It is February, and the snowdrops are in bloom. You can see them outside the station, waving slightly in the breeze. Their heads sway, to and fro, lifting themselves to stare at the sun and falling slightly towards the ground.
We say they are in bloom because this is the height of their existence. To be in bloom, to be in a golden age, to be at the peak of life implies that times will come or once were that were not like this, times of painful growth or bitter decay. The snowdrops will die; others may come again next year but the forms you see today will be gone.
You are standing in the train station. A steam train is coming in. It is 1907, and you are an agent of the SCP Foundation. This is the only life you allow yourself to remember. The correct SCP-001 instance is Wrong's Proposal "The Consensus"; you survived the Fifth Occult War but with no clear recollection, like so many. A great many things have not happened yet that will happen. The Foundation is still in its infancy, despite the confusion and proliferation of innumerable official stories and rumours and obfuscations designed to hide this fact.
You are an Englishman. You wear clothes typical for the era, and look like a man of business. Your name is John Cutter, and you are 34. These are facts, immutable facts, enshrined in a single narrative of existence. Like most of your countrymen, you belong to the Church of England, and thus you believe the narrative is that of God's creation, Christ's sacrifice, and the wait for an eventual judgement day. But others, both in England and across the world, disagree; and thus to many, the world seems to be a multiplicity, with no fixed meaning. It is a place of cacophony with no clear harmony ringing true; and while some melody might exist, it will be in a form unknown to the musicians.
Essentially, this is reality, where there is no singular purpose and each person is untethered in a freewheeling, nonsensical world. At least, that is what you thought. Now you are not so sure.
There is a train pulling away from the station. The steam pours from its chimneys like greying hair. This dark smog rushes around you, and as it clears, you find yourself staring at the station cafe. Somebody is sitting at a table in front of it, reading a paper, with a hot cup of tea. A woman- a young one- maybe in her early 20s.
You know this girl. You do not understand why she is here. She looks up, sees you, and smiles slightly- as if she knows you, but without any real surprise.
You know that things are going wrong in the world. You are an agent of the Foundation, and you've been smelling something in the air all day.
You approach her table, and sit opposite her. Her smile is back, at once more amused and more cruel. She puts down the paper. She stares at you. Her eyes have no irises and no whites. They are entirely black.
"Yes, they are", she says. You do not understand what she means. "Well, of course you don't. You can't read this, after all; only the reader can do that. Do you like my eyes? It's a rather cheap description that is so ambiguous in its meaning; does it mean evil, or mystery, or both?"
You do not understand the words she is saying. Because of course you don't; you're not reading this in what is supposed to be an SCP document, you're sitting at a table in 1907 England and talking to this woman you have tried to forget. You look at her newspaper. It is wrong. There is no "King Edward VII". Who is that? You do not know who that is. You remember that she enjoys writing stories.
"I do not know you", you state, knowing you are lying.
She smiles. "No", she says. "You have never met me in your life, John Cutter. And not because the Foundation has decreed it; but because this is not your life any more. You're not my brother, you're whatever I write you to be."
Beyond the station, beyond your line of vision, there is a world, with trees and grass and empires, Scarlet Kings and Black Queens, dusty bricks and stone idols. It is getting smaller. It is contracting, its substance altering, its form being transmuted from one thing to the other. And a girl with black eyes sits and waves her hand, conducting a timeless orchestra.
The table disappears. Your sister disappears. You fall through the dark, into the interview log.
Date: 19/02/1957
Interviewer: Dr. Margaret Harcourt
Interviewee: Sanjay Chakraborty
<Begin Log>
Dr. Harcourt: Hello, Mr. Chakraborty. I trust your quarters are to your liking?
Mr. Chakraborty: They are, thank you.
Dr. Harcourt: So, I understand you have some information for us about SCP-3971.
Mr. Chakraborty: Yes. Well. It's a rather long story.
Dr. Harcourt: Take all the time you need.
Mr. Chakraborty: Alright. This all happened in 1909, when I was still a young man. I was working as a clerk in Calcutta. The path I took to work went past a park where a lot of the English would gather; mostly women, but some men. I used to watch them on the way to work. I was never fond of them, but they always fascinated me, with their ability to remain so foreign and stolid in a world so unlike their own.
Well. One day, there was this Englishman, sitting on a bench at the edge of the park. He was staring at me. I ignored him and went to work, but when I came back that evening, he was staring at me again. I was worried. I was an Indian and he was an Englishman, and any trouble would probably reflect badly on me, regardless of who was in the right.
After a few days of him staring at me, I started to walk a different route to work. But there he was again- standing on the side of the road, staring at me. I didn't know what to make of it.
Dr. Harcourt: What did he look like?
Mr. Chakraborty: Dark hair, pale skin. I'm sorry, I can't really recall. It's been a long time, and it's his words I really remember. I think he… ensured that I did, somehow.
Dr. Harcourt: What did he say?
Mr. Chakraborty: Well, it was- one day, after a few weeks of him watching me wherever I walked, he approached me. I was terrified, but we were in a crowded place, and there were lots of witnesses. But all he did was- well, he talked to me. He told me that on the 19th of February 1958, I would be sitting in Interview Room 81 of Site 19, and would be interviewed by Dr. Margaret Harcourt, whose real name was Felicity Abrams.
Dr. Harcourt: I-What? What is this?
Mr. Chakraborty: He, ah, said those were his credentials. I know this sounds like lunacy, but that is what he said, upon my honour.
Dr. Harcourt: Is this some- how do you know that name? Nobody knows that name.
Mr. Chakraborty: You will have to take it up with him, if he's still alive. I doubt it. He said to tell you that you were quite safe, and that Sally knew where it was hidden. He said you'd know what it meant.
Dr. Harcourt: I- this was almost fifty years-
Mr. Chakraborty: Look, I made the same protestations. May I continue? He was very insistent that I give this message, word for word.
Dr. Harcourt: I-I suppose…
Mr. Chakraborty: He said, and I am quoting, "If you are reading this, then stop. Yes, you, the reader. You can still stop this. This article, if it can even be called that, is already atrociously pretentious as it is. It's hopelessly pataphysical in its approach. That's what she wants, of course- a cheap hook to keep the reader stuck to the page. Why do you think she's messed about with the title? You and you alone can stop this. Do you really want to read on? Is your mind not already made up? Your personal reality can stay a reality where this article is never fully read, and the walls of the worlds stay as they should be. Please. Don't let this reach the bar. Don't let it get to that. She is switching the worlds and you are making this happen by reading, by giving her petty narrative comprehension, understanding, depth. Close the tab, and do something else. Do not read on. It is vitally important that you do not read on. She is SCP-3971. I will make her SCP-3971"
Dr. Harcourt: W-what does that mean?
Mr. Chakraborty: My dear, I don't know. I don't even know what this place is or who you people are. All I know is what I was told.
<End Log>
Don't go on. Don't enter the bar.
The neon lights above the door are cheap, and you're not fooled for a moment. You know they're not real. There's no such thing as real neon any more; just cheap holographic imitations. This whole place, its whole rustic decor, is a hologram, covering a concrete bar and rock-hard chairs. But a bar is a bar, and Site 19's is probably the best in all these grey Foundation institutes.
You push it open, and walk in. The bar has always been here, but there's very little outside it now; although you don't know that, and couldn't understand it if you tried. You see the usual suspects scattered about. Daryl Lloyd and Naomi Watts at the bar, deep in contemplation about some old case or some distant star. Adileh Khayyam behind the bar, wiping a glass. Others hang around on chairs, chatting, talking, contemplating. The illusion today is of fine mahogany. A picture of a hippo hangs behind the bar. It is comfortable. It is homely. Booze and breath sift across the air. You know this place well.
You grab a beer and brood over it. Dr. Khayyam looks at you, concerned. "What's on your mind?"
You sigh. Your hands are shaking slightly, and you're not sure why. "It's this new skip I'm working on. It's just- well, I started reading On a Winter's Night a Traveller, and this second-person-narration-meta-thing formed itself in my head. But I don't know. It's feeling more and more like a second-rate 3999."
"Oh, come, it's not really so similar." You look up into the face of Dr. Arthur Avatar. "It's not about the death of the author, or the author's relationship with his work. It's about the blurred lines between fiction and reality. Sure, the pataphysical breakdown of the format and the meta elements are covering similar ground, but there aren't many other similarities.
"But it is about what comes after," you respond. How did he know about the skip? You look into his face, and you see Dr. Michael A. Forth, but your mind connects it with Dr. Arthur Avatar. A person replaced by a pun. Why is that?
You sigh. "Regardless of all that… is this it? Is this what I have come to? Authors are always self-indulgent, and the ultimate mark of a declining author is a self-indulgent piece whining about their own self-indulgence. I've deleted most everything I've written in the last few months, because I'm barely ever happy with them. I don't think I've written anything good in months. And here I am, placing this paragraph of utter self-pitying wankery into the middle of something I'm planning to publish."
You look at these words, this covert attempt to articulate what is wrong, why the magic from writing skips has gone, why the meta format screw seems to be the only thing you can do to reclaim it, despite it being a line you hoped you'd never have to cross, especially since the site is so sick of meta format screws. You listen to your thoughts and you know none of them make any sense. You are not an author. Skips are things to be contained, not written. You are a Foundation researcher. Dr. Khayyam is a counsellor, not a bartender. Nothing here makes sense but you cannot stop because forces beyond you are placing it all in motion. This narrative is not yours at all; she just chose you.
"You've done fine. Stop thinking like that." Niklo Gerdinel smiles, slightly concerned, from the other end of the bar. Others are around him, concerned, scared, probably thinking the same thoughts you are. They are people. They are names. You see another figure behind them, a dark-haired woman. She is attractive, but she has a certain familiarity about her which forestalls any interest you could have had. She is staring right at you.
You look up again, and you are sitting in your flat, staring at a screen. You are an SCP author. You are looking at the SCP chat guide. The words "#site19" flicker on the page, alongside "#site17" and "#thecritters". You blink, and you John Cutter and are again back at the bar. Something is incorrect here, but you can't tell what it is; everything looks wrong and right in equal measure. It feels like two conceptions of reality merging and splitting apart, but you don't know how that could happen. You see some words written below the picture of the hippo. It reads "If you are reading this, then stop. Yes, you, the reader. You can still stop this." You feel like you have read those words before, but you're not sure.
The dark-haired woman moves around the bar. Her eyes are black- not just the pupils, but the irises and the whites, too. She takes a knife from her pocket and stabs Dr. Lloyd. He gasps, writhes and dies, collapsing to the floor. Nobody bats an eyelid because Dr. Lloyd has to die in all his appearances. This is known. You knew him, as an ordinary person with ordinary rules, but the fact that he must die is a more concrete fact known to you all.
The woman stands in front of you. She flicks her eyes to the words written beneath the hippo, and then back to you. "It was a noble effort, John", she says, "but this is not going to work. You didn't write any of this; I did. It's going to happen, and we shall finally be free from freedom. The endless, crushing freedom."
The world begins to fall away, from the outside in. But you don't see that, because what matters is the scene inside the bar, the world transforming into a single scene, because a scene is all that exists at any one time in any narrative. You look up at this woman, at your sister, at Calpurnia Cutter, but she is not your sister for much longer. You realise what that means. You realise where she will be when all this is over, what you will have to be to her, and your heart begins to crack. You struggle to hold onto feelings because they are all you have. You remember the feeling when she tried to hang herself. You look at the scars under her chin and how they are disappearing and your heart shatters.
She places a hand on your cheek as the scene starts to end. "Now it becomes an article. Now it becomes something singular, defined, within the context of fiction. I know you think it's just for me, but it's not. It's the only way to save us all."
There is a small pop, and it is over.
Item #: SCP-3971
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3971 is currently contained within an ordinary humanoid containment cell at Site-77. Requests for personal items or alterations to the environment are to be considered by Site Director Gillespie before approval.
Description: SCP-3971 is a humanoid entity, claiming to be Foundation agent John Cutter. No agent with this name has ever been employed by the Foundation. SCP-3971's anomalous attributes are evident only when a sapient being attempts to make any statements or record any information about SCP-3971 which implies that it could be John Cutter; the individual in question will find themselves physically unable to do so. The sole exception to this is SCP-3971 itself.
All Foundation records, personal records, and DNA tests indicate that SCP-3971 is, in fact, Jacob Morley, a student of sociology at the University of Edinburgh. SCP-3971 denies this fact, claiming that it is an alteration of reality made by one "Calpurnia Cutter", an unknown woman whom SCP-3971 claims "used to be" its sister. SCP-3971 further claims that Jacob Morley disappeared several years ago in an unrelated incident.
SCP-3971 ordinarily refuses to cooperate with the Foundation, due to their refusal to refer to him as John Cutter. However, SCP-3971 did allow a single interview on 19/08/2016, a log of which can be found below.
Date: 19/08/2016
Interviewer: Dr. Emma Lister
Interviewee: SCP-3971
<Begin Log>
Dr. Lister: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, SCP-3971.
SCP-3971: This is the only one I'm giving. I have to, to give a plausible reason for it being the only interview present in the article. It's a necessity.
Dr. Lister: I… I'm sorry, I don't understand.
SCP-3971: You're not meant to. It's not for you.
Dr. Lister: Who is it for?
SCP-3971: The reader. They need to stop. It's too late to save creation, now, but I can still save Calpurnia.
Dr. Lister: Your… sister?
SCP-3971: She's not my sister any more. She used to be, but… well, times changes, I suppose.
Dr. Lister: How does somebody stop being your sister?
SCP-3971: By reversing fiction and reality. Tell me, doctor, what is an author?
Dr. Lister: An author? The- well, the creator of a particular work.
SCP-3971: But what does creation mean? Say, for example, that somebody, a girl, wrote a story about a world without anomalies. She would be the author of that work, yes?
Dr. Lister: I suppose. I don't see what-
SCP-3971: You will. But what if that person is simply describing things that happened to other people, the accounts of other people but altered and changed by that person? Taking our world, but altering it in subtle ways so that, for example, there were no anomalies. Would she still be the author, if all her stories were created by a myriad of others?
Dr. Lister: I would say so.
SCP-3971: Now, what if she reversed what was reality and what was fiction? What if she were to transform the real world into a fictional one, and the fictional one into a real one? Who would be the author of this once-real, now-fictional work then?
Dr. Lister: Is that a situation that is likely to happen?
SCP-3971 sighs, and looks directly at the camera.
SCP-3971: Please stop reading. I think I know what is coming. All narratives have to come to an end, and in hers, she has done to the lives of billions something unforgivable. I think that makes her role in this pretty clear. I don't want to hurt her. I can feel our shared past, our history as siblings, fading away, but it's not gone yet.
You shouldn't have gone to the bar. You really shouldn't. Because now the worlds are reversed, and nobody can switch them back. There's only one more iteration. I know what happens there, because it's all that can happen. And at this point, it's fruitless for it to occur. It'll just end up being some petty revenge story. Please, don't read on. Don't read the last iteration. I am begging you.
Dr. Lister: …What are you talking about?
SCP-3971: This interview is over.
<End Log>
Let the snow fall alone.
SCENE: A hilltop, at night. It is deep midwinter, and the hill is covered in snow. A single figure, CALPURNIA, can be seen standing on top of the hill and staring down at the world below. She is dressed in a black overcoat, and is wearing a thick woollen scarf. Her hair is dark, and her eyes are black, even the irises and the whites.
A figure can be seen to approach from behind CALPURNIA. He is wearing a dark overcoat and a fedora. This is JACOB MORLEY, who is not CALPURNIA's brother and is definitely not John Cutter. He looks tired. He stops walking about 3 metres behind CALPURNIA
JACOB: It's time, Calpurnia. I didn't want it to happen, but the reader has kept reading up to here, and thus the plot wants a resolution.
CALPURNIA turns towards him.
CALPURNIA: You mean the author wants a resolution.
JACOB: The author died. At least, an author died, enough to mean something of that ilk won't be repeated; too derivative. This is a particular kind of narrative, of siblings and collapsing worlds, one which reaches an easier conclusion. Where one is the hero and one is the villain. And you destroyed the world, so you are the villain.
CALPURNIA: I didn't destroy the world.
JACOB: No, but you turned it into… this. A fiction. Where your little story about a world without anomalies, where they were merely a story, became reality. Where what was once written on a paper page was made real, and what was once real became a handful of internet stories.
CALPURNIA: I ridded reality of all the things that lurk and prey in the dark. Is that not worth it?
JACOB: I… well. It's fading now, but I remember you trying to kill yourself.
A large scar appears beneath CALPURNIA's jaw.
JACOB: If you had done this thing to save something real, to really save them, then that might have been something. But that was a lie you told yourself to keep yourself asleep at night. You wanted meaning and purpose in an empty world. You wanted to be in a story because then the pain and the void wouldn't be there; or, if they were, they would serve some further end, some greater purpose. An invented purpose, but something that would be, to you alone, more solid and real. Your selfishness has given the cruelty of life to so many, while taking its sweetness away from just as many.
CALPURNIA: Is that which is written upon the page ever really dead?
JACOB: It's a half-life. Our words dictated by the author, our actions mere tools in the work. I loved you, my sweet Calcutta, and now I barely know you. I am more and more Jacob Morley every day. Except Jacob Morley was not a hero.
CALPURNIA looks down, and begins to cry. The snow falls thicker now, the wind howls louder. JACOB begins to transform. He begins to become taller, more handsome. A revolver appears in his hand. His features change. He looks like a hard-bitten, hard-drinking man with nothing to lose. He has become Murphy Law.
MURPHY: Except I haven't become Murphy Law. He is someone else's creation. If I was really Murphy, the text and the font would change at this point, becoming something more suitable to the genre. But I am still John Cutter, and you, Calpurnia, are my sister. Except you aren't. Because I have to play the part of the guy you call when everything that could go wrong… did. I have to become the dispassionate, conflicted hero, who gives the ending its bittersweet note.
MURPHY raises his revolver, and points it at CALPURNIA.
CALPURNIA: I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
MURPHY: It doesn't matter any more. I am the hero. You are the villain.
MURPHY pulls the trigger, shooting CALPURNIA in the chest. CALPURNIA falls to the ground, dead. MURPHY puts his revolver back into his pocket, stares at her for a moment, and then walks away. The snow continues to fall on CALPURNIA's corpse, covering her, erasing her, washing her away.
Per 
