StoneSparrow

D-5785, that was her number. It was a number Sybil Plath had been assigned immediately after being acquired by the Foundation. However, she now thought, ‘acquired’ was probably too light a word to describe her situation. She looked around the room. Small and sparsely furnished with only the essentials of detained life: a bed, a toilet, and a sink. All impeccably clean. In fact the entire room gave off an air of sterility, from the bare white walls to the clean white light which purged the room of all shadows. During her time in detainment, the utter coldness of the place never failed to unnerve her. Perhaps that was the point. You wouldn’t want your test monkeys getting too relaxed. And that’s exactly what she was to the Foundation.

The designation ‘D-5785’ wasn’t some arbitrary number, it marked her as expendable, a liability, and at best, a useful data point on a graph. She had been informed many times however, that her stay here has been far more useful than the other D class personnel that the Foundation kept. Convicts usually are quite difficult to deal when told what to do. However, she was different. Unlike the rest, which saw all of this as some form of weird and unusual punishment, Sybil saw testing as chance to finally be of use to the rest of the world. The fulfilment from completing a successful experiment procedure, the smiles of approval from researchers unable to keep up the Foundation’s trademark monotone behavior, the freshness of a new life. And as she had taken a liking to them, she had noticed that they have returned the favor. The Foundation must contain some amazingly terrifying things, if the strict armed guards outside cells marked “Keter” are anything to go off of. But in her time here she has only dealt with seemingly safe things. In some cases she’s even been able to relate to a couple.

A ball which can telepathically talk to those in its vicinity, a little girl whose very words could bend reality around her, and a picture that compelled her to sing in rounds just by viewing it were among a few things in the Foundation’s custody she has been used to experiment with. A zoo of sorts for some of the most peculiar things on the planet, and some of the most dangerous. And now she was waiting for the researchers to come and collect her for her new assignment.

The documentation file for the object to be tested on sat open and read on her bed beside her:

Item #: SCP-5001

Object Class: Safe (provisional)

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-5001 is to kept in storage room-5001. Storage room 5001 is to be equipped with a single standard door frame, six (6) standard issue Phillips head screws, an electric screwdriver, and three spare hinges.

At the start of all testing SCP-5001 is to be taken from it’s storage rack by two (2) security personnel and screwed into place inside of the door frame. At the conclusion of testing, as deemed so by both on site Head Researchers, SCP-5001 must be removed from it’s frame a replaced into it’s rack. Given the nature of SCP-5001 a period of at least one week must expire before testing on a different subject can occur.

Description: SCP-5001 is a 6’ x 8’’ Victorian era door. Through sampling tests SCP-5001 is non-anomalous in material, being made of birch wood, with dark iron fixtures adorning its corners. It’s doorknob is also composed of iron with a symbol crudely etched into its surface. The symbol is of no currently understood language, and research is still ongoing to determine its meaning.

When SCP-5001 is placed inside any door frame it creates a pocket dimension. This effect occurs regardless of SCP-5001’s attachment to any viable room, the room’s actual size and interior are ignored as well. SCP-5001’s interior changes seemingly in accordance with the person that last touched its door knob upon opening it.

Multiple tests with various D-Class personnel have determined that SCP-5001 seems to pick its interiors based on the crimes of the person who touched it. D-6572, a convicted [REDACTED], reported that 5001’s interior was the inside of a van with multiple childlike drawings of D-6572 surrounded by children. The drawings have been contained for further examination,and D-6572 noted a sense of guilt and dread upon entering the van. D-1107, who was sentenced to D-Class assignment for high treason against the Foundation reported that the inside of 5001 was a Foundation conference room with the bodies of D-1107’s former co-workers lying inanimate around documents containing documents on SCP-[EXPUNGED] and SCP-[EXPUNGED]. Since this test all other entities have been found to be completely inanimate, though composed of biological matter.

Further experimentation is required to fully understand the nature of 5001.

She had read it over multiple time now. “Crimes of the person that last touched it”, that line stuck out to her as if it was highlighted on the page. Everyone knows that all D-Class Personnel are just convicts serving out life or death sentences, but the details were always hidden to everyone except high ranking members. SCP-5001 would now put on display all of the dirt and muck that she had long fought to forget about during her time with the Foundation. Maybe they already knew. Maybe this was all apart of some sick test to see what 5001 will show about her truly sick crimes. It made sense in that way. A hierarchy of evil: child trafficking, treason, and then her own, which even in the confines of her mind she can’t even utter.

An intercom buzz fills the room, shaking her from the downward spiral of thoughts running through her mind.

“D-5785 security personnel will be entering to collect you for testing with SCP-5001. Are you prepared?” She got the impression from the person’s tone of voice that it was more of a rhetorical question, because she was far from ready to handle this. Still she managed a croaked “Yes” in response.

“Entering,” replied the voice, and on queue two security guards push open the door. “Hey, Plath, you know the drill”, said the one with his hand on the door. She had come to know him as Paul during her time here. He was tall man that looked like he could be someone’s grandad, and that’s kind of what he was to her. He gave her great advice, as he had dealt with bullying too. She also suspected that he was one of the reasons behind her constant assignment to Safe class SCPs.

She extended her hands, wrists placed firmly together for him to handcuff. Before they went on she got a good look at her own wrists. There were reddish dark lines from repeated handcuffing, a mark of Cain more like it. But according to Paul, Cain himself was in containment too so she shouldn’t feel too bad.

The walk down the twisting halls of the facility seemed to stretch on for hours. The stark whiteness of her room seeming to engulf the entirety of the building. Out of the corners of her eye she caught some of the other SCPs in containment. All of them potential world ending disasters just waiting for the right triggers. Even the ‘safe’ ones weren’t really all that safe, it just meant they weren’t actively trying to get out of their cages. They began to approach two sets of doors at the end of the hall. “Storage Room 5001” was written on the plaque next to them.

Both Paul and the other security guard held the doors open for her. She tried to look to Paul’s face for any amount of assurance, but any warmth his face had earlier was gone. He was a SCP Security Officer now, and the safety of the entire facility was his main concern. What would have settled any researchers mind, only served to unnerve her further.

“Good Afternoon D-5785,” said a slightly nasally voice across another intercom, “Today we will be conducting the last of our preliminary experimentations with SCP-5001. You have already been given your debriefing on all related information concerning 5001, so I would like to ask that you please proceed to the table to your right and collect your Foundation Standard Exploration Kit and Radio.” She walked over to the kit while Paul and the other guard went to rack on the opposite wall to remove the door. The room itself was much like the rest of the facility stark white, but on the wall with the double doors she had just walked through there was a sort of foggy window with vaguely humanoid figures moving about. She assumed this is where the researchers must be, watching her like a rat in a maze.

“Now that you have the Kit, please open it for more information on the specifics of today’s testing.”

SCP-5001 TESTING PROCEDURE #3

EXPERIMENT #1 - OBSERVATION: D-5785 will enter SCP-5001, and examine her surrounding reporting on all anomalous and non-anomalous things inside. Any samples which are deemed important by research staff will be collected by D-5785 and placed inside a Foundation Hermetically Sealed Collection Unit (FHSCU).

Her attention is broken by the sound of huffing. The two men are now lifting SCP-5001 from its rack. Time could not move slower.

EXPERIMENT #2 - RECORDING DEVICE INITIATIVE: In compliance with the wishes of Dr.██████████ D-5785 will attempt to setup a video surveillance perimeter for the purposes of observing SCP-5001 while it lays dormant with no occupants.

And that was it. Two simple procedures. Observe and record. Look and keep looking. View her own crimes, and put them on displays for entire Foundation. Simple. Her stomach began doing backflips as the final screw went into its place signifying that SCP-5001 was ready to go.
“Do you have any questions, 5785?”, said the voice.

“None.”, responded Sybil, though she had nearly a million she could could think of off the top of her head.

“Good. Then please collect your materials a proceed to SCP-5001.”

She approached the door. Paul and the other guard stood on opposite sides of it. Again Paul’s face was stony not a hint of emotion to be found. As she stood before the door knob it seemed to sway in and out of focus, swaying this way and that way in her vision. Apparently she must have stumbled, because Paul’s hand quickly grasps her left arm steadying her again. Grounding her back in reality. The researchers must have not taken notice, or could simply not care less as the voice commanded,

“Please open SCP-5001 and enter.”

It was time. If her stomach was doing backflips before it was before it was doing a full gymnastics performance now. Her hand was frozen on the knob.

“Please open SCP-5001 and enter”, repeated the voice, a sense of urgency clear in it now.
Paul’s hand still on her arm gave her a strong, and reassuring squeeze. She looked into his face again. Still nothing. Turning back to the door she took a long deep breath, and began turning the knob slowly. Finally when she could rotate it no further, she lightly pushed it open. SCP-5001 swung creekingly out away from her. All the while Paul’s grip increasingly began tighter,as if he could sense the utter dread emanating from her very being.

The door was now opened all the way. And there nothing. Well as close to nothing as it could be given the other tests she had read about in the testing file. Sitting in front of her was a podium facing away from her. It was situated about 8 feet from her on this well polished wood floor. Nothing else stood out besides the white piece of paper situated on podium whose words were illegible from this distance.

“Please enter SCP-5001 and speak clearly and accurately into the radio, D-5785,” said the voice.

Paul’s hand finally relinquished its grasp on her arm as she took a step onto the floor. A quick glance around showed that aside from the podium ahead of her the room seemed to stretch into darkness in all directions. Not even the light from the storage room was able to permeate the blackness. She steps further inside. Not a sound can be heard in any part of the room. The deafening silence is only broken by the sound of the radio on her side crackling to life.
“D-5785 if you can hear this, please describe your surroundings for us,” it’s the same man from the intercom earlier except with much more static.
“Um, its a pretty dark room with a wood floor and-”, she starts
“What type of wood?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t know, it’s like the kind you would find on a stage in an auditorium.”
She doesn’t know why she would describe it like that, but it just felt that way. Like it was sitting dormant in her mind, and was just violently woken from slumber. She remembers this place.
“I see. Is there anything else of note inside of SCP-5001?”
“Well, a little bit ahead of me there’s a podium, it’s facing away from me like….like its waiting for me.”
“Elaborate. Why do you think the podium is waiting for you?” the voice sounds slightly confused
“ It-It feels like I’ve been here before, but I just can’t remember when, but its coming back to me in bursts. The documents never said anything about something like.”
“This is exactly why we are testing. D-5785, please approach the podium.”

She begins to inch closer to it. Each step she takes a growing sense of unease increases. Why can’t she fully remember this place? This was certainly not what she was expecting. When she was mere inches away from the podium she noticed that it was much taller than it appeared to be at first. In addition to that the area beyond the podium was dimly in view, there were red velvet curtains. The kind that might be drawn shut before a play started. So this is a stage she thought. She climbed up the temporary stairs in front of the podium. Now she could finally view the paper in full.

What she saw nearly made her faint. On the paper in huge, crudely written, pink font, were the words:
“SYBIL PLATH IS A MURDERER.” There it was plain as day. As clear as ever. She couldn’t move her eyes from the paper. She just kept reading it over and over again. “SYBIL PLATH IS A MURDERER.”

“D-5785, have you reached the podium?”

She didn’t answer. All of her senses were engulfed in the sea of horrid memories she had kept suppressed until this very moment. She was a murderer, that fact alone shouldn’t surprise her, but here in SCP-5001 she could feel the very words on the paper strangling all other thoughts and holding her still in her memories.

“D-5785, have you or have you not reached the podium?”

She heard the radio, and before she could stutter out a response of any kind SCP-5001 shut closed. The sound echoed throughout the darkness she had now become consumed by. No sounds were heard on the other side of the door. No banging or pulling just silence. She began to breath in quick short bursts. Hyperventilation racked her entire body as she struggled to make out where the door had been, but in the pureness of the darkness nothing could be seen.
“The Foundation Kit,” she puffed out in between her increasingly hastening breaths.

She removed the box she knew was strapped securely to her waist, and began shuffling through it at a dizzying pace.

“Ow,” she exclaimed, she must have run her hand over the army knife in the box, she would fix that later.

Finally, she felt the cylindrical object she had been searching for. A flashlight. Quickly she took it out and flipped it on. The door was still there. With a quick sigh of relief, She carefully climbed down from the podium stairs and began at a quick pace to the door. She reached it, and with a simple turn of the knob this nightmare would be over. SCP-5001 would be marked “Euclid” or “Keter” or some other label and she would go back to where she was useful. Except when Sybil turned the knob and pulled open the door there was nothing there.

No lab, no Foundation, no Paul, just empty space. This nearly broke her. Tears began to build up in eyes, as she tried fruitlessly to close and reopen SCP-5001 with no success. Just the same empty void. She crashed to the wood floor, and hugged herself, while she quietly sobbed. This was her punishment, she thought, she was was a murderer and this was her punishment. She flipped over onto her side facing the podium. The bright, white paper was still shining in the light.

Except her flashlight was not pointed that direction. In fact there had been no light there before when she had examined the podium earlier. She sat quickly up, and collected herself, and wiped the tears from her eyes. This is why the Foundation favored her. She was able to think under pressure. She collected her flashlight from the floor next to her, switched it off and proceeded again to the podium stairs. After climbing up, the paper had not changed, and it still brought her great stabs of anxiety to look at, but she tried to focus on what she could not she before in this new overhead light.

For one, the paper was actually sitting on a stack. A fairly tall stack of the papers in fact. She quickly parses them trying to remain composed throughout, though the contents were nearly unbearable. “Young Highschool Student Conducts Serial Murder Against Classmates” reads one news article. “19 year old girl to stand trial for multiple homicides” reads another. She tries to process out the words and just keep looking for anything that might be useful for her situation, but the stack continues on more of the same. Frustrated and feeling her tears returning Sybil pushes the rest of the stack off the podium. Underneath them is a red button. It’s deeply set into the wood of the podium, so the stack could not press it down. Directly underneath it is a little bit of paper in the same handwriting as the first that reads, “Press to Start the Show!”.

She is wary of the button, but at this point she has very little to lose. She uses her index finger and gingerly presses the button. And audible click is heard, and the curtains she noticed earlier begin to pull up. More blindingly bright lights join the the initial one while Sybil raises a hand to hood her eyes and see beyond the curtain. It was an auditorium of modest size, every chair appeared to be taken. A full house. The curtains reached their maximum height as her eyes adjusted to the light. Sybil could now see clearly that the people in the chairs seemed to be sleeping. All of their heads slumped, they’re bodies seemingly skewen across each seat like ragdolls. It was an unsettling sight, only made worse by the fact that she could now see that some of the seats were empty. In fact, exactly 5 seats were completely vacant.

She looks around the room once more, and something catches her eye that hadn’t before in the aisle. It was a girl, but her entire body appears covered in a thick smoke all except for her face. Her mouth was also consumed in the same smoke. Sybil became increasingly aware of a rotting smell emanating from the girl despite her being well towards the end of the aisle. The tension between the girls vacant stare, and Sybil’s fearful one was enough to freeze anyone’s blood cold. Then she began moving towards the stage.

Whatever shock had held her in place before dissipated, and Sybil turned and rushed back towards the door. Except instead of the darkness leading to SCP-5001 a cement wall now stood. Spray painted on it were the words “SYBIL PLATH KILLED AMBER JONES.” it was painted multiple times, patterning the wall in its harsh truth. She couldn’t handle it. The memories in her head shouting their long forgotten songs, the fear of the approaching girl whose face was becoming more and more uncannily familiar with each step, and the growing sensation that all of the unmoving audiences eye were on her and her sins. She backed up fully to the wall, and sunk to her knees. It was over, SCP-5001 will punish her for her crimes.

“Plath!”, the radio at her side erupted in noise, “I don’t give a damn about the fucking number! Plath! Plath! Can you hear me?”

She rushed to the radio, and gripping with both hands as she responded.

“Paul! I don’t know what happened, but the door is gone, Paul. I-I don’t know how to get out of here.” she was weeping through her words now.

“Plath I need you to calm down, okay? The Foundation has given me control of this rescue, and I’m going to get you out of here, alright?”

She sniffs “Alright.”

“Good. So I need to know what’s around you. I’ve got a whole team of researchers pulling information from all types of SCPs to figure something out, but we need to know what your situation looks like.”

“Umm, so the floor past the podium was a stage of some kind, and there’s all of these ….bodies in the audience. One of them is all covered in some kind of smoke. God, it’s even in her mouth. She’s moving towards me, but at this really slow pace.”

She still can’t bring herself to mention the paper or the writing on the wall.

“You heard that?”, it sounds like Paul is talking to someone away from the radio, “Yeah, yeah, okay. Hey, Plath, listen they’re gonna have to go get clearance to pull up your record.”

She simply holds the radio in her hands.

“Plath? Are you still there?”

“I didn’t mean to do it.”, she says in cold tone

“What are you talking about, Plath?”

“Amber’s-,” she hesitates, “death. I did mean to.”

“I need you explain. This could be very important to your situation, be honest with me, Plath”, he has taken on a reassuring parental tone that would soothe any troubled mind.

The girl in aisle also halts, and turn her head to the side in a curious manner, still leaking thick smoke from her gaping maw.

“I know it’s you, Amber, or whatever this damned door has created to be you. You had it coming to you. You had it coming to you! I can’t be blamed for this, no I’m the one who had to suffer because of you. I’m the one that was forced to live my life alone because of you.” She knows she is delirious . Denying responsibility to a murder she commited? But it was all she could think of to combat the noise and fear closing in on her.

“Plath. I-I- need you to stay away from that thing, whatever it is you’re looking at, okay. We almost have your file pulled up just-”

“No! I’m gonna show you her! I’m gonna show you all the great Amber Jones ‘Queen of Millburg High’.”, exclaimed Sybil in a delirious haze, her finger extended towards the unmoving monsosity before her offstage.

She scrambled through her Foundation kit until she found it; the camera. Part 2 of her assignment. She quickly flicked it on, and pointed it towards Amber.

“You see it, Paul? You see her? That’s the girl that made my life hell for 4 years straight, so I sent her there!”

“We see her, Plath. But we need you get a hold on yourself. I’ve never seen you act like this, you’ve always mentioned remorse at the crime that brought you to the Foundation. You always talked about how you were off your medication when it happened.”

“But I killed them, Paul, they hurt me and I killed them. And now-”, she begins to sob “I’m trying to deny a murder I know I’ve committed.”

Amber Jones was always cruel to her. Sybil was never one to fair well in any social setting, as her family had made sure she was properly isolated through their own ignorant views of world. But, Sybil tried to breach the numerous groups of Millburg, only to be met will coldness from even the most ostrichsized of the school’s social scenes. It wasn’t until later she discovered that Amber had made defaming posts about her being some sort of sociopath, which is why she was so pent up in her family’s house for so long. Amber always had a big mouth, so Sybil removed it.

“Amber. I just wanted something to fill me up. I was empty, Amber. No one cared because of you. I had to walk through it all without a purpose, it was like a living death.”

Sybil noticed the rotting smell was unbearably close to her. She looked to her left, and let out one gasp of fear before the hand of Amber Jones planted itself firmly a top her nose and mouth. She’s going to suffocate, Sybil thought in a panic. She tried to scream, but the thick smoke that engulfed Amber was now deep in her throat eliminating speech as an option. Struggling was also not possible, as Amber seemed to be superhumanly strong, and attempts to pull her hands away from her mouth were fruitless. Amber, still holding Sybil’s face tightly pulled her against her back against her chest. She leaned int5g slowly to rest her head beside the now red faced Plath’s face. Just dark spots began to to appear in Plath’s eyes and her lungs felt like they were beginning to burn up Amber released her nose.

“Listen closely, Syphilis,” Amber’s voice was was raspy and distant but the the sting of Sybil’s old nickname was all too familiar, “I will never forgive,no one will. You were weird, you naturally repelled people. I was just the most vocal about your overwhelming weirdness.”

Amber’s hand remained firmly planted over Sybil’s mouth, but it didn’t matter Sybil had nothing to say. It was all true, despite Amber’s horrid posts about her, Sybil never made much effort to rise above them. Instead she had chose to stink, rejecting anybody that had come to help her, isolating herself from the world.

“You made a monster out of me, and like the valiant knight you are you slayed me.”, she continued “But I won’t be returning the favor. No, you will suffer with this corner of your mind forever and if I’m lucky perhaps even beyond that.”

Finally Amber released Sybil, and watched her crumble to ground coughing and spurting as the thick smoke seemingly oozed from her lungs. The radio sprung to life once more.

“Plath! Plath! The camera was still rolling. We saw the whole thing. Are you alright!? What did she say? Plath speak to me!”, Paul was frantic

“I’m fine. I think. Did you get my file?”

“Yeah, we’ve got the whole thing here. I had to read it Plath, and I’m sorry for what you went through. What those girls did was horrible. The Amber one she-”

“Stop. I know what they did, just keep the file near you. Amber’s gone but there’s going to be more to this.”

She examined the audience again. The bodies were gone, and at the end aisle a big set of doors had sprung open. Open leaking dim red light into the room. Plath stood up, gave one last cough, collected her stuff and began to move towards the exit.