he died. Maybe at least he could tell me what had happened. I don't know how long I did that, heaving boulders out of the way, all covered in dirt and soot and sweat, coughing and my eyes running from all the smoke. I had to save someone, just one person…

His voice caught again, and Tim Crews's grip tightened reassuringly.

But that wasn't a person, under those rocks. I don't think so, I can't, not after what I heard it say. With every rock I moved, the voice got louder and clearer. I could almost understand it. I put my ear against the pile once and thought I made out a couple words, something about a "drooling path," but I probably misheard. And all the while, that same heartbeat, getting louder. Faster.

Then I came to the biggest stone. I almost couldn't lift it, but I couldn't give up then, not when I was that close. This one and maybe just one more after that, and I'd reach whoever was buried in there. I rolled that rock out of the way and I could finally hear that voice as clear as day. It sounded like an old man, from England or someplace. But what he said, it…it didn't make any sense. Or maybe it did, a little, but it wasn't no prayer I'd ever heard.

Doug paused. The silence stretched on for what felt like forever, before it finally snapped.

"What did he say?" Kenneth blurted.

Eyes closed, Doug inhaled shakily through his nose. Then he spoke, in a voice that seemed too eerie to be his own.

"The sensual violence of lust is all the assurance you will ever need to know the worth of life."

More than one cowboy felt a shiver run up his spine.

"So…what did you do?" Kenneth whispered.

Doug shook his head. "Got on my horse. Rode until I couldn't anymore."

"But…but what was it?"

"I don't know." Then he looked up, his teary eyes glistening in the firelight. "And I hope I never do."

---

C. Hooper, on SCP-1981:

Well, I ain't never seen any ghosts or nothin'. Still ain't sure I believe in 'em, neither, no offense to you boys. But I have seen some weird things. Nothin' like what y'all are talkin' about, but some stuff that just didn't make sense. Like, uh, well. Wasn't on the trail or nothin'. Actually saw it in a barbershop.

"Barbershop?" Tim Crews guffawed.

Tha's right. Forget where exactly, some town where I spent the off-season once. Went to get my 'stache trimmed, you know, and I had just sat down in the chair when I saw the picture.

Now, y'all know what happened to ol' Abe Lincoln, right? Headed out here someplace and vanished off the face o' the Earth? Well, this picture disagreed. It was a photo of Lincoln himself, with a big damn bullet hole right in the middle o' his forehead.

He tapped his own head for emphasis.

Now, I was never a big fan o' ol' Abe anyway, but I still don't think it's right defacing a picture of an American President like that. And the worst part was, somebody had written this stupid caption on it, "ABRAHAM LINCON SHOT WHILE TALKING". Didn't even spell it right. So I asked the barber what he thought he was doin' with somethin' like that up there. So he told me.

"That right there is the only picture taken of the President after he was assassinated during the Gettysburg Address."

So I told the guy that whoever'd sold him that had made a fool out of him, cuz Abe Lincoln wasn't dead. That fella just smiled and asked me how I knew that. Had I seen the President? Did I know where he was? Was I really gonna trust some Yank newspaper over my own eyes? How'd I know that wasn't just Yankee propaganda?

I decided not to dignify that with a response, mostly 'cuz I couldn't talk while he was shavin' me, of course. Didn't bring it up again, so I paid for my cut and left.

Now, about a month later I needed another cut, and I wasn't exactly lookin' forward to dealin' with that weirdo again, but there was just the one barber shop so I didn't have much of a choice. I was hopin' that if I didn't say anything about it that he wouldn't bring it up either. And that mighta worked if I hadn't gone in there and seen the damn picture was different! Abe still looked the same, but this time the hole was right here.

He pointed to his right eye.

I told this fella I knew he was messin' with me, but he kept actin' like he didn't know what I was talkin' about. Naturally, I decided to ignore that tomfoolery and stop givin' this fella a laugh. And so it kept goin', for the whole season. Every time I went in there the President was shot someplace else, still with that stupid caption. That's what pissed me off the most, that this wacko had a hundred of these damn pictures but couldn't spell none of 'em right. And he knew it was buggin' me, too. Every time I went in there he sat me down right in front of that damn thing and faced me toward it, flashin' the kind o' grin that ya wanna punch out, y'know?

Well, it was the last time I was gonna go in there before I moved on for the season, and I decided that since I was never gonna see that damn town or that damn barber ever again I was gonna get rid of that damn picture once and for all. I sat there glarin' at the damn thing the whole time he was doin' my haircut. Soon as he finished, I got up and went over there, ready to rip it right off the wall, and shove it up that freakshow barber's ass if he had somethin' to say about it.

And boy did he. "No!" he said. Yelled so loud it startled me for a second. Looked back at him and he looked more scared than anything, face gone all pale and ever'thing. Told me I didn't know what I was about ta do, that I'd regret it. But I was too mad by that point to listen to any o' his bullshit anyway, so I turned back around and was about to grab hold of it when I realized the picture'd changed.

Now, instead o' Abraham Lincoln, it was a picture o' one o' those crazy Ku Klux Klan bastards, and he was lookin' right at me! Not at the camera, you understand, at me. I dunno how ta explain it. But them eyes was lookin' right into mine. That wasn't even the worst part, though, cuz that label had finally changed. It didn't say that about Abe Lincoln no more.

It said "sic semper tyrannus."

A few moments passed, where the only sound was the crackling of the campire.

"Well? What'd you do?"

What any God-fearin' man does when he sees a ghost. I turned my tail and run. Ain't got a haircut since.

---

"Before I start, let me ask y'all a question. Y'ever hear tell of a joint called the Sailboat Saloon?"

The assembled cowboys mumbled that they had not or simply shook their heads.

Tim nodded. "Didn't think so. Well, you're about to."

"It was…ah, maybe two years ago? I was in some town for the night - I done forgot which - and lookin' for a place to get me a drink and a bed. First place I saw was the Sailboat Saloon. It woulda been hard to miss; there was a big sail thing on the roof, like they'd pulled it straight from a boat." With his hands, Tim crudely reconstructed the lopsided triangular shape of the sail.

"Partly because of that, I was real surprised to be the only one in there. Well, except the bartender, but I'll get to him in a second. The inside of the place seemed normal enough. Everything was about as clean as you could expect, weren't no particularly strange decorations or nothin'. The piano was playin' itself, and that spooked me a little at first, but then I looked a little closer at it and saw it was rigged up like some kind of giant music box or somethin'. Kinda cool, actually. Never could place what song it was playin', though.

"Anyway, the barkeep. I don't really remember what he looked like - it wasn't too bright in there, and I definitely had too much to drink - but I do remember his voice. He was British, I know that. Had kind of a lisp. Sounded like an old man, you know?"

Doug's eyes grew wide, but no one else seemed to notice.

[blah blah blah]

"I woke up the next morning slumped in an alley on the other side of town. I didn't think too much of it then, since nobody'd robbed me while I was out. I didn't try to go back that night, not wantin' to go through that again. But after a couple days in town, I noticed that I hadn't seen that sail on the roof, even though it shoulda been tall enough to see from all around. So I started lookin' for it, retraced my steps back to where it was…or where it shoulda been. I went back over it probably a dozen times, but no matter how many times I went back to that spot I kept findin' some place called the Dewdrop Inn. It looked completely different; no sail, all the furniture was somewhere different, and it didn't even have a piano. I tried askin' people if they'd been to the Sailboat, or just heard of the place, but nobody had. I half wondered if I'd somehow wound up in a different town overnight, but I still recognized everything else from that first night! So then I started to think that maybe I'd imagined the whole thing, maybe it was a dream and I'd been so tired and drunk I couldn't tell the difference. I asked the folks at the Dewdrop, though, and they said I didn't go in there that night. But I musta got the booze from somewhere, right? It just didn't make no sense. I tried askin' about the barkeep, too, but I couldn't remember what his face looked like, and nobody'd seen any old Brits. Eventually I got so spooked by the whole thing that I just left, spent the off-season somewheres else.

"That's when the dreams started. It don't happen every night, or even every week…or maybe I just don't always remember it. But every so often, when I dream, I'm back at the Sailboat Saloon. Sittin' at the bar, drinkin' somethin', talkin' to that British barkeep, piano playin' that same weird song. It's different every time, though. The saloon is the same, I mean, but the conversation is different. The barkeep, he knows things about me. Talks about 'em. Stuff I wouldn't tell nobody. Stuff I certainly didn't tell him. O' course, I know it ain't really him. I'm dreamin', o' course he knows the same stuff I do, he's just my imagination. Right?

"Well, that's what I'd like to think. But the thing is…"

Pausing, Tim took off his Stetson and scratched his head. He looked worried, like he didn't want to say whatever he was about to say. But he did it anyway.

"Those dreams are comin' more often now. Still not every night, but gettin' there. And I can remember 'em better, too. Still can't remember what that guy's face looked like though. And I'm startin'…well, I'm startin' to think that might be because…he don't have one."

---

Egbert "Eggs" Eccleston on SCP-3999:

There's a cave near a ranch where I once worked that they say is the gate to Hell. They say the first fella who went in there couldn't get out, that he screamed for a year. I ain't a doctor, but there's no man on God's Earth who can scream for a year, even if he don't starve or die of thirst. But that's what they say. And it wasn't just screaming, neither. He said things, crazy things, things people were scared to write down. But I didn't believe it, not till that Talloran fella went in.

Talloran worked in town, a clerk at the bank, I think. I knew him cuz he was good friends - real good friends, you know - with one of the other cowhands, some fella named Darren Drake. Never talked to Talloran much, but Drake was alright. It's a damn shame what happened to him. When I go, I wanna go shootin', fightin' rustlers or Injuns, not on a bull's horns like that. But what can you do?

Anyhow, I guess Drake was about the only friend Talloran had in that town. People didn't like his type, you know. They left him be cuz they was scared o' Drake - and rightly so, he shot like a sunuvabitch - but with him in the ground they wasn't about to let the likes of Talloran handle their money. He was run outta the bank, run outta his house, run outta town eventually. Somethin' tells me his folks weren't too keen on him neither, cuz instead of catchin' the next train back to Pennsylvania he just walked off into the desert. I don't know if he meant to end up at that cave, but he'd sure heard enough o' the stories to know where he was when he got there. I don't know why he went in there. Maybe he was hopin' to die, even though there's quicker and better ways to do it.

But he didn't die. We heard him screamin' the next mornin' out on the ranch, rode out to see what the ruckus was. Shouldn't o' been able to hear it that far away, but somethin' about the shape o' the cave made it echo louder 'n' normal or somethin'. I never heard anybody scream like that, not even durin' the war. I still remember how it sounded, and to this day it gives me goosebumps. Look!

We talked about it for a while, tryin' ta decide what ta do. None of us were real close Talloran, like I said, but Drake was a good man. For his sake, a couple o' guys went in there to try and get him, or at least shut up that screamin' - it was spookin' the animals, it was so bad. But they never got to him, I don't think. Still not sure exactly what they saw - came out blind and crazy, talkin' nonsense and cryin'. Ate their guns, both of 'em.

That was the last any of us had to do with it. We moved the cows to the other side of the ranch, where you could only hear the screamin' when the wind blowed just right. You could hear it in town sometimes too, but people pretended like they couldn't. Didn't want to think about what they'd done, I reckon. Maybe that's why Talloran did it, to let those bastards know what they'd put him through.

Remember how they said the first fella who went in there screamed for a year? Well, they musta been right, cuz that's about how long that Talloran fella was in there. We never did quite get used to it, but we learned to ignore it. Pretended it was just the wind, or a trapped coyote. But everybody noticed right away when it stopped.

We talked about it some. Argued if we should go out there, see what had happened. But we didn't, cuz we were scared, just like anybody else with half a brain woulda been. Couldn't be anythin' worth seein' left after that. So we kept on workin'. We couldn't even be glad it was over, for fearin' it would start up again.

It was close to sundown when I saw him. Wasn't close enough to tell, of course, but I knew it was Talloran, cuz he'd come from over towards the cave and he looked about nine-tenths dead. Some of the boys wanted to shoot him, said he'd have to be some kind of devil to come outta that cave alive, but before we could come to a decision on the matter he just dropped, fell on his face in the dirt. I drew the short straw and had to go check him out.

Well, I rode up to him to get a look. Poked him with my boot a couple times first, o' course, but he didn't budge. Then I rolled him over, and it all made sense. Kid was dead, eyes wide open. Makes me feel like shit to say it, but a part of me was glad. Afraid of what he might say he saw down there in that cave.

They wouldn't let us take him into town, so me and some of the boys dug him a grave out on the ranch. Put up a cross for 'im and everything. Not sure I believe that God hates them folk, but even if he does we figured he might make an exception for Talloran after whatever happened to 'im down there. If not, well, Hell couldn't o' been much worse, I don't think.

The weirdest thing about it was, we never could figure out what actually did him in. Wasn't a mark on him. Well, except for one. It was healed, though, like an old scar.

With a single finger, the cowboy traced Talloran's scar on his face: a long, bloody smile, from one ear to the other.

Dr. Conrad Scott's Personnel File

The sloth bits need to be changed to 4068. They can be reused as a separate tale later on.

As Dr. Simon Glass left ABCA-14, he passed by Dr. Scott's vacant office. Though Dr. Johnston and his assistant (Jake? Jerry?) had already absconded with the recordings and most other 058-relevant documentation, the insane clutter of his desk and the cork board remained intact. Glass had already seen the office once, before he evaluated Scott, but that didn't make the second sight of it any less disconcerting. No one at the Foundation was totally sane, of course, but all personnel had to meet a minimum level of lucidity and self-control to ensure they could follow protocol. Though Scott was hardly the type to splash pee on Fernand and ride SCP-058 through the facility (the new, tighter protocols had been designed to weed out any latent Kondrakis), but he did display an alarming tendency to violate containment protocols out of curiosity. Granted, talking to a decayed Betamax or listening to nihilistic beat poetry for longer than 30 minutes was unlikely to get anyone killed or even cause a serious containment breach, but that didn't mean there was no danger. Glass might have been willing to let it slide if Scott was still working with a Safe-class object, but 058's body count rivaled 682's, and it wasn't even the most dangerous object at Area-14. There was no room for error at an Armed Area. Dr. Glass had skimmed Scott's file on his way to Area-14, but he resolved to read it again, more closely this time, during the flight back to Site-17.

[interview with Conrad, where he describes his and his wife's exposure to SCP-2774]
Conrad Scott’s first experience with the anomalous had not been a positive one. Most Foundation personnel were recruited out of college, the military, or their other professions when algorithmic analysis identified them as potential assets, though there were plenty of exceptions. Agent Green had once been a GOC operative, as had (allegedly) Alto Clef himself. Agent Navarro had first come to the Foundation’s attention as a Person of Interest. And in the days of Omega-7, there had even been a few contained objects promoted to Foundation personnel. But Dr. Scott had not come to the Foundation from a Group of Interest, or as a POI or anomalous object. He was one of the rare personnel who, before ever hearing of the Foundation, had found himself on the business end of an anomaly. The first document in his file was not a personnel evaluation, but an incident report.

Incident 2774-██:
On ██-██-20██, a Dr. Conrad Scott brought his wife, Allison, to the [DATA EXPUNGED] hospital in ████████, VA, suspecting that she had been drugged or suffered a head injury. A Foundation web crawler flagged Mrs. Scott’s symptoms as possible SCP-2774 infection, and a containment team was dispatched to assess the situation. Below is an interview conducted between Dr. Conrad Scott and Agent J███████, disguised as “Dr. J█████”, a psychiatrist allegedly working at the [DATA EXPUNGED] hospital.

<begin log>
Agent J███████: Hello, Dr. Scott.
Conrad Scott: How is she?
Agent J███████: We’re still running some tests.
Conrad Scott: Oh.
Agent J███████: If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.
Conrad Scott: Sure.
Agent J███████: Have you seen a man in a sloth costume recently?
Conrad Scott: What?
Agent J███████: Have you seen a man in a sloth costume recently?
Conrad Scott: I- how did you know?
Agent J███████: Your wife said something about a sloth soon after you arrived, correct?
Conrad Scott: Oh. Right. Um, yes, we did. Well, sort of. We saw him on TV.
Agent J███████: On live television?
Conrad Scott: No, no. We, uh, we were…this is gonna sound crazy.
Agent J███████: You’d be surprised.
Conrad Scott: Um, okay. Two days ago, we were, um, we were watching Twin Peaks, on DVD. I got it for her for our anniversary last month. We’ve seen it before, of course – it’s her favorite show, actually, that’s why I got it for her – but this time we noticed this guy in a…sloth costume sitting in the background in one scene.
Agent J███████: And that struck you as unusual?
Conrad Scott: Absolutely. It’s a weird show, sure, but it’s not that weird. And I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed a guy in a sloth suit the first time I watched it.
Agent J███████: Did your wife see the sloth as well?
Conrad Scott: Yeah, that’s how I know I’m not crazy. Somebody must have tampered with the DVD or something.
Agent J███████: Or something.
Conrad Scott: Why? Do you think this sloth thing has something to do with what’s going with Allison?
Agent J███████: I doubt it. Your wife’s mind is in disarray; she probably just remembered this incident during her episode.
Conrad Scott: Oh. And do you know what’s wrong with her?
Agent J███████: We’re still running some tests.
Conrad Scott: Right.
Agent J███████: Dr. Scott, would you be willing to remain here for a few days? You may have been exposed to the same thing as her, whatever that is, and we’d like to keep you under observation until we’re sure you’re alright.
Conrad Scott: Of course! I already told the college I won’t be in tomorrow.
Agent J███████: Alright. Thank you, Doctor Scott.
<end log>

Analysis of Mrs. Scott confirmed SCP-2774 infection. The DVD described by Dr. Scott was positively identified as an SCP-2774 instance and destroyed. No other media in the Scotts’ residence contained SCP-2774-A.
Observation of Dr. Scott over the following days confirmed that he had not been affected by SCP-2774.

[interview with Conrad, where Agent Jeffries breaks the bad news to him and offers him a job]

<begin log>
[Agent J███████ enters the room where Dr. Scott is being kept for observation.]
Conrad Scott: [rapidly rises to his feet] Where’s my wife? Why is that door locked? What’s going on here?
Agent J███████: Please relax, Dr. Scott.
Conrad Scott: I’ll relax when I can see my wife!
Agent J███████: Your wife is in very serious cond-
Conrad Scott: Serious what? You won’t even tell me what’s wrong with her!
Agent J███████: I will if you’ll calm down for a second!
Conrad Scott: …fine. But leave that damn door open!
Agent J███████: I can’t do that, Dr. Scott. [closes the door] This is a matter of some secrecy.
Conrad Scott: Secrecy?
Agent J███████: You should probably take a seat.
Conrad Scott: I’ll stand.
Agent J███████: Suit yourself. [sits down] I’m not a doctor. I’m an undercover agent.
Conrad Scott: Yeah, and I’m Thor.
Agent J███████: I work for the SCP Foundation, an organization that keeps the public safe from supernatural phenomena and ensures that they remain secret.
Conrad Scott: Let me out of here.
[Dr. Scott moves towards the door. Agent J███████ produces his pistol and points it at Dr. Scott.]
Agent J███████: Sit down, Dr. Scott.
Conrad Scott: What-
Agent J███████: Sit down.
[Dr. Scott settles uneasily on the hospital bed.]
Agent J███████: I need you to listen to me, Conrad. I am trying to explain what has happened to your wife, and what nearly happened to you. In doing so, I am disclosing highly classified information. I do not intend to kill you, but I will not hesitate to do so if you jeopardize the Foundation’s secrecy by behaving foolishly. Do you understand?
Conrad Scott: Y-yes.
Agent J███████: Once again, I am an undercover agent of the SCP Foundation, an organization that labors to protect human civilization and reality as we know it from various supernatural phenomena. Phenomena such as the one that has affected your wife.
Conrad Scott: What?
Agent J███████: Your wife has fallen victim to a being designated as SCP-2774. It manifests in works of pre-recorded media as a humanoid entity wearing a sloth costume. Some people who view the affected media begin to experience symptoms like your wife’s. They lapse into an unconscious state, during which time they are aware but unable to control their actions, broken only by daily 150-second intervals of clarity. We kept you for observation, and locked the door of your room, to ensure that you had not also been affected.
Conrad Scott: That…that’s ridiculous.
Agent J███████: Yes, it is. But it’s still true.
Conrad Scott: What, and I’m just supposed to take your word for it? At gunpoint, for emphasis?
Agent J███████: No, you aren’t.
[Agent J███████ reaches into his satchel with one hand, keeping his eyes and the gun trained on Dr. Scott. Agent J███████ removes a small, handheld whiteboard from his satchel. A triangle with two right angles and one [DATA EXPUNGED]-degree angle has been drawn on the whiteboard in permanent marker (see Log of Anomalous Objects II)]
Conrad Scott: What…what?!
Agent J███████: Take as long as you need.
[Dr. Scott stares intently at the whiteboard for almost a minute, growing increasingly confused.]
Agent J███████: I have a protractor and some scratch paper, if you’d like to do the math.
Conrad Scott: Aaargh! [Dr. Scott covers his face with his hands.]
Agent J███████: Now do you believe me?
Conrad Scott: [still covering his face] Mind-controlling sloth man is a big jump from impossible triangle.
Agent J███████: Is it? I’ve just refuted an absolute law of geometry. You’re an educated man, Doctor Scott. You know this object is impossible. Yet it exists.
Conrad Scott: [sighing and lowering his hands] Fine. Fine, I believe in impossible triangles. Hell, I’ll believe in an evil photobombing sloth. I’ll even believe that this STD Foundation exists. But honestly, Agent B██████, if that is your name, I don’t care. I just want my wife back.
Agent J███████: I know you do, Doctor. I would also like to see her recover.
Conrad Scott: [groaning] But?
Agent J███████: If she did, she would be the first of thousands.
Conrad Scott: [sobbing] God.
Agent J███████: I’m sorry.
Conrad Scott: Fuck you.
[Agent J███████ lowers his gun. Dr. Scott begins to sob heavily.]
Conrad Scott: What’s going to happen to her?
Agent J███████: She’ll be taken to the same secret facility where we keep the other victims. They’re working on a cure there, but I won’t lie to you, Doctor. She’ll probably be like this for the rest of her life.
Conrad Scott: [wailing] Oh God!
[Dr. Scott weeps uncontrollably for several minutes. Agent J███████ puts the anomalous whiteboard back in his bag and waits patiently.]
Conrad Scott: [sniffling] Why? Why are you telling me this? Are you gonna take me there too? Lock me up forever because I know too much?
Agent J███████: No, Doctor Scott. I will offer you a choice.
Conrad Scott: Choice between what?
Agent J███████: Between knowing more and remembering nothing.
Conrad Scott: What?
Agent J███████: Under normal circumstances, we would just wipe everything about the sloth – and this entire conversation – from your memory and implant a false recollection of Allison’s death, here at the hospital. A funeral would be staged, and you would go back to your life without your wife but never suspecting that anything supernatural had occurred. We’ve done that more times than I know. But these are not normal circumstances.
Conrad Scott: Well, that’s a fuckin’ understatement.
Agent J███████: For you, perhaps. But these situations are unfortunately rather common in my line of work. And in yours, if you’re interested.
Conrad Scott: What?
Agent J███████: I’m offering you a job, Doctor Scott. Your skills and experience would be quite useful to us at the Foundation.
Conrad Scott: You’re joking.
Agent J███████: I’m not. You’re a linguistics expert and a trained psychologist. And, if your continued existence as a free-willed human being is any indication, your memetic resistance is nothing to sneeze at.
Conrad Scott: Memetic what?
Agent J███████: You saw the sloth, just like Allison, but you were completely unaffected. Though we haven’t tested you yet, I’d wager that you’re quite resistant to mind-affecting things like that sloth. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of those.
Conrad Scott: [laughing] Sure, sure. But tell me this, Agent. Why, when I just lost the woman I love to one of these things, would be at all interested in dealing with the rest of them?
Agent J███████: Because you’d be keeping anyone else from losing the people they love to them. Because it’s the only way you’ll be allowed to remember what really happened to Allison. And because she’ll be lucid for two and a half minutes every day, and she’d probably like it if you visited her.
Conrad Scott: You’d let me see her?
Agent J███████: Of course we would. We’re cold, not cruel.
Conrad Scott: Would you let me see her first? Before you wiped my memory, I mean?
Agent J███████: We would, but we’d have to wipe that too if she said anything about the sloth.
Conrad Scott: Of course you would. [sigh] So it’s the blue pill or the red pill, huh?
Agent J███████: Yep.
Conrad Scott: [nodding] Alright then. [crying again] Dammit.
<end log>

[Conrad's recollection of the memetics department orientation, where a younger recruit calls him "grandpa", he makes a lewd joke about that guy's grandma, and then enjoys his trip while the rest of them are screaming and puking]
Simon Glass flipped past the next few documents: Conrad’s initial physical and psych eval (the latter of which Glass had conducted), some information summarizing the various ways they’d modified his official documentation with the government and other agencies to create a cover story for his Foundation employment, and all the other standard parts of every personnel file. Nothing about these papers was particularly exceptional, but a few things were interesting enough to stand out. His physical confirmed a high memetic resistance, probably honed by self-reported LSD and marijuana usage in the doctor’s younger days. A combination of arthritis and bad genes had left him with an artificial knee, and the file had been updated to reflect the hip he’d had replaced since he signed on with the Foundation. Bad joints aside, Conrad was as healthy as any man of his age and activity level could expect.
When he first came aboard, Scott had been judged most useful in the memetics division, where his degrees and high resistance already made him more qualified than many younger and more experienced employees. A report from the memetics division orientation humorously noted that he’d been the only one enjoying his trip while the other recruits were busy screaming.

Sometimes, when nightmares like these drove him from the bed in those long hours of the morning when nothing good ever happens, Conrad wondered if coming to work for the Foundation had really been worth it. When Allison had fallen victim to SCP-2774, he’d been offered a choice: forget it, and her real fate, forever, or step behind the curtain and join the wizard. At the time, the choice had seemed clear. Watching the Foundation take Allison away to be locked up with the sloth’s other victims was already the most horrible thing he’d ever had experienced, but the thought of being amnestized and going on about his life, thinking she was dead while she rotted away in containment as the helpless puppet of some alien force somehow made it even worse. He chose to join the Foundation instead of forgetting it, so that way at least he could be there for Allison during her brief, terrifying moments of lucidity.

[a report of Dr. Scott's good work with 4068 and subsequent transfer to 1981; alternatively, he worked with 116 as Dr. Redacted's assistant and was transferred to 1981 when the 116 project was canceled]
Though he’d requested it until ordered to stop, Scott had never been allowed to work on the same anomaly that had claimed his wife or at the Site where she was contained, for security reasons.
Though he’d requested it until ordered to stop, Scott had never been allowed to work on the same anomaly that had claimed his wife or even at the same Site. As things stood it was already a controversial setup, letting him keep his memories of a loved one who was now an object in containment. Personnel with similar affiliations were typically made to forget their familial connection to minimize security risks, but Glass had determined that Conrad presented little danger in that regard. A certain other researcher with relatives in containment had also put in a good word, though Scott would never know it. He still hadn’t been allowed much contact with his wife since she was denied access to communication devices and it was borderline impossible to synchronize a visit with her random daily intervals of 150-minute lucidity anyway. They had been allowed to exchange notes, however, once it was confirmed that Allison had written hers while lucid. Several such notes were included in the file, but Glass skipped them out of respect for the Scott family’s privacy (and, he privately noted, because the desperate anguish and longing contained in that stack of letters would’ve been enough to make Clef cry). Except for the last one, that is:

listen conrad I only have 150 seconds and they won’t listen to me when I tell them but I want to die. please ask them to “terminate” me I don’t want to live exist like this anymore it isn’t fair to me or you. I’m sory I know it hurts but it’ll hurt less when I’m dead and you don’t have to spend everyday hoping they’ll cure me and knowing they can’t and I don’t have to spend every day staring at that fucking sloth. I love you Conrad, you know that, I said I would love you forever when I married you andthat’s still true but PLEASE I CAN’T D

Conrad’s reply was included as well, photocopied onto the same sheet of paper.

I love you too, Allison. I’m sorry.

True to his wife’s wishes, Conrad had filed a formal termination request with Dr. Martin at Site-116. He had another request as well, that he be allowed to spend an entire day with her prior to termination to ensure that he could catch her lucid to receive her last words in person.

[transcript of Conrad's last conversation with Allison, where he tells her she's going to be terminated and she's grateful]

[disciplinary report of Dr. Scott being taken off 1981 for trying to communicate with it and getting sent to ABCA-14 as punishment]

The Great Quagga Heist

ARD says I should make up cool shit and then write the magic around it.

• I want Mel to fight a gold golem with diamond eyes, teeth, and knuckles.
• Black Queen Faceless/Little Sunshine is a ninja.
• Liv crawls through the vents to either sabotage the security computer or unlock Quincy's paddock.
• Vivian can pick locks and make explosives, despite her lack of hands.
• They escape by releasing all the quaggas (and maybe some other magical creatures MC&D is breeding in the same facility, like the spiky unicorns). Sara leads the charge astride Quincy. The lemony narrator explains that zebras are much more violent and dangerous than horses.
• There are EyePods patrolling the vents. Foundation corruption or corporate espionage?

The tower where Quincy is being held is protected by a magical ward that senses anyone entering the building not through one of the few authorized entry points, each of which is protected by magic and metal detectors and various human and not-human guards. However, Sara notices that the place has a rat problem, meaning that the ward doesn't catch small creatures. This allows Liv to crawl in through the vents.

Before that, Little Sunshine will scout out the place. She swipes a guy's ID (the ward is keyed to the IDs, rather than specific aura signatures, because of high employee turnover or something) without him noticing and walks through at the same time as him so the guards will think the alarm was because he didn't have an ID, not because she walked through with unauthorized weapons or whatever. She can infiltrate any area that doesn't have automated security measures, though the AI running the non-magical security systems might still be able to see her if it tries hard enough. She notices everything and remembers all of it, so she'll be able to provide an accurate blueprint of quite a lot of the building.

The wards prevent apportation in or out, so they'll have to lead Quincy out through the same service entrance that the animals are brought in and out of, around back. The room where the quaggas are kept doesn't have any sensors (since the quaggas would set them off) but Quincy is locked up. There is a key or combination, however, since nobody important enough to have DNA locks would be handling animals.

Mel's fight with the gold golem:

• It tries to punch xer and xe catches both fists. Xe headbutts it but the soft gold simply absorbs xer attacks.
• The golem kicks xer in the gut, but xe's also able to push it over.
• While the golem is trying to get up, Mel pounces on it and begins trying to rip its head off, digging xer hooved fingers into its soft body. Before the golem can fight xer off, xe succeeds.
• Mel steps back while the golem gets up, then pitches the head at one of its knees. The impact dents the knee, throwing it off balance.
• Mel punches the golem, knocking it over sideways. Xe attempts to slam both fists down onto its back, but it sweeps xer legs with one arm, then grabs xer and stands up with the other.
• The golem slams Mel into the wall but the motion doesn't have much force behind it.
• Mel headbutts the golem to the ground.
• Unfortunately, xer antlers get stuck in the gold and xe's pulled down too. The golem grabs xer neck and starts trying to strangle xer. Xe can't overpower its grip, so xe starts hammering on one of its elbows instead, until the arm gets so dented xe can rip it off and roll out of the golem's grasp.
• Mel and the golem stagger to their feet at the same time; xe's still dizzy from being strangled, and it's having a hard time getting around with only one arm and a busted leg.
• Mel starts beating it with its own ripped-off arm. Eventually, xe hits it so hard overhand that the arm gets stuck in the golem's torso, where its neck used to be. Mel tries to plant a foot on its chest to pull the arm out, but that gives it an opportunity to swipe at xer leg and hurt xer own knee.
• While Mel staggers away, the golem pulls its arm out of its body and reattaches it, the malleable gold flowing back into place.
• The golem starts to go for its head (or maybe the head crawled back to it, like The Thing). Mel tries to stop it from reattaching but is unsuccessful. Or heck, maybe the golem just picks up the head without reattaching it.
• From its ruby eyes, the gold golem fires a money beam - a green concussive blast that packs the same force as the rubies' worth in a much smaller currency, like gold, bills, or even pennies. The force of the blast beats Mel nearly to death, maybe even knocking xer down.
• The golem reattaches its head, then begins whaling on Mel. As a finishing move, it grabs xer by the antlers, slams xer against a wall, and kicks xer through it, ripping off both antlers in the process.

At the end, they try to load Quincy into a getaway vehicle but he won't do it because of the trauma MC&D put him through. Mel is unconscious and too big for the others to move, but since xe fell outside the building Liv apportates xer out - despite Mel's size and Liv's dwindling EVE after all the sneaking and unlocking. Sunshine then sneaks away invisbly, forcing Sara to escape on Quincy's back. Their destination is a nearby Way leading back to the library, but they'll be hard-pressed to outrun MC&D's security and the cops there. Some did beat them there, maybe some Triumvirate forces. Sara thinks she's doomed, but then she sees that Vivian has placed a bunch of IEDs around the Way. While Sammy wrestles with Vivian to keep her from blowing up the pigs, Sara points out the bombs and bluffs that she's got a detonator, successfully talking her way through the people blocking the door. Vivian and Sammy follow her through right before the Way shuts behind her, trapping the pigs (who don't know the Knock) on the other side.

Sea Sloth

An immense marine sloth. It uses its heavy claws to anchor itself to the seabed and remains asleep most of the time, only waking up occasionally to graze from the kelp that grows in its fur. The Foundation gets worried when it suddenly wakes up and starts swimming toward shore, afraid that it's going to attack a city or something. However, all it does is haul itself out of the water, take a massive stinky dump, then crawl back into the ocean. Sloths go back down to the ground to poop.

The 27 Club

CONTENT WARNING FOR DRUGS AND SUICIDE

Sometime during the events of SCP-6314, Dr. Kothari asks Elroy about the black X tattoos on the backs of his hands. And so the story begins…

Relevant songs:

• Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones (Lou's game is, in fact, puzzling)
• Hotel California - The Eagles ("Remember, Elroy…you can check out any time you like.")
• Heartless World - Teaze (basically Elroy's whole story in this article)
• Rock and Roll Heaven - The Pretty Reckless (it's what would play over the end credits, as Elroy sits by the duck pond and watches the sunrise)
• The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd (one of this place's many names)
• Halloween in Heaven - Type O Negative ("If I had known / how cool death is / I'd have killed myself sooner")
• Rock Soldiers - Ace Frehley ("If the Devil wants to play his card game now…he'll have to play without an Ace in his deck.")
• American Pie - Don McLean (The guys from the Day the Music Died are here, and there are "Hell's Angels" working as security, just like Altamont.)
• Hey Hey, My My (Out of the Blue)/My My, Hey Hey (Into the Black) - Neil Young ("It's better to burn out than than to fade away")
• Me and the Devil Blues - Robert Johnson
• That Smell - Lynyrd Skynyrd (this plays this during Elroy's vision)

https://openverse.org/image/9ca13cc4-737e-46d8-a96b-49ece1546fec

https://openverse.org/image/e8715b8a-cbad-48c6-af7f-e80d6158d844

Item #: SCP-8027

Special Containment Procedures: Any individuals who emerge from SCP-8027-1 are to be detained and questioned. Individuals who do not choose to re-enter SCP-8027-1 are to be amnestized, given a plausible cover story, and released. If the subject has been inside SCP-8027-1 long enough for their lack of aging to become noticeable, they are to be offered repatriation to a Free Port of their choice instead.

Description: SCP-8027 is a marble bust of musician Jim Morrison, created by sculptor Mladen Mikulin in 1981 to mark the singer's grave. If an individual places their hand on the bust and recites the words "██ ████ █████" three times, they will be transported to a Valhalla-class afterlife⁴ classified as SCP-8027-A.

SCP-8027-A's landscape is a temperate, rocky desert. Mountains are visible on the horizon in all directions but cannot be reached. It is always night. The full moon and stars do not move; their positions indicate a local time of midnight and a latitude of 33°43′44″N, respectively. The weather remains at a constant 70 degrees, with no wind, clouds, or precipitation.

The only permanent structure within SCP-8027-A is a large bar, restaurant, hotel, and music venue known as "The 27 Club," according to a large illuminated sign on its exterior. The cosmetic features and architectural style of the structure vary over time, but its name, floor plan, and purpose remain constant. Subjects arriving via SCP-8027 appear beside an identical object located in front of the Club's main entrance.

SCP-8027-A is inhabited by approximately 500 living humans and exactly 27 deceased musicians.

---

Elroy fled here for the same reasons I wanted to get away.

• He let what he sees as the ideal partner get away and can't get over it.
• He botched his grad school process early on and can't get enough of a loan to cover everything.
• He's jealous and just generally sick of his old friends and can't find any new ones.
• He doesn't have any job prospects or meaningful experience.
• He craves debauchery but fears Hell.

The 27 Club was an opportunity to live forever without responsibility or consequences. Who could turn that down?

What finally convinces Elroy to leave?

• His sister shows up and yells at him. His disappearance destroyed their family. He gets mad at her, too, and they say horrible things to each other. The confrontation makes Elroy burrow deeper into his hole.
• After Katie's anger subsides, she threatens to quit if the Foundation doesn't use some of its infinite resources to save her brother. This gets the attention of the Fire Suppression Department, which chooses to manipulate Elroy back into the fold by threatening Katie indirectly instead of using their normal methods to bring her in line. Two for the price of one, right?
• Elroy wises up and willingly submits to Foundation-sponsored rehab, which involves brutal application of memetics and, when that fails, a trip to SCP-666 and a final confrontation with Lou. It's implied that Lou is also the entity, or one of the entities, associated with the Spirit Lodges.

---

[as he's leaving]

Oh, Elroy!

What?

You know, you can check out any time you like.

Yeah, I know.

Then you know the rest.

[he doesn't respond, but leaves. Lou grins.]

---

content warning for drugs and suicide

In the final confrontation, Lou roasts Elroy and encourages him to shoot up for the last time. He'll never be clean. His family hates him, will hate him forever. He'll just be a burden for everyone in whatever remains of his life. Why not go out like this, in his favorite place with the highest high of his life, instead of trudging along in useless misery for another wasted decade. After all, isn't it better to burn out than fade away? He's going to Hell anyway.

Tearfully, Elroy picks up the syringe. He's really about to do it.

He feels a hand on his shoulder. He and Lou are equally surprised; no one else should be able to interact with him in the vision, and it certainly shouldn't be Kurt Cobain. Everyone knows he's in the 27 club, but nobody's ever seen him because he refuses to perform. He still doesn't have much to say; he just gives Elroy the most haunting look imaginable and says, firmly but quietly, "don't". Elroy doesn't know what to say, so Kurt repeats himself. Shocked back to lucidity, Elroy tosses the syringe away and it rolls off the counter, shattering at Lou's feet. Kurt proudly squeezes Elroy's shoulder, then vanishes into the crowd - but not before flipping Lou the bird.

"You're supposed to do it on your own," Lou growls.

"No," Elroy says, standing up unsteadily. "I don't think you are."

There needs to be another badass exchange at the end like the Hotel California one in the earlier scene, but this time Elroy has a comeback. Something like

If the Devil wants to play his card game now…he'll have to play without an Ace in his deck!

There are only 27 musicians on the club's official roster at one time; as new ones are added, old ones are sent…elsewhere. Robert Johnson is the first and oldest member, and he's the only one that can absolutely never leave, because it was his pact with Lou that holds the entire club together. The story happens sometime around 2009 or 2010 (Elroy was assigned to 058 after the Drooling Path), so nobody who died after that would be present. Lou can only pick from blues, rock and metal musicians who "burned out" instead of "fading away". The exact meaning of that requirement is kept vague, but most club members died young and of unnatural causes. Pigpen was young when he died, but despite his alcoholism it was an unrelated autoimmune disease that got him.

Member	Band	Instrument	Cause of Death	Year of Death	Notes
Robert Johnson		guitar, vocals	poison	1938	He only performs once a year, on the anniversary of his bargain.
Buddy Holly		guitar, vocals	plane crash	1959
Ritchie Valens		guitar, vocals	plane crash	1959
"The Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson		guitar, vocals	plane crash	1959
Paul McCartney	The Beatles	bass, vocals	car accident	1969	Paul is dead! He has forgiven John for replacing him and they are friends again.
Brian Jones	The Rolling Stones	various	drowning	1969
Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson	Canned Heat	guitar, vocals	overdose	1970
Jimi Hendrix		guitar, vocals	overdose	1970
Janis Joplin		guitar, vocals	overdose	1970
Duane Allman	The Allman Brothers Band	guitar, slide guitar, dobro	motorcycle crash	1971
Gram Parsons	The Byrds	various	overdose	1973
Ronnie Van Zant	Lynyrd Skynyrd	vocals	plane crash	1977
Steve Gaines	Lynyrd Skynyrd	guitar	plane crash	1977
Keith Moon	The Who	drums	overdose	1978
Sid Vicious	Sex Pistols	bass	overdose	1979
Bon Scott	AC/DC	vocals	alcohol	1980
John Lennon	The Beatles	guitar, vocals	murder	1980
John Bonham	Led Zeppelin	drums	alcohol	1980
Randy Rhoads	Ozzy Osbourne	guitar	plane/bush crash	1982
Cliff Burton	Metallica	bass	fell out of a moving tour bus	1986
Stevie Ray Vaughan		guitar, vocals	helicopter crash	1990
Freddie Mercury	Queen	vocals, piano	AIDS	1991
Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin)	Mayhem	vocals	suicide	1991	Doesn't perform. He scared the hell out of the crowd back in '91 - supposedly, even Lou was freaked out - until he wandered off into the night and reportedly buried himself alive.
Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth)	Mayhem	guitar	murder	1993	Doesn't perform. See notes.
Kurt Cobain	Nirvana	guitar, vocals	suicide	1994	Everyone knows he's here, but he refuses to perform. It's not clear if Lou is unable to force him or simply chooses not to.
Layne Staley	Alice in Chains	guitar, vocals	overdose	2002
Dimebag Darrell	Pantera	guitar	murder	2004

Blues

• Robert Johnson
• Stevie Ray Vaughan

Rock 'n' Roll

• Buddy Holly
• Valens
• Big Bopper

Metal (as defined by Dee Snider)

• Cliff Burton
• Randy Rhoads
• Bon Scott
• Dimebag Darrel

Folk Rock

• Blind Owl
• Gram Parsons

Southern Rock

• Duane Allman
• Steve Gaines
• Ronnie Van Zant

Grunge

• Kurt Cobain
• Layne Staley

Extreme Metal

• Dead
• Euronymous

60s Psychedelic

• Jimi
• Janis
• Morrison
• Lennon
• McCartney

Classic Rock

• Brian Jones
• Keith Moon
• John Bonham
• Freddie Mercury

Punk

• Sid Vicious

Other notes:

• Jim Morrison performs with the band, though he's not an official member because he crossed over while alive.
• Elvis Presley is conspicuously absent. It's a sore subject with Lou.
• People have been reporting Syd Barrett sightings since 2006, but Lou insists that all such incidents are hallucinations. He certainly never performs, nor does he seem to fit the "burned out" criterion.
• Jean-Michel Basquiat (overdose, '88) was here once, and some posthumous paintings of his still decorate the walls, but he has since been dismissed.
• Many people claim that Nikki Sixx performed a single song ("Shout at the Devil," of course) in 1987, during the two minutes or so that he was dead.
• Lemmy supposedly died on two previous occasions but managed to come back to life each time by simply kicking Lou's ass.
• There's a solid gold fiddle on the wall behind the bar. When asked about it, Lou just smiles.
• Rick Allen's left arm (Def Leppard, drums, car crash, '83) waits sadly at the bar for the rest of him to show up.
• Security is provided by "Hell's Angels." They wield burning chains and switchblades of fire, and there's a red glow behind their sunglasses. They usually only intervene if the patrons start rioting or trying to reach the stage. Offenders that refuse to back down are beaten to death and thrown in the "drunk tank" until they revive the following "morning". If they have to do this to you a second time, you're given the option to leave now or behave for the rest of your stay. If it happens a third time, they don't put your body in the drunk tank; they haul you outside and leave you for the kvlt.
• Lou is the bartender, but he's also the manager and owner.
• The bar serves every drug known to man in addition to every imaginable variation of alcohol. The bar snacks aren't very good, but nothing costs any money.
• The roadies, kitchen staff, and other non-musical Club employees are lesser-known musicians who died tragically before they ever became famous. Lou doesn't allow them to perform, and they're discouraged from talking.
• Aside from the Hell's Angels necessary to maintain order, there aren't any overtly demonic things about the place. Lou prefers "organic" sin that the humans come up with themselves over direct temptation.
• Lou himself is a handsome, immaculately dressed black man with a vaguely Southern accent. Only the occasional faint whiff of brimstone suggests that there's anything devilish about him. This is the shape he wore when he appeared to Robert Johnson, and he's grown quite comfortable in it.
• After the disaster that Dead was, Lou can't have these black metal psychos stinking up his club. Instead, he ordered his loyal slave Euronymous - and any other idiots who show up dressed like him - to go dig up Dead and brutalize anybody else they see wandering around out there. If they can find Dead, Lou will gladly send them all to Hell like they've always wanted. Lou is still very confused by these guys, but they've got the spirit. Besides, it helps his main temptation racket if everybody else is too afraid of the murderous metal maniacs to go outside. Lou is still waiting for Varg to show up so he can sic them on each other; maybe then he'll finally convert the place into a metal venue, since that's what the disaffected youth is into these days.
• Nobody really knows what the Kvlt does to the people it catches. No one has ever come back from their clutches.

The Foundation contains Jim Morrison's gravestone bust, but it's not the only object that can break you on through to the other side. Ways between the mortal world and the 27 Club can be found at all the semi-mythical locations of rock 'n' roll history - places like the three memorials to the Day the Music Died, the original sites of the Woodstock and Altamont festivals, a back room at the Whiskey a Go Go, Graceland (even though Elvis isn't dead), the graveyard by Abbey Road, and the infamous Clarksdale crossroads. The Knock is usually a lyric from one of the artists associated with the location.

Quote for the author post:

I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don't appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison — it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive — Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They're saying John Wayne conquered cancer — he whipped it like a man. You know, I'm sorry that he died and all that — I'm sorry for his family — but he didn't whip cancer. It whipped him. I don't want Sean worshiping John Wayne or Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it's garbage you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn't he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I'll take the living and the healthy.

- John Lennon

The Curse of Mt. Abraxas

2014

Five people sat in a freezer and shivered. This is, generally speaking, not unusual for people who've been locked in a freezer, especially not when said people are dripping wet. The hypothermia-enhancing properties of the water now solidifying on their clothes had escaped these five people until very recently because they been too busy escaping something else. Hypothermia was, in fact, only about the third problem that the water had caused them in the last fifteen or so minutes. The second problem had been the way it coated the fronts of their hastily-donned hazmat suits, clouding their visibility almost as much as the thick clouds of oily black smoke they'd donned those suits to block out. The first problem, of course, was the water's failure to put out the spreading oil fire that had given rise to all that smoke in the first place. Armed Bio-Containment Area-14's sprinklers had not been built with a potentially infinite pool of burning oil in mind. That was fair, though; there was probably only one room on the planet that had been built for that contingency, and it had been destroyed by a catastrophic gas explosion at the very beginning of this whole debacle. Then all that oil had flooded right out of the demolished door, caught fire of its own accord, and sent everyone scrabbling for safety. The folks in the freezer were the only ones who'd found it. Everyone else had (if they were lucky) been burned to death by the rapidly expanding pool of fire, (if they weren't) inhaled aerosolized droplets of the stuff and died in horrible agony as all their body fluids turned to oil, or (in one especially unfortunate bastard's case) been dragged into the fire by a translucent orange tentacle that Researcher Steve Lindell - a recent transfer from Site-43 - insisted on calling "Verne".

Of course, "safety" was a relative term. Compared to the burning lake, toxic cloud, and falling oxygen level outside, the freezer was positively cozy. But compared to anyplace that wasn't filled to the brim with live samples of all the most horrible diseases known to man, the freezer was…well, it was filled to the brim with live samples of all the most horrible diseases known to man. And a few that aren't, for that matter.

Dr. Christopher Zartion was looking up at one of those samples now, or at least the tightly locked metal drawer that held it. It was labeled "SCP-016," and Zartion wasn't sure if he should be glad that he didn't know what that was.

"How long are we gonna be stuck in here?" Steve asked, voice muffled by his suit.

No one answered. No one needed to. If the rescue team even knew where they were - unlikely, since all the communication devices in the facility were still blaring "War Pigs" at top volume - it would take hours to drain the oil that'd already flooded the whole section an inch deep, and SCP-2068 was still pumping out more. The fact that the oil had even made its way out of the containment chamber in the first place meant that the drains in there weren't working, so it was entirely possible that Nu-7 or the Maz Hatters would have to get after it with some heavy-duty vacuum cleaners.

Maybe it was a good thing after all that so few people had made it into the freezer. It'd make their air last longer.

Steve sighed. "You know, when they told me this joint was cursed, I didn't believe it."

"Well, that was your first mistake," Zartion snapped. "Don't you know how we got this place, back in-"

---

1979

The ogre grinned. With one fat hand, he used a rib to pick the shreds of an MTF uniform out of his teeth. They did not part when he spoke.

"So," he growled, "you think the seventh time will be the charm?"

Dr. Leonard Byrne of the Mythology and Folkloristics Department returned the ogre's grin. "Actually, I'd like to accept your challenge."

The ogre chuckled. "That'll be more fun for me, but I hope you don't expect it to work any better than your delicious friends' bullets." The remains of said friends (well, coworkers) were strewn all across the rocky slope of Mount Abraxas. Here was an arm, there a leg, over that way a body that'd been squashed flat in a way that, going by the stains on the ogre's rear, had been quite demeaning. There weren't any heads left, though; they'd all gone in the ogre's belly. The look in his piggy little eyes said he still wasn't full.

"Well," Leonard said, "let's get on with it."

The ogre's bloodstained teeth parted long enough to admit the rib, which disappeared with an unsettling crunch. He clapped his enormous hands, sending echoes all down into Sky Valley. Rubbing them deviously together, he posed his question.

"How many men can I eat on an empty stomach?"

Leonard knew the answer immediately, but he humored the brute by counting the various half-eaten bodies strewn across the mountainside. It would've been quite hard to estimate how many entire bodies could fit in the ogre's belly, especially if it was bigger on the inside, but that wasn't really the question.

"One," Leonard said, confidently. "After that, your stomach's not empty anymore."

The ogre's eyes widened in surprise. "My! You're cleverer than you seem."

"I get that a lot."

He chuckled. "So, you have won my little game. Your prize is your life. Don't waste it." With one bulging arm, the ogre gestured back down the road.

"Actually," Leonard replied with a smirk, "now that my safety is secured, I've got a challenge for you."

The ogre blinked. "A challenge?"

"That's right! I've got some riddles of my own."

Slowly, the ogre's surprised expression became crafty. "That wasn't the only one I had either."

"Of course not."

"And what, dear delicious doctor, will be the stakes of this rematch?"

Casually, Leonard shrugged. "Simple. If I stump you, you'll become my prisoner, and I'll take your lair for my own."

The ogre scowled. He didn't believe for a second he could be trounced at his own game, but this squishy little Irishman seemed to think so, and that irked him. "And if you are the one who's stumped, you'll be my supper. Feet first."

Leonard looked down at his boots and wiggled the toes inside them. "Yeah, you're on."

At that, the battle began. Thirty white horses on a red hill. A building where blind men learned to see. Nails in my belly, trees on my back. Seven sacks of seven cats. Man, with his varying number of legs. A box unwanted by its builder. Four wheels and flies. And so on, and so on.

As the sun sank behind the Ruby Mountains, Leonard leaned back on his palms, legs outstretched before him. He'd removed his boots and was now idly wiggling his toes to taunt the hungry ogre.

Unlike his opponent, the ogre was not calm. His fists - each larger than Leonard's head - kept clenching and unclenching in anticipation of the dismembering to come. That dismembering was seeming increasingly unlikely, though; by all accounts, the ogre had run out of riddles. He didn't know how anyone such a small fraction of his own age could've amassed such a vast storehouse of puns, puzzles, and perplexities, much less the quick wits to solve his own.

"Stuck?" the insolent doctor taunted, still wearing that self-important smirk.

"No," the ogre grumbled, clenching his mighty jaws so tightly in his frustration that little rivulets of blood began to well up between his teeth. "Just deciding which one to use." This was a bald-faced lie; the ogre had exhausted his whole repertoire. He kept running back over his many centuries of memories, hoping to remember some truly unsolvable conundrum that'd escaped him until now, but could draw only blanks. Leonard had even known the cheater-riddles that were only solvable in context, like the one about the bees in the lion skull and the other one with the witches and the horse and the raven and the soup and the robbers-

Wait. Cheating. But how? He couldn't just pull any random question out of the blue. He'd let himself use the bees and the raven because those were at least well-known, but he couldn't just make up something that was literally unsolvable. That'd be unfair, and he'd be forced to forfeit the game if Leonard called him out on it, which he surely would. Of course, he could pick something that was - theoretically - solvable from the present context. After all, the precedent of the game had been set by Samson and the fellow with the poisoned soup. Surely such a master of riddles as Leonard couldn't argue with Samson. Or, in this case, with Rumplestiltskin.

Slowly, the ogre's scowl twisted back into a confident smile.

"Here," he boomed, "is my riddle: What is my name?"

Much to the ogre's delight, Leonard seemed surprised. "Hey, that's-"

"Nuh uh," the ogre said, wiggling a thick finger, "Rumplestiltskin."

Leonard scowled. He was right. The precedent was there.

The ogre smugly crossed his tree-trunk arms. Suppertime.

Name, name, name…well, the ogre's accent was clearly French, but that didn't rule out nonsensical fantasy-creature names like "Rumplestilkskin." Maybe there'd been clues? Leonard thought over the answers to the previous riddles. Maybe they formed an acrostic? Maybe an anagram of one? No, that didn't make sense. The ogre had clearly come up with this on the fly, he couldn't have planned that. And why would he? Leonard eyed the brute's scarred skin. Maybe there was a brand or a tattoo hidden somewhere among the scars, burns, and broken-off sword blades? None presented itself, though. Even if there had been something there, the ogre surely would've covered it with part of the mountain lion hide wrapped around his waist. Leonard doubted the ogre would give him a chance to check for branded buttocks. He scanned the nearby slopes, looking for helpful little animals that might've overheard the ogre's name, but there didn't seem to be much wildlife to go around up on the bare, rocky slope.

With a creeping horror, Leonard realized that he might just be forced to make a flat guess. Those were horrible, horrible odds. He could try to run, he supposed, but that'd be a forfeit, and he didn't think he'd be outrunning the ogre's thickly muscled legs today.

Angrily, Leonard climbed to his bare feet and began to pace. He had to think of something. Anything. Maybe the name was a pun. A play on words. A rhyme. It wasn't uncommon for fairy tale creatures to have descriptive names. The Big Bad Ogre? Jolly-Jaws-Jack (well, Jacque)? Bigtooth Baptiste? Ravenous, Riddling, Repugnant Roland?

"Any guesses?" the ogre taunted, grinding his huge teeth from side to side in anticipation. Leonard, for the first time, was now seriously considering the possibility that those ivory slabs might be the last thing he ever saw.

While staring into the maw of his impending demise, Leonard realized that, during the entire time they'd been talking, the ogre had only parted his bone-crunching jaws once. That was odd. Come to think of it, that was the only thing about this riddling ogre that distinguished him from any other storybook threshold-guarding giant. Interesting.

"Can I have a hint?" he asked.

The ogre chortled in response, longer and louder than was really necessary. When the echoes of his great guffaws had finally run off down the mountainside, he treated Leonard to a flat, snappy "no".

"Well, that seems a little unfair, don't you think?"

"I told you, Rumple-"

"No, not that." Leonard gestured at the mangled remains of the Task Force, which by now had attracted quite a lot of flies. "These men here, did they even try to answer your first riddle?"

The ogre snorted derisively. "As a matter of fact, they did not. I found it rather rude, to tell the truth."

"Perhaps. But consider this: those men didn't use their guesses."

"What?"

"Well, I'm just thinking that since you ate these fellows before they tried to answer, that's a little unfair."

"They attacked me!"

"Oh, come now, you weren't in danger. That sword there has been in your skin since…what, the twelfth century?"

"Thirteenth," he muttered, adjusting his puma-pelt to cover the rusted blade.

"Regardless, my point still stands. You denied these gentlemen their guesses earlier, and I think that, as a friend of theirs, I should be entitled to those guesses as compensation for your bad manners."

"Bad manners!?" he shouted.

"That's what I said. You've been a very ungracious host."

"Why, I never!"

Leonard shook his head in disappointment. "Yes, yes, very unbecoming behavior. Recompense is certainly in order."

"No!" the ogre cried, stomping his strangely dainty feet in childish frustration. "Absolutely not! No more guesses! That's not how the game works!"

Leonard rolled his eyes and threw up his hands in mock surrender. "Fine, fine. I'll settle for a compromise."

"Compromise?" he replied, raising one bushy eyebrow.

"Yes. Instead of extra guesses, I'll take extra questions."

"Huh?"

"Have you ever heard of a game called twenty questions?"

"Twenty?! I only killed six!"

"Of course, of course. I would never ask more than that. And, in fact, that is what I ask: six questions, from me to you, answered truthfully."

"Hmm…" thoughtfully, he stroked his chin. "Don't think I don't know what you're up to. You can't just ask me what my name is."

"Of course not! That'd be ridiculous."

"Humph. Fine." For emphasis, the ogre held up six of his sausage-like fingers.

"Excellent! Now, where to begin…ah! First question: where are you from?"

"Portugal."

That seemed unlikely.

"How did you get to America?"

"Jumped."

"What?" Leonard blurted.

Gleefully, the ogre lowered another finger. Leonard kicked himself.

"I jumped. With a running start, of course."

"Of course."

Leonard made sure to think carefully this time, lest he waste another question. The ogre was obviously lying to him. The mockery was rather insulting, but it might be the opening Leonard needed.

"Why are you lying to me?"

The ogre chuckled softly. "I only lie when it's through my teeth! Hahahaha!" Leonard could tell from the ogre's delivery that he'd been waiting to use that line for a long time. He tried not to show it, but Leonard was almost as happy about it as the ogre. This was the key to whole thing. The fairy-tale creature's fairy-tale weakness.

"Alright, next-to-last question: aren't you getting hungry?"

The ogre tilted his pointed head. "What?"

"Well, we've been up here all evening. I wondered if you might be feeling a bit peckish. It's been quite a while since you ate my friends' heads, after all, and I doubt that their brains were very nutritious."

"I'm fine," the ogre claimed. A monstrous growl from his stomach disagreed.

"I won't mind if you have a snack."

"I'm going to eat you, if you ever stop talking!"

"Ha! That could be quite a while yet. I'm not done thinking."

"Hey, that's stalling!"

"I don't remember agreeing to any time limits, do you?"

The ogre grumbled under his breath, but he let it slide.

"Oh, that reminds me" Leonard said, suddenly patting his jacket pocket. "I think I might have an extra sandwich."

"I don't want it." Once again, the ogre's stomach betrayed him.

"It's peanut butter."

"I don't like peanut butter."

"Suit yourself." Leonard reached into his pocket and produced what was indeed a peanut butter sandwich, wrapped in wax paper. He made sure to eat it as slowly as possible.

"Mmm," he said, patting his belly. "I love me some peanut butter."

The ogre placed a hand over his stomach, but it wasn't enough to muffle the rumbling. He must have been lying about not liking peanut butter, too.

"Say, can I-"

"Hmm?" Leonard said, stuffing the last bit of sandwich into his mouth.

"Oh…never mind." Frustrated, the ogre reached down and grabbed the nearest body. With a sickening pop, he wrenched off one of its arms and stuffed it into his guillotine of a mouth. He started chewing, and Leonard saw his chance.

"Last question!" he said, quickly. "What's your name?"

"Fernand," said Fernand, still chewing. Fernand immediately clamped both meaty hands over his mouth, but the secret had already escaped.

"Aha!" cried Leonard, triumphantly. "And now, foul ogre, I name thee Fernand!"

"ARGH!" he roared, spewing chewed-up meat and bone shards as he talked, "THAT'S CHEATING! You said you wouldn't ask my name!"

"And you said you'd answer truthfully," Leonard argued, pointing one accusing finger. "Did you really expect me to believe that you jumped here from Portugal? You cheated, so I cheated, and that made us even. Then I answered your riddle correctly and won the game."

"No, that's…that isn't…NO! GRAH! ARGH!" Still howling in impotent rage, the ogre kicked the nearest corpse and sent it bouncing down the mountain. It rolled right past Leonard, but he wasn't worried. Now that he'd been beaten fair and square, Fernand could no more hurt him than a vampire could enter a house uninvited. He still waited for Fernand to finish his little tantrum, though. It would've been rude to interrupt.

"So," Leonard said, stepping boldly toward the blood-soaked, out-of-breath ogre. "Why don't you take me on a tour of my new lair?"

Fernand grumbled all the way, but he complied. The facility's entrance was a yawning, suspiciously rectangular hole in the mountainside. A rusted metal door still hung open and crooked in the cracked concrete frame. As Leonard stepped inside, he saw the setting sun glint off a metallic plaque. It read "American Secure Containment Initiative Facility-14, established…"

---

1870

The only sound in the valley was the slow, muted thump of hooves on dirt. Captain Jedediah Shaw of the American Secure Containment Initiative found the silence unnerving. A mining camp should not be quiet. Then Sky Valley came into view, and it all became very clear.

The mining camp was gone. Not vanished; destroyed. The ramshackle buildings had all been toppled or smashed. Some bore scorch marks, though the flames had long gone out. And even from the pass he could see the red splotches on the dusty ground, and the buzzards that huddled around them.

Clarence "The Kid" Dawson rode up beside his captain and halted. "Guess we're too late," he observed, uselessly. He was in the habit of uselessness.

Shaw didn't reply. He just drew a pistol and spurred his horse on down the mountain. His three troops followed. After Dawson came miss Liz Green, the squad's medic. Before the ASCI employed her, she'd been either a traveling frontier doctor or a livestock veterinarian, depending on who asked. The rear was brought up by Amos Bridge, a bulky frontiersman who'd first crossed the Mississippi sometime before the War Between the States. He didn't talk too much about his past - or anything, really - but he was a crack shot with his old hunting rifle, and that was all Shaw needed to know.

The sorry state of the camp wasn't unexpected. Shaw's band was only here because the first group to arrive had called for backup, saying something about a "were-odactyl". Then, three nights ago, they'd failed to radio in with an update. Shaw wished that he could've gotten there sooner, but the backward excuse for a listening post back in Elko hadn't even bothered to inform him that people were dying until his team got back from their previous mission. Now, it looked like everybody was dead.

As they reached the camp, though, things got a little less clear. There was blood, sure, but there didn't seem to be any bodies. Even the buzzards looked confused.

"There's no bodies," Dawson said, in case anyone had forgotten to pack their eyes.

"Not yet," Amos said, grimly. Dawson looked nervously at him, unsure if that was a warning or threat, and decided to shut up just in case.

"Alright, folks," Shaw said, pulling his steed to a halt. "Spread out. See what you can find."

Wordlessly, the team followed suit. The camp was small; counting the miners and whoever else they'd dragged up here, it might've housed fifty at most. Almost all of the buildings had been ramshackle houses; with a population that small, there wouldn't have been much point in setting up a proper saloon or general store.

The search didn't take long. When the team regrouped beside their horses, each member had a new observation to share.

"There's bullet holes in some o' the boards," Shaw said. "Our guys, and probably some o' the locals, put up a fight against whatever it was."

"Ain't no footprints," Amos grunted. To clarify, he pointed at the trail leading back up the mountain. The only tracks on it were their horses'.

"But there is a blood trail," Liz added. And so there was; a wide line of countless irregular splotches and splashes, tracing its way up the mountainside toward the mine. "Looks like it fell from pretty high."

Shaw looked up at the mine's gaping, darkened maw. So that's where the were-odactyls had gone. The bodies, too.

The others looked over at Dawson, but he seemed more interested in tracing dirt circles with his boot. Useless.

"Well," Shaw said, unhappily, "I reckon we better get up there."

"In the mine?" Liz asked, grimacing. "We'll go deaf, shootin' in there."

"Stuff yer ears, then. There ain't no space to fly in there, if they even can while the sun's up. Best hit 'em now, while they're boxed in."

Five minutes later, the four of them dismounted outside the mine. Taking Shaw's suggestion, Liz had fixed up some impromptu earplugs for the group. Shaw refused his; their guns couldn't do anything to his ears that the ones at Gettysburg hadn't already.

Under normal circumstances, Amos would've taken the lead. His beady eyes were the sharpest and, somehow, his massive feet were the quietest. Underground, though, both sight and stealth would be limited by lantern light. Shaw went first instead, hoping his lightning reflexes would be enough to put some silver through anything that jumped out. Amos and Liz came behind, rifle and shotgun ready to perforate anything that Shaw missed. Dawson brought up the rear, for his own protection as much as anybody else's, and held the lantern. The kid protested - he wanted to be up front, where the action was - and Shaw credited him for bravery if nothing else.

They had just begun their descent when Dawson spoke up.

"Something's not right here," he said, contemplatively.

"No shit?" Shaw snapped. He'd just about had enough of Captain Obvious back there.

"The rocks are too old."

That was a weird thing to say, Even for Dawson. Shaw didn't turn around - that would've put his back to the dark and whatever might be in it - but he did bring the group to a stop.

"What?"

"These rocks," Dawson continued, "they're from the Cambrian Period."

"English, son."

"They're 500 million years old!" he said, with mixed wonder and impatience. "But pterodactyls, those only came around maybe 200 million years ago."

"So?"

"So there shouldn't be any in these rocks, live, dead, or fossilized! I don't see how the miners could've found one. That'd be like finding a human fossil next to a dinosaur."

"Huh," Liz said, perplexed.

"Cave," Amos answered, simply.

"What?" Dawson asked.

"Cave. Dinosaur went in. Roof collapsed. Got buried."

"Eh…" Dawson admitted, uncertainly. "Maybe?"

Shaw sighed. "Is anything you just said gonna make them things easier to shoot?"

"Um. No?"

"Then you shouldn't o' said it. Now keep yer trap shut, we don't want the damn things hearin' us."

"Yes sir," he grumbled.

---

125,829,120 B.C.

Secure Compound-14 had fallen. The exact chain of events that led to the breach was not clear, and probably never would be, at least not to Scholar Ghost Sound of Glittering Falls, not if the sounds in the hallway were any indication. Sounds like automatic gunfire,

---

2021

682, which now finds itself back in Area-14. Some things never change.

Stone Cold Pyre

Initially formed from the Department of Musicals to deal with a specific musical anomaly like the one you mentioned, the task force persisted afterwards, initially for the purpose of similar missions but later because the Foundation found their profits to be a useful source of funding.

Their self titled debut met lukewarm reception despite the band’s talent and excellent production, as its lyrics and overall sound were uninspired and formulaic (as a result of the Foundation’s meddling, in a failed attempt to ensure commercial success).

However, much insistence from the Department of Musicals persuaded the higher-ups to give the band a little more creative freedom on the second album. That’s why, on Sudden Change of Pace, they wrote what they knew and sung obliquely about real SCP objects under the guise of fiction.

At the same time, SCP replaced their original rock singer with one who had a more operatic style, beginning a shift away from mainstream rock and towards a more symphonic metal sound that would eventually become their signature sub-sub-sub-genre of “Containment Metal”.

The third album continued this trend, and even featured some small contributions from actual objects - samples of 058 on the stoner-doom track “The Drooling Path,” and an earth-shaking vocal bass solo from a mysterious guest vocalist credited only as “Fernand I of France”.

But then, while the band was on tour, the Veil was lifted.

Stone Cold Pyre was swept up in the public backlash against the newly-revealed Foundation, forcing them into seclusion until the Second War of the Flesh subsided.

The resulting tensions and bureaucratic reorganizations made things difficult for the band, but out of adversity came art - an album called “Exposed”. Its humorous cover, depicting the nude band members covered only by their instruments, belied its serious subject matter, which dealt with the confusing feelings of the post veil world.

Exposed redeemed Pyre in the eyes of the public and proved to be the most successful release of their career, largely because it was their most honest work by far, freed from the constraints of secrecy.

It seemed that Stone Cold Pyre was destined for greatness…but then came the disaster known as There Is No Fifth Album.

No one involved can clearly remember what happened, but the carnage left in its wake and few surviving bootlegs suggest that it was a psychedelic album incorporating fifthist elements, with predictable results.

Unable to remember whose, if anyone’s, idea this was, the band blamed each other, setting off a powderkeg that ended in the lead vocalist leaving the band to start a solo career. Some believe that the Foundation secretly orchestrated her departure to bring the band’s membership from 5 to 4, but the others deny it. What can’t be denied is that the foundation forbid further references to and inclusions of anomalies.

This creative stifling, combined with the lasting tensions and strict contract deadlines, led to a much-panned cover album featuring a variety of guest vocalists, each more enthusiastic than the actual band.

People thought SCP was no more, but they had one last album - perhaps their greatest - left in them.

Fueled by the pain and strife of the last several years, Dust and Blood is Pyre’s darkest, heaviest, and most emotionally raw piece, diving headlong into the death metal genre as the two guitarists - who previously only contributed backing vocals - stepped up to the plate to trade death growls instead. This was a double concept album inspired by the mythology of the Scarlet King. The first recounted the King's rise to power as described in his cult's mythology (Dust and Blood), while the second tells of his foretold defeat (The Real Adventures in Capitalism). Its brutal sound and subject matter ensured that it never went mainstream, but many of Pyre’s fans claim it is a greater work of art than any of their previous releases.

But after that, it became too much. Stone Cold Pyre went their separate ways.

Mourning in America: Prologue

The office that had once belonged to Dr. Conrad Scott was dark and quiet. A weak beam of fluorescent light leaked in through the narrow window in the door, until a broad-shouldered shape blocked it. A key rattled in the door's simple lock. It squeaked slowly open, then closed once again.

In the feeble light, the big man made his way across the cluttered room and found the lamp on what had once been Conrad's desk. Its feeble bulb revealed a mess of papers and pictures, spread out on the desk and sprawling up the wall behind it. The rolling chair sat between them, off-centered and turned to one side. The last person who sat there had stood up in a hurry.

Now, Director Thomas MacLean sat down. From his jacket, he pulled a CD in a transparent case. It fell to the desk with a clatter. Then he turned the chair to face the crazed collage on the wall.

Blurry photos of something big, red, and spiky clustered around the center. A picture of Ronald Reagan, the same one from the Area Dossier, dominated the top right corner. Area-14's insignia, carefully cut from the letterhead of an official memo, dangled precariously from the bottom of the board. A cow, hungry and pitiful, peered out from behind a torn dictionary page, on which the definition of the word "drooling" had been highlighted in lurid yellow. These islands of imagery were surrounded by a sea of snippets, nonsense poetry scribbled onto ragged bits of notebook paper in seven different colors of ink. It was all held together by a veritable forest of pins, and complex, tangled web of colorful string. The underlying corkboard was only visible in one place, a spot right at the center where something had fallen off.

Carefully, MacLean removed a sheet of paper from the manila folder in his left hand. It was still a little warm from the printer. He'd seen most of it before, of course, but a new update had just come in from RAISA analytics:

Addendum:

The SCP-1175 containment team has observed significant agitation in SCP-1175-2 on a number of dates that coincide with prolonged breaches of SCP-058's containment. Additionally, personnel assigned to AI-2471GH2's maintenance have reported inexplicable heart palpitations during similar timeframes. Investigation into possible connections is pending RAISA approval.

MacLean looked back at the board and sighed. He wondered what might have happened if that update had come in a week ago, before the former owner of this office chased a wild goose into destruction. He wondered what might happen now.

SCP-1175 was an iron statue of a bull's head, 60 feet high. Six goat-headed skeletons forged from the same rusted iron defended it from vandals, and fed the bodies of those they killed to the statue like a gruesome sacrifice. AI-2471GH2 was a machine - a grinding, hungry machine - that someone had named "MOLOCH". Moloch, the god of human sacrifice. Moloch, in whose name babies burned. Moloch, whose face Allen Ginsburg had seen in the facade of a grand hotel, and whose name he given to the grinding hunger of greed and industry in a poem just barely more coherent than SCP-058.

Moloch, with the head of a bull. Moloch, with a sacrificial oven for a heart. A heart that devoured lives and innocence. A heart of darkness.

MacLean stood up. He placed the updated document over the empty space, between the cow and the former president, and pinned down the corners. Then, turning slightly, MacLean let his eyes fall back on the desk. Conrad's name plate was still on it, half-obscured by a loose paper.

As harsh as it might've sounded, MacLean really did believe what he'd told the young James Talloran earlier that day. Conrad Scott was one of the most miserable people he'd ever met, and that was saying something for Area-14. He'd always been too wrapped up in his fruitless research, too utterly lost in the sauce, to care about anything else, even his own safety. MacLean hoped that, when or if SCP-3008 finished him off, Conrad would go out thinking his death had meant something.

No, that wasn't quite right. MacLean hoped he could make it mean something.

Idly, he picked up the paper draped over the nameplate. The header read "Security footage, Heavy Containment Zone, 11/13/1992." He didn't need to read the rest, because he still remembered that unlucky Friday. How could he forget the sight of 058 tearing through 14 of his soldiers like tissue paper? If he'd wanted to, MacLean could've listed their names, and those of the 43 others that it'd cut up, burned, and eaten over the years. He probably could've drawn their faces.

The transcript crumpled in his hand. Now, yet another soldier had been lost to that thing. To Moloch. And by God, Conrad Scott would be the last.

---

As harsh as it might've sounded, MacLean really did believe what he'd told the young James Talloran earlier that day. Conrad Scott was one of the most miserable people he'd ever met, and there was no shortage of misery at Area-14. 058 had consumed him - albeit a lot less literally than it did most people - a long, long time before he ran off on that fatal vacation. The man wouldn't have ever really rested until he died. MacLean hoped that Conrad had at least gone out knowing that his death mattered.

There'd be no more of this "drooling path" bullshit. The translation project, which had always been a directionless waste of time anyway, would be shuttered for good. Tom would be damned before he let anyone else beat themselves to death on the rocks of 058's nonsense. That was never a thread worth pulling, but Conrad had been too lost in the sauce to see it. It was always a problem with these scientist types; they'd get so wrapped up in their research that they forgot how dangerous it was. A lot of people complained that Tom was too much a stickler for safety procedures, and too willing to pull the trigger or drop the bomb when went something went pear-shaped, but he hadn't led MTF Nu-7 through the Foundation's most grueling battles by being reckless.

Of course, he hadn't done that by being cautious either. It was a thin, dangerous line to walk. More often than not, the Foundation came down on the wrong side of it. They were so reluctant, so incredibly scared of losing one shred of knowledge or power that, even in the face of an incomprehensible abomination like 058 that was damn near impossible to research or contain reliably, they insisted on keeping the damn thing alive. No matter how many sites it destroyed, no matter how many people it killed, SCP-058 was not to be terminated, on the off-chance that it might someday manage to be anything other than a menace.

Thomas MacLean had had enough of that.

notes (not part of the article itself)

The idea I wish to convey here is the two guys' differing approaches to 058. Because he's a scientist, Dr. Scott was too lost in the sauce to realize (or care about) the danger of what he was doing and got himself killed obsessing about nonsense. MacLean, on the other hand, is a man of action who interacts with anomalies primarily via violence. His response to the 058 problem is therefore not to drive himself nuts investigating it, but to blow it the hell up.

Nightmare on 17th Street 2

CuBard's idea:

I imagined the movie would be based on one Halloween night where she manages to escape Clef. The movie would be split into 3 acts where: 1) the kids run from Clef and into the woods, 2) Iris, Meri and Claudia leave a Halloween party to find them & 3) a B-plot where 053 and 682 (the spooky duo) act as observers to the rest of the movie's events

Takes place one or more in-dream years after the first two tales. When Siggy restored the dream, she altered events so that:

• She escaped when Clef tried to stab her. He chased her but was stopped by Mr. Kondraki, who took a knife and died in the process. Clef was arrested and locked up at a local mental hospital.
• Rather than SCP-106, the teens were killed by a crazy old farmer who, the story goes, responded to the trespassing teens and their loud music as if he were still in the trenches. Iris is said to have killed Farmer Larry, but she still remembers what really happened. Iris is something of a pariah among the few surviving members of her class and badly burdened with survivor's guilt. She spent a while in therapy and eventually learned to shut up about her false memories, but she still believes they're real. Iris has covered much of the inside of her room with photos of the deceased. Siggy's parents hate her for almost letting their daughter get killed. Only one person believes Iris's version of events - the police officer who found her at the scene, Officer Harken.
• Siggy has drifted apart from her friends since that night, since their parents don't trust her anymore. Fiona's an amputee and Stella's blind now, but everyone acts like it's always been that way.
• Mr. Clef was eventually identified as one Francis Wojcienchowski, who murdered his wife and child at the House on Montauk Hill several years ago. Apparently he changed his identity somehow…you know, I alluded to scary stories about him way back in the first tale. Maybe he's always been the suspected Montauk Murderer, but there was never any proof. Maybe he's known to be the Montauk Murderer, but he somehow evaded incarceration on a technicality, self-defense, or insanity.

A Plot: Siggy talks her friends into sneaking out and/or gets dared to spend a night at the haunted, long-abandoned House on Montauk Hill. Is it widely known that Clef was also the Montauk Murderer?

B Plot: Iris decides that the only person who might also know the truth is Mr. Clef. She goes to the mental hospital to talk to him, pretending to interview him for the school paper. Clef knows exactly who she is and isn't surprised to see that her memories are still mostly intact. He gives some creepy warnings but eventually scares her off. While at the asylum, Iris bumps into Meri, who either suspects that Clef is her father based on the timing of her adoption (she was found on the doorstep of a church) and the Montauk Murders or knows it for sure, having been informed after the investigation. If this info is publicly known, Meri is probably a pariah too. Her visit upsets Clef in ways he didn't expect, because somehow she's gotten a normal life out of all this. In a fit of reality bending, he busts out of jail that night and - not even looking for Siggy - returns to the House on Montauk Hill.

C Plot: In a flashback, the infant SCP-053 is flung off a bridge by her mother. A huge monster (682, which Siggy can't force out or turn into something less dangerous) finds the child and takes care of her. She's grown up in the woods, but 682 taught her how to speak and she emulates people as best she can. 053 is the reason 682 hasn't gone on a rampage or tried to disrupt the dream.

When Clef escapes the asylum, word is immediately put out (we will not be repeating Halloween (1978) tonight, thank you). Meri beelines for the Montauk House, knowing that's where he'll be, despite the efforts of her adoptive sister Claudia to stop her. Iris, on the other hand, beelines for Siggy's house, only to discover (along with her parents) that Siggy has gone missing.

Clef and the kiddos collide at the House on Montauk Hill. He wasn't originally going to try to kill Siggy again, but he's no longer thinking straight - maybe Siggy subconsciously forces him to attack. After some frightening encounters in the house, they flee into the woods.

Iris, Meri, and Claudia somehow link up and head to the Montauk House, arriving there after the kids escape but before Clef leaves and getting into another conflict with him. This is less of a straight fight and more of the characters trying to remind each other of the real world or something.

In the woods, the girls meet 053. She's been watching them and wants to make friends.

At the end, Clef catches the kids and almost manages to kill Siggy again before 682 lunges in and mortally wounds him. However, Iris has fully regained her memories now and understands what's happening. She leads Siggy back to lucidity and convinces her that this isn't right. Together, and potentially with dying Clef's assistance, they change reality back to the way it was while simultaneously splitting Siggy and those who wanted to go with her off into a fully separate dream world that doesn't involve inadvertent mind control. Several of the characters might prefer a never-ending lucid dream to life in containment.

---

Other characters to include in minor roles:

• Either Adams and Foxx or Beats and Adrian as Iris's parents. If they're not Iris's parents, Adams and Foxx should instead be incompetent police or asylum guards who get killed by Clef
• Cade, his best friend Bes, and a hot girl they're fighting over.
• Liam, Brad, Leif, and Candy, to establish that they survived the previous tale.
• Rainer, Jackie, Leora, Stacey, and Anne, as classmates of Iris who didn't die in the barn collapse and don't like her very much.
• Cameron the Crusader and a few other SCP children, classmates of Siggy who dare or bully her into visiting the House on Montauk Hill.
• Factotum September as the principal of the high school.

2068 outtakes

tab Proposed Revision

Submitted to the office of the O5 Council on September 20th, 2014 by Area Director Commander (ret.) Thomas MacLean.

Proposal: The following shall be appended to SCP-2068's containment procedures:

A portion of SCP-2068's containment budget is to be redirected to non-violent humanitarian efforts in the Middle East, particularly the state of Iraq.

To ensure that the recently-upgraded physical containment measures remain effective, the overall budget should be increased to account for the donations.

Reasoning: SCP-2068's increasing unpredictability and lethality prove that indefinite physical containment is unreliable at best and impossible at worst. From the beginning, the only consistent predictor of SCP-2068's behavior has been violence in Iraq. While I recognize that completely halting the conflict would likely be impossible even without the constraints of the Veil and our various agreements with the relevant GoIs and governments, the Foundation does have enough resources to at least take the edge off the war's humanitarian consequences. Any bloodshed that we prevent over there is bloodshed that we prevent at Area-14. Maybe 2068 will ease up if it sees that we're trying to help. - Thomas MacLean.

Status: DENIED

Further Notes: It is the opinion of the O5 Council that this proposal would be a waste of resources. As admitted by Director MacLean himself, Foundation interference is unlikely to bring about lasting peace in Iraq or, therefore, a cessation of hostilities from SCP-2068.

---

Bush: Every drop of blood must be repaid. It isn't my fault that you put those men in my way.

Hull: Uh, Tom?

[Hull motions for MacLean to lean in. The two of them have a whispered, unrecorded conversation.]

MacLean: Alright George, how much do you know about the Foundation?

[Bush grins.]

Bush: Why?

MacLean: What would you do if the war ended?

[Bush chuckles. The flames covering him rise higher, and the skin of his face begins to melt.]

Bush: I thought you said you weren't American.

MacLean: Would you stop, though? If the war did?

Bush: Would the suffering?

MacLean: I'm sure some humanitarian aid-

[Bush cackles loudly. His melting face reveals dark red skin and black markings underneath.]

Bush: Don't kid me, director. The war pigs that rule your Foundation are just like the ones who birthed me. Why would they help anyone when they could just lock me in this wonderful box? They won't even share their miracle cure with my miserable little translator. No, director, there's no weaseling out of this. The damage has been done. The blood has been shed.

[Bush's eyes burst, revealing tongues of green flame in the empty sockets.]

Bush: And you will be stuck in here with me until there's no one left to burn.

[MacLean stands.]

MacLean: Is this all you called us down here for? Threats and gloating?

Bush: No.

[Wegley cries out in pain and falls from his chair.]

Wegley: GET DOWN! IT'S GONNA-

[Wegley explodes.]

[[tab Emergency Containment Procedures]]

Until SCP-2068's new containment apparatus is completed, Section N2 is off-limits to personnel not specifically cleared for access. All personnel working within Section N2 are to remain equipped with MOPP-4 gear at all times. Personnel assigned to Section N2 are to be placed under temporary quarantine and armed guard in section C2 when not working.

Construction work is to be carried out by D-class personnel, under the direction of Containment Supervisor Dr. Jericho Epstein.

If SCP-2068 activates, all personnel in Section N2 are to immediately evacuate into Section C2. Work crews in Section N2 are to be supervised by armed members of AMTF Nu-7 ("Hammer Down") equipped with natural gas detectors. If an increase in gas levels is detected, Nu-7 supervisors are to burn off the gas with flamethrowers before it reaches explosive concentrations.

Communication between work crews and the rest of the site is to be accomplished with modified Morse code-capable radios with speakers and microphones disabled.

Section C2 is to remain sealed off from the rest of the facility.

Until the pathology of SCP-2068-A is fully understood, no personnel who were within Area-14 on August Xth are allowed to leave.

Instead of simple electronic communication, they should talk to the pump through Micah.

Without the containment breach logs, I need some other way

---

• 1953 Iranian coup - the CIA deposes the democratically elected prime minster of Iran and reinstalls the monarchy
• Iranian Revolution - Islamic fundamentalists overthrow the monarchy
• Iran Hostage Crisis
• Iran-Iraq War - Saddam takes advantage of Iranian chaos to invade. US officially supports Iraq. Iran uses human wave tactics, Iraq uses nerve gas.
• Iran Contra Affair - US sells weapons to Iran, uses the proceeds to fund the Contras in Guatemala
• Gulf War - Iraq invades Kuwait, hoping to restore the massive debt it incurred fighting Iran
• Iraq War I - after 9/11, the Bush administration fabricates evidence that Iraq was responsible and invades. Saddam is deposed but no new government is established.
• Iraq War II - Obama pulls the troops out, ISIS rises. Troops go back in. ISIS falls. Troops gradually start leaving, but the insurgency continues.

The pump isn't really aligned with any particular cause or side. It isn't even properly sentient, not in the same way that we are. Iraqi civilians suffered horrible fates in these wars, and so did Kuwaitis, and Iranians, and Syrians, and the US soldiers themselves.

And people from all sides did horrible things to each other, as is always the case in war, especially one like Iraq.

The pump doesn't understand the complex morality of war; hell, we don't understand that.

All it knows is that politicians hide themselves away, making war just for fun, treating people just like pawns in chess…and it is their judgement day.

Greed, violence, suffering, senseless death and destruction, all the sorrow of those caught in between, all the anger, all the burning thirst for vengeance, for Justice.

Because it's locked up in a bunker under a mountain in Nevada. It can't blow up George Bush from there. but it can definitely blow up somebody, and it can definitely scream every propaganda news broadcast and every anti-war protest song possible over every electronic device in the facility, and maybe that will make some kind of difference.

---

\\Before this demand would be met, Containment Supervisor Dr. Jericho Epstein requested that sentience of SCP-2068 be confirmed by anomalous means. SCP-978 was requisitioned for this purpose.

I am every hostage in a besieged embassy. I am every child martyred in a human wave. I am every breath of nerve gas in a civilian's lungs. I am every missile sold to both sides of a masturbatory proxy war gone wrong. I am every oil well set ablaze by a retreating army. I am every weapon of mass destruction that never existed. I am every lie uttered before Congress and the American people. I am seven billion tax dollars paid directly to the Vice President's oil company. I am every man, woman, and child blown to bits by drone strikes, suicide bombers, and IEDs. I am every black banner that flies above Mosul and every sex slave and severed head beneath it.

Bush: For every coup and puppet ruler. For every hostage and proxy war. For every martyred child and every breath of nerve gas. Every blazing oil well. Every lie on a leader's lips. Every bomb, bullet, and body. For every sex slave. For every severed head. And for *every single blood-soaked dollar.*

Bush: I am every democratic government destroyed by imperial interests. I am every hostage in a besieged embassy. I am every child martyred in a human wave. I am every breath of nerve gas in a civilian's lungs. I am every missile sold to both sides of a masturbatory proxy war gone wrong. I am every oil well set ablaze by a retreating army. I am every weapon of mass destruction that never existed. I am every lie uttered before Congress and the American people. I am seven billion tax dollars paid directly to the Vice President's oil company. I am every man, woman, and child blown to bits by drone strikes, suicide bombers, and IEDs. I am every black banner that flies above Mosul and every sex slave and severed head beneath it.

SCP-978 Extended Test Logs Excerpt

Subject: SCP-2068
Photographed Activity: Sitting motionless in its containment vault.
Photo Result: A desert landscape. Numerous stakes are driven into the ground, stretching to the horizon. A human figure is tied to each stake and apparently burning alive. Two figures, those closest to the camera, could be clearly identified: former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Closer examination has tentatively identified George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, George H. W. Bush, Ruhollah Khomeini, Ronald Reagan, and others.

After confirmation of sentience, a communication attempt was made. Director MacLean

At 14:45, all audio devices in Area-14 began to play Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." All video devices were likewise compromised; they began to display live news coverage of the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State. As such, no security footage or other direct recording of the breach exists. The tentative timeline below has been pieced together mostly from the testimony of the survivors.

• The drains in SCP-2068's containment chamber became clogged with unusually viscous SCP-2068-A similar to tar or asphalt.
• After the conclusion of "War Pigs," all compromised audio equipment vocalized the phrase "Die for oil, sucker."[[footnote]A snippet from Jello Biafra's spoken-word track of the same name.[[/footnote]
• A gas explosion occurred in SCP-2068's chamber, destroying its door. SCP-2068-A of the usual thin consistency began rapidly flooding the rest of section N2. The security system sensed the damage and automatically sealed the section off from the rest of the facility. ██ personnel, including Medical Director Dr. Christopher Zartion, became trapped inside.
• The SCP-2068-A caught fire. The resulting smoke triggered the sprinkler system, which only caused the oil to spread more rapidly.
• ██ personnel were fatally infected with SCP-2068-A by unburned droplets in the smoke before the others managed to don respiratory protective equipment.
• The survivors took shelter in section N2's central freezer. Dr. Zartion has stated that he made this decision because the freezer's reinforced walls, airtight seals, and temperature control would protect them from the fire, smoke, oil, and any further explosions.
• SCP-6643 manifested from the pool of burning oil. It tripped Security Lieutenant Angela Ong, who was subsequently engulfed by the flood and immolated.
• The entirety of section N2 was flooded with burning SCP-2068-A.
• Within the freezer, two vials of SCP-2068-A in cold storage exploded, shattering several other vials of anomalous pathogen samples.
• Janitorial and Maintenance Co-Head Micah Wegley entered the maintenance tunnels below section N2, climbed into the blast furnace, and manually unclogged the drains with a plastic mop handle. He suffered severe burns and SCP-2068-A in the process.
• When the oil began draining from section N2, SCP-2068 deactivated.

AMTF Nu-7's Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear platoon was dispatched from Nu-7's base in nearby Snake Valley to

SCP-2068 is believed to have activated simultaneously with the beginning of the music. It began producing unusually viscous SCP-2068-A, similar to tar or asphalt. The drains in the containment chamber, which had been built for SCP-2068-A of a much thinner consistency, became clogged. It is believed that SCP-2068 also began producing a large amount of natural gas at this time.

Most personnel failed to connect the music with SCP-2068, as they were not aware of its full properties and interference with the intercom system prevent an announcement or warning from being issued. Medical Director Dr. Christopher Zartion realized that a breach was occurring and ran to section N2 to inform the personnel within.

Shortly after the conclusion of "War Pigs," compromised audio equipment vocalized the phrase "Die for oil, sucker."[[footnote]A snippet from Jello Biafra's spoken-word track of the same name.[[/footnote]. A powerful gas explosion then occurred in SCP-2068's containment chamber, destroying the door. Section N2's automatic biohazard security measures sensed the damage and sealed it off from the rest of the facility, trapping ██ personnel, including Dr. Zartion, inside. Compromised audio equipment continued to play various anti-war rock and metal songs for the duration of the breach.

Trapped personnel immediately began fleeing to the checkpoint, where Dr. Zartion and supervising security officer Angela Ong attempted to organize a response. Area Director MacLean arrived at the other side of the checkpoint at this time and began communicating with Zartion and Ong through the glass. They were forced to rely on written communication, due to the thickness of the glass and volume of the music. Director MacLean remained by the checkpoint for the remainder of the breach, relaying information and coordinating the rest of the facility's response.

Meanwhile, SCP-2068 had begun producing large amounts of SCP-2068-A with its usual thin consistency. With the drains clogged and the door destroyed, this substance was rapidly flooding out of the containment chamber and into the rest of section N2. It soon caught fire, either by spontaneous combustion or contact with an object set aflame by the preceding explosion. The resulting smoke triggered section N2's sprinkler system, which failed to extinguish the oil fire and caused the SCP-2068-A to spread more quickly.

Hearing the fire alarms, Dr. Zartion predicted that SCP-2068-A had been ignited and that its smoke would be an infectious hazard due to unburned oil droplets within. Personnel immediately began procuring respiratory protection from the nearby laboratories. Dr. Zartion's prediction was soon found to be correct; ██ personnel inhaled smoke and succumbed to SCP-2068-A infection before they could protect themselves. While retrieving protective gear, security officers sighted the spreading pool of burning oil and reported this back to Lieutenant Ong.

After conferring with with Director MacLean, Ong and Zartion agreed that the surviving personnel would take shelter in section N2's central containment freezer. This course of action was chosen because the freezer's airtight seals, temperature control, and reinforced walls would protect them from the fire, smoke, oil, and any further explosions. Many of the containment chambers and quarantine suites in section N2 also met some of those criteria, but all those which did not already contain a hostile and/or infectious subject had been unsealed at the time of the breach and therefore potentially compromised by the smoke. The freezer, due to the anomalous pathogen samples stored therein, was sealed by default and therefore the safest place remaining in the section.

Travel to the freezer was hampered by smoke-impeded visibility and dangerous heat. The survivors had to change course several times to avoid the fire. Just as they reached the freezer, SCP-6643 manifested from the pool of burning SCP-2068-A and tripped Lt. Ong, who was subsequently engulfed by the pool and immolated. The remaining ██ survivors entered the freezer, which Dr. Zartion sealed behind them.

Soon thereafter, Janitorial and Maintenance Co-Head Micah Wegley climbed inside the blast furnace to manually unclog the drains with a mop handle. He suffered severe burns and

Beginning on June 4th, 47 personnel (21 Class D) at Armed Bio-Contaiment Area-14 began to complain of fatigue, headache, memory problems, muscle or joint pain, diarrhea, and/or indigestion. No cause for the symptoms could be identified. As a precaution, Medical Director Dr. Christopher Zartion recommended that the facility be placed under lockdown until a vector could be identified. Director Thomas MacLean agreed with Dr. Zartion's assessment and, on October 12th, locked down the facility. The Area's sole exit was sealed, and personnel were instructed to remain within their quarters when not performing essential duties. Those who had reported symptoms were placed under quarantine for observation.

At 17:53 on June 10th, all audio devices in Area-14 began to play Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." All video devices were likewise compromised; they began to display live news coverage of the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State. As such, no security footage or other direct recording of the breach exists. The tentative timeline below has been pieced together mostly from the testimony of the survivors.

Upon realizing that a 2068 breach was in progress, Medical Director Dr. Christopher Zartion ran from his office in section C2 to the pathological containment section N2 to inform the security officers stationed at the connecting checkpoint. Area Director Thomas MacLean ran from his own office in section C1 to the central security station two floors above, to begin coordinating a response with Security Chief Enrique Torres.

Shortly after the conclusion of "War Pigs," compromised audio equipment vocalized the phrase "Die for oil, sucker."[[footnote]A snippet from Jello Biafra's spoken-word track of the same name.[[/footnote]. The facility was then rocked by simultaneous gas explosions in three separate locations:

• The class D housing blocks in section S2. The secure checkpoint at its entrance was destroyed and the guards defending it killed. An estimated 50% of onsite D-class were also killed, but severe structural damage allowed many of the survivors to escape their cells.
• The quarantine suites holding patients of the unknown illness. Their fragmentary remains petrified as expected for victims of SCP-2068-A.
• SCP-2068's containment chamber. Its door was destroyed.

SCP-2068 then began producing thick tar or bitumen that clogged the drains in its containment chamber, which caused the less viscous SCP-2068-A to flood out through the destroyed door and into section N2. The SCP-2068-A soon caught fire, either due to spontaneous combustion or accidental ignition by personnel. The resulting smoke triggered the section's sprinkler system, which was unable to extinguish the oil fire and only spread SCP-2068-A faster.

The personnel who had become trapped inside section N2 took shelter in the secure freezer at the center of the section. Dr. Zartion has stated that he suggested this course of action because the freezer's airtight seals, temperature control, and reinforced walls would protect them from the fire, smoke, oil, and any further explosions. On the way to the freezer, ██ personnel became infected with SCP-2068-A by unburned droplets in the smoke and rapidly expired. Those who survived did so because they had acquired respiratory protection beforehand and properly donned it, as called for in standard biohazard breach procedures.

Immediately before the group entered the freezer, SCP-6643 manifested from the pool of burning oil. One officer died as a result, but Dr. Zartion is unsure if she was dragged into the fire by SCP-6643 or merely tripped over it and became engulfed by the spreading pool.

Janitorial and Maintenance Co-Head Micah Wegley eventually used a mop handle to unclog the drains from below, suffering severe burns and SCP-2068-A exposure in the process. The flaming SCP-2068-A began to drain from section N2 and be incinerated as normal.

SCP-2068 deactivated at 19:00, returning audio and video functionality to most of the facility. Director MacLean immediately contacted the AMTF Nu-7 ("Hammer Down") headquarters in the valley below, requesting backup from their Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear platoon.

The CBRN platoon spent the following six hours cleansing Section N2 of remaining SCP-2068-A while the smoke (and any aerosolized SCP-2068-A therein) was filtered from its air supply. AMTF Nu-7 was not aware that anyone had survived; the explosions had disrupted the power supply to several security cameras throughout section N2, including the one in the freezer, and radio communications could not penetrate its metal exterior. As a result, the freezer was not opened until the cleanup was complete. By then, only Dr. Zartion remained alive, and in the latter stages of SCP-███ infection. Apparently, two vials of SCP-2068-A in cold storage had exploded, shattering several other vials and exposing the survivors to their contents. On the orders of O5-█, SCP-500 was administered to Dr. Zartion to save his life.

• The class D housing and security checkpoint in section S2, the quarantine suites in section N2, and SCP-2068's containment chamber were severely damaged by spontaneous gas explosions.
• ███ class D personnel were killed by the explosions or terminated by security forces while attempting to escape.
• ██ security officers and █ other personnel were killed by escaping class D personnel.
• ██ security officers were killed by fire, smoke, SCP-2068-A exposure, SCP-940, or SCP-6643.
• Medical Director Dr. Christopher Zartion suffered frostbite and hypothermia, and became infected with SCP-███, SCP-███, SCP-████, and SCP-████. He was administered a single instance of SCP-500 and is expected to make a full recovery.
• Section N2 was heavily damaged by fire, smoke, and flooding with SCP-2068-A.
• Janitorial and Maintenance Co-Head Micah Wegley suffered severe burns and was exposed to SCP-2068-A. He has been placed in permanent quarantine.

Addendum 2068-3: Containment Breach, June 10th, 2014

Beginning on June 4th, 47 personnel (including 21 D-Class) at Armed Bio-Contaiment Area-14 began to complain of fatigue, headache, memory problems, muscle or joint pain, diarrhea, and/or indigestion. No cause for the symptoms could be identified. As a precaution, Medical Director Dr. Christopher Zartion recommended that the facility be placed under lockdown until a vector could be identified. Director Thomas MacLean agreed with Dr. Zartion's assessment and, on October 12th, locked down the facility. The Area's sole exit was sealed, and personnel were instructed to remain within their quarters when not performing essential duties. Those who had reported symptoms were placed under quarantine for observation.

At 17:53 on June 10th, Dr. Zartion dialed Director MacLean's emergency phone number. The transcript of their phone call is printed below.

<begin log>

Zartion: -ty-eight!

MacLean: Chris, slow down! You started talking before I answered.

Zartion: It's twenty sixty-eight!

MacLean: What is?

Zartion: The mystery illness! I don't know if it's another form of dash-one or something else entirely but-

MacLean: Whoa, hold on! How did you figure this out?

Zartion: The symptoms are the same as Gulf War syndrome.

MacLean: Oh n-

[The telephone, and all other audio devices in Area-14, begin playing Black Sabbath's "War Pigs".]

<end log>

All video devices in Area-14 became compromised at this time as well; they began to display live news coverage of the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State. As such, no security footage or other direct recording of the breach exists.

Upon realizing that a 2068 breach was in progress, Dr. Zartion ran from his office in section C2 to the pathological containment section N2 to inform the security officers stationed at the connecting checkpoint.

Shortly after the conclusion of "War Pigs," compromised audio equipment vocalized the phrase "Die for oil, sucker."[[footnote]A snippet from Jello Biafra's spoken-word track of the same name.[[/footnote]. The facility was then rocked by multiple simultaneous gas explosions, originating in the class D housing section S2, the quarantine suites holding patients of the unknown illness, and SCP-2068's containment chamber. Sensing these damages, section N2's automatic security measures activated and sealed it off from the rest of the facility, trapping Dr. Zartion and most of the checkpoint guards inside. The explosions in S2 killed an estimated 50% of onsite class D personnel, severely damaged the checkpoint between S2 and C2, and killed most of the guards defending it. the explosions in the quarantine suites compromised a nearby containment chamber, from which a Stage 6 instance of SCP-940 escaped.

Investigations into the chain of events that followed immediately after the explosions are ongoing; the lack of footage or recordings, impossibility of remote communication, and general pandemonium during the incident have made individual testimonies difficult to reconcile. The tentative timeline below has been pieced together mostly from the testimony of the survivors.

Class D personnel escaped into sections C2, C1, and S1. All of them (███ in total) were eventually terminated by security officers, of whom ██ sustained injuries and ██ were killed in return. █ other personnel were also injured, and █ killed, when they left their quarters to investigate the commotion and encountered escaping D-class. Order was not fully restored until roughly two hours after the initial explosion.

SCP-2068 produced thick tar or bitumen that clogged the drains in its containment chamber, which caused SCP-2068-A to flood section N2. The SCP-2068-A soon caught fire, either due to spontaneous combustion or accidental ignition by personnel. The resulting smoke triggered the section's sprinkler system, which was unable to extinguish the oil fire and only spread SCP-2068-A faster.

The personnel who had become trapped inside section N2 took shelter in the secure freezer at the center of the section. Dr. Zartion claims that he suggested this course of action because the freezer's airtight seals, temperature control, and reinforced walls would protect them from the fire, SCP-2068-A exposure, and any further explosions. On the way to the freezer, ██ personnel were injured by the escaped SCP-940 and fatally infected with SCP-2068-A. One additional security officer was dragged into the fire by SCP-6643.

Janitorial and Maintenance Co-Head Micah Wegley eventually used a mop handle to unclog the drains from below, suffering severe burns and SCP-2068-A exposure in the process. The flaming SCP-2068-A began to drain from section N2 and be incinerated as normal.

SCP-2068 deactivated at 19:00, which allowed audio and visual functionality returned to most of the facility. Director MacLean immediately contacted the AMTF Nu-7 ("Hammer Down") headquarters in the valley below, requesting backup from their Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear platoon.

The CBRN platoon spent the following six hours cleansing Section N2 of remaining SCP-2068-A while the smoke (and any aerosolized SCP-2068-A therein) was filtered from its air supply. AMTF Nu-7 was not aware that anyone had survived; the explosions had disrupted the power supply to several security cameras throughout section N2, including the one in the freezer, and radio communications could not penetrate its metal exterior. As a result, the freezer was not opened until the cleanup was complete. By then, only Dr. Zartion remained alive, in the later stages of SCP-███ infection. Apparently, two vials of SCP-2068-A in cold storage had exploded, shattering several other vials and exposing

Dr. Zartion and the surviving security officers remained in the freezer for nearly six hours, as no one was aware of their location during the cleanup operation; the explosions had disrupted the power supply to several security cameras throughout the section, including the one in the freezer, and no radio communications were able to pass through its metal exterior. When the CBRN platoon finally opened the freezer, only Dr. Zartion was found alive. As he was in the latter stages of SCP-███ infection, O5-█ ordered that an SCP-500 instance be used to save his life.

Area-14 remained under lockdown until it was discovered that

It is known that SCP-2068 deactivated at 19:00, as this is when onsite audio and video devices resumed functioning normally. The following facts have been confirmed thus far:

• ███ class D personnel were terminated by security officers as they attempted to escape.
• ██ personnel were injured by escaping D-class, many of whom

had acquired firearms from deceased officers. ██ of those injured were security officers, while █ were other staff who had left their quarters to investigate the commotion. █ security officers and 1 member of research staff were killed.

• SCP-2068 produced thick tar or bitumen, which clogged the drains in its containment chamber. As the door had been destroyed, this allowed SCP-2068-A to leak out of the chamber and flood section N2.
• At some point, the SCP-2068-A flooding N2 caught fire. It is unclear if this oil spontaneously combusted or was accidentally ignited by personnel during the breach. The smoke caused the sprinkler system to activate, which failed to extinguish the fire and accelerated the spread of SCP-2068-A.
• To protect themselves from the spreading smoke and fire, the personnel trapped in N2 procured hazmat suits and took shelter in the section's central freezer. Dr. Zartion has stated that, despite the large number of dangerous pathogen samples stored therein, the freezer's airtight seals and temperature regulation made it the safest place to take shelter.
• ██ personnel were killed by the fire or an escaped instance of SCP-940 before reaching the freezer.
• After they took shelter in the freezer, several vials of SCP-2068-A in cold storage exploded, shattering several vials of other anomalous pathogens.
• Janitorial and Maintenance co-head Micah Wegley unclogged the drains in SCP-2068's chamber from below with a mop handle. Although he was severely burned and exposed to SCP-2068-A in the process, this allowed the burning oil to drain from N2 and be incinerated. SCP-2068 deactivated soon after the drains were unclogged.

After the deactivation, Director MacLean was able to reestablish contact with Armed Mobile Task Force Nu-7 ("Hammer Down") in the valley below. Nu-7's Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear platoon was dispatched to N2 to begin cleansing the area of any remaining contamination.

Once the oil was drained and all escaped D-class terminated or detained, Director MacLean contacted Armed Mobile Task Force Nu-7, requesting cleanup from the CBRN (Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear) platoon. The exterior blast door was opened long enough to admit the CBRN platoon, then resealed.

• ██ noncombatant staff, who had left their quarters to investigate the music and explosions, were injured by escaping D-class, and █ were killed. Researcher Lee Roy Carlson was taken hostage by an armed class D, believed to have been D-4931, but was able to overpower him and escape. D-4931 remains unaccounted for; he is currently believed to have hidden in a disused area and died of his injuries. Searches for his remains are ongoing.
• The door to SCP-2068's containment chamber was destroyed by the explosion and the drains therein became clogged with bitumen, which caused most of N2 to flood with SCP-2068-A. The blast furnace below the chamber could not be lit, as it was unable to operate without fuel from SCP-2068.
• A stage six SCP-940 instance escaped from a damaged containment chamber adjacent to the quarantine suites.
• Dr. Zartion and the security officers trapped within N2 procured hazmat suits from nearby containment chambers to protect themselves from SCP-2068-A exposure.
• At some point, the SCP-2068-A flooding N2 caught fire. It is unclear if this oil spontaneously combusted or was accidentally ignited by personnel during the breach. The smoke caused the sprinkler system to activate, which failed to extinguish the fire and caused the SCP-2068-A to spread further.
• To protect themselves from the spreading smoke and fire, trapped personnel donned the hazmat suits and proceeded to N2's secure central freezer. Dr. Zartion has stated that, despite the large number of dangerous pathogen samples stored therein, the freezer's airtight seals and temperature regulation made it the safest place to take shelter.
• During their evacuation to the freezer, personnel were attacked once again by the escaped SCP-940 instance. ██ personnel were injured and infected with SCP-2068-A before SCP-940 caught fire and expired. Infected personnel rapidly developed the typical symptoms of infection, died, and petrified.
• After personnel took shelter in the freezer, several vials of SCP-2068-A in cold storage exploded, shattering vials of multiple other anomalous pathogens and exposing all inside.
• The drains were unclogged from below by Janitorial and Maintenance co-head Micah Wegley, who was severely injured by hot SCP-2068-A in the process. SCP-2068 deactivated at this time.
• The SCP-2068-A flooding N2 drained into the furnace and was incinerated.

Once the oil was drained and all escaped D-class terminated or detained, Director MacLean contacted Armed Mobile Task Force Nu-7, requesting cleanup from the CBRN (Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear) platoon. The exterior blast door was opened long enough to admit the CBRN platoon, then resealed.

Dr. Zartion and the surviving security officers remained inside the central freezer for several hours while AMTF Nu-7 incinerated the SCP-2068-A remaining in N2 and the smoke was filtered from its air supply.

Damage to the class D cells allowed several survivors of the explosions to escape. The escaping D-class obtained keys and weapons from deceased security officers and began releasing the others. Most quarantine patients had been killed by the explosions, but damage to a nearby containment chamber allowed a stage 6 SCP-940 instance to escape. Several security officers were dispatched from the checkpoint to investigate the explosions. One group was attacked by the SCP-940 instance, which injured and infected several officers before they were able to terminate its living host. A second group reported that the door to SCP-2068's containment chamber had been blown off and that oil was rapidly flooding the rest of section N2.

Several freed D-class escaped section S2 before reinforcements

SCP-2068 activates and begins to rapidly pump oil into its containment chamber. At the same time, all audio devices begin playing "War Pigs," and multiple gas explosions occur in the class D housing section. Most security officers stationed within are killed, as well as an estimated 50% of onsite class D personnel. Severe structural damage allows some of the survivors to escape their cells and procure keys from deceased guards, with which they begin releasing the others. Surviving officers are quickly overwhelmed. When he learns what is happening, Director MacLean orders Security Chief Torres to remotely seal off the housing block's door and ventilation system.

Audio equipment begins playing System of a Down's "Boom!". 12 of the quarantined subjects begin to display symptoms of SCP-2068-A infection and rapidly expire. One spontaneously detonates in what is apparently another gas explosion. The quarantine suites are damaged but not compromised, as they were built to hold patients of SCP-940.

The drains in SCP-2068's containment chamber become clogged with bitumen, and it begins to fill with oil.

https://openverse.org/image/eaa1445e-020b-4fe8-864c-84dac3744c9f
https://openverse.org/image/b89eedb5-4757-4e91-8d45-3680e51fe67b
https://openverse.org/image/813ed658-f65d-4eb2-9e3e-1d6b68e9571b
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kuwait_burn_oilfield.png

Footnotes

1. Indeed, a certain amount of mental instability is a very desirable characteristic in a prospective Surrealistic.

2. At least, this is what Director Sequitur insisted whenever someone got confused enough to ask.

3. I told you not to look!

4. nutritional requirements, aging, and disease progression suspended; full physical sensation; once daily resurrection of all individuals slain within