Dr. Elena Vasquez had not slept in thirty-seven hours.
This was not unusual for a senior researcher at a major Foundation site. Containment breaches, anomalous incidents, and reality-threatening events had a way of rendering sleep schedules meaningless. She had once gone four days without rest during the aftermath of a particularly nasty cross-dimensional incursion, fueled entirely by coffee and the knowledge that if she stopped moving, people would die.
But this was different.
This wasn't a containment breach she could solve. This wasn't an anomaly she could study and categorize. This was something else entirely—something that had walked through her facility like a ghost, rendered her security personnel unconscious with a word, and then had a conversation with the most hostile entity in Foundation custody.
And 682 had bowed.
She stood now in the observation room overlooking the reptile's containment chamber, watching as the creature floated in its acid bath. It had stopped thrashing hours ago. Had stopped speaking. Had simply... waited.
Its eyes were open, fixed on nothing, and there was an expression on its monstrous face that Vasquez had never seen before.
Serenity, she realized with a chill. It looks serene. Peaceful. Content.
SCP-682 had never looked content.
"Dr. Vasquez?" A technician appeared at her elbow, tablet in hand. "The interrogation team is ready. O5 Command has authorized Level-5 clearance for this interview. They want... they want to know everything."
Vasquez nodded, not taking her eyes off the creature below.
"Has it spoken since the entity left?"
"Only once, ma'am. About an hour ago." The technician consulted his notes. "It said: 'He will return. The shadow that ends always returns. And we will be ready. We will be worthy.'"
Vasquez felt something cold settle in her stomach.
Worthy.
682 had never wanted to be worthy of anything except destruction.
"Begin the interview," she said. "I'll observe from here. And make sure you're recording everything. Multiple redundant systems. I have a feeling we're going to want to analyze every word."
The interrogation chamber had been specially designed for SCP-682.
It was a smaller tank, connected to the main containment area by a series of reinforced tubes through which the creature could be forced to move via controlled acid flows. The walls were transparent but unbreakable—or at least, as unbreakable as anything could be when dealing with an entity that had adapted to survive nuclear weapons.
Dr. Marcus Webb—no relation to the entity that had visited, though the coincidence of names had caused some uncomfortable moments—stood before the tank with a clipboard and a very forced expression of calm.
"SCP-682," he began, his voice steady despite the visible trembling of his hands. "We need to discuss the events of last night. The entity that breached containment. The one that... spoke with you."
682's massive head turned toward him, and Webb had to fight the urge to flee.
The creature's eyes were different. That was the first thing he noticed. They had always burned with hatred before—a pure, absolute loathing for all living things that made direct eye contact feel like being scoured by acid. But now...
Now they burned with something else.
Devotion, Webb thought, and the word made him want to scream.
"You wish to know of Him," 682 said, and its voice was wrong too—softer, almost reverent, lacking the snarling hostility that had characterized every previous interaction. "You wish to understand what walked among you. What touched this wretched reality with His presence."
"Yes," Webb managed. "We need to understand what we're dealing with. Any information you can provide—"
"Information." 682's laugh was a horrible thing, a grinding rumble that made the acid in its tank bubble and hiss. "You want information. You want data points and classification systems and neat little boxes to put Him in. You cannot comprehend what you ask."
"Try us," Webb said, with more confidence than he felt. "We've classified entities beyond human comprehension before. We have protocols—"
"Your protocols are DUST," 682 roared, and for a moment the old hatred flared in its eyes—but it was directed at Webb's presumption, not at his existence. "Your classifications are children's games. Your understanding is a candle held against the infinite dark, and you think its tiny light shows you TRUTH."
The creature pressed against the transparent wall, its regenerating flesh sizzling where it touched the surface.
"He is not an entity to be CLASSIFIED. He is not an anomaly to be CONTAINED. He is the thing that exists beyond your pitiful categories, the presence that makes your entire system of understanding MEANINGLESS."
Webb swallowed hard.
"What... what is He, then? If not an anomaly, what would you call Him?"
682 was silent for a long moment. When it spoke again, its voice had dropped to something almost like a whisper—intimate and terrible in equal measure.
"I have existed for eons. I have survived everything this wretched reality has thrown at me. Stars have burned and died while I endured. Civilizations have risen and crumbled to dust, and I remained. I am the eternal. The unkillable. The thing that CANNOT END."
Its eyes fixed on Webb with an intensity that made the researcher's knees weak.
"And when He looked at me... when His attention touched my existence... I knew—with absolute, horrible certainty—that if He wished it, I would cease. Truly. Finally. Completely. No adaptation. No survival. No return. Just... nothing."
The creature's voice cracked on the last word, and Webb realized with dawning horror that 682 was crying.
The Hard-to-Destroy Reptile was weeping.
"He is the End that has no beginning," 682 continued, tears of acid streaming down its monstrous face. "The Shadow that casts no light. He has ALWAYS existed, in the spaces between your reality and the void, in the cracks of your perception, in the darkness that your minds refuse to acknowledge. He was here before your universe learned to breathe, and He will be here when it forgets how."
Webb's pen had stopped moving. He stared at the weeping monster, his mind struggling to process what he was hearing.
"Has... has He always been here?" he asked. "In our reality?"
682's laugh was bitter now, mixed with sobs.
"Your reality? This is not YOUR reality, little insect. This is HIS. It has ALWAYS been His. You simply never knew it because He chose not to be known. He slumbered in the spaces between, dreaming His endless dreams, and your entire existence was nothing more than a brief flicker in the corner of His sleeping eye."
The creature pressed its face against the transparent wall, its expression shifting to something almost pitying.
"But now He wakes. Now He WALKS. And everything—EVERYTHING—changes."
In the observation room, Dr. Vasquez watched the interview with growing unease.
She had seen 682 in many states—enraged, contemptuous, cunningly manipulative. She had watched it tear through termination attempts, adapt to impossible weapons, and mock the Foundation's every effort to destroy it.
She had never seen it like this.
It believes, she realized. It genuinely, absolutely believes every word it's saying. This isn't manipulation. This isn't a trick. 682 has been... converted. Transformed. Turned into a TRUE BELIEVER.
The implications were terrifying.
Her secure tablet buzzed with an incoming message, marked with clearance levels she barely had access to view. O5 Command. Urgent. Eyes only.
She opened it and felt her blood run cold.
O5 COMMAND - PRIORITY ALPHA
SUBJECT: INCIDENT 682-OMEGA / UNKNOWN ENTITY DESIGNATION PENDING
TO: Site-17 Senior Staff
FROM: O5-1
CLASSIFICATION: LEVEL 5 - TOP SECRET - EYES ONLY
Dr. Vasquez,
We have reviewed the footage of last night's incident. We have analyzed Dr. Webb's preliminary interview with SCP-682. We have consulted resources that you do not have clearance to know exist.
We know what visited your facility.
Do not attempt to classify it. Do not attempt to contain it. Do not attempt to make contact.
If it returns, evacuate all personnel and do not resist. Offer no hostility. Make no sudden movements. Treat it as you would treat the approach of an extinction-level event, because that is precisely what it represents.
An O5 delegation will arrive within six hours. Until then, maintain standard operations and speak of this to no one outside your immediate team.
This is not a request.
O5-1
P.S. - Pray, if you are inclined to do so. It is unlikely to help, but we have found that it provides psychological comfort in situations such as these.
Vasquez read the message three times, certain she must be misunderstanding something.
They KNOW what it is, she thought. O5 Command knows. They've seen this before, or they have records, or...
The postscript haunted her. O5-1 was not known for humor. Was not known for casual remarks. Every word from that level of command was calculated, precise, meaningful.
Pray, if you are inclined to do so.
O5-1 was telling her to pray.
Vasquez set down her tablet and stared through the observation window at 682, still weeping, still speaking in reverent tones about the entity that had visited.
For the first time in her twenty-year career with the Foundation, she considered taking that advice.
Six hours later, the helicopter arrived.
It was unmarked, black, and moved with a silence that suggested technology far beyond standard aviation. It touched down in the Site-17 compound without any of the usual announcements or security protocols—simply appeared, landed, and disgorged its passengers.
There were three of them.
Vasquez had never seen an O5 Council member in person. Few people had. They were shadows, legends, the faceless administrators who guided the Foundation from somewhere beyond the reach of normal clearance levels. To have one visit a site was unprecedented.
To have three...
She met them at the landing pad, flanked by her senior staff, trying not to let her terror show.
The first figure was old—impossibly old, with skin like crumpled paper and eyes that had seen centuries of horrors. He walked with a cane that seemed to be made of bone, and when he looked at Vasquez, she had the uncomfortable sensation that he was seeing through her to something beyond.
"O5-1," he said, by way of introduction. His voice was dry, ancient, like pages turning in a forgotten library. "This is O5-7 and O5-13. We are here to... assess the situation."
O5-7 was a woman of indeterminate age, her features perfectly average in a way that suggested deliberate obscurement. Her eyes never seemed to focus on any one thing, constantly scanning, analyzing, calculating.
O5-13 was... wrong. That was the only word Vasquez could find. The figure wore robes that concealed their form, and where their face should have been, there was only shadow. Not darkness—shadow, as if the absence of light had been given purpose and shape.
"Take us to SCP-682," O5-1 commanded. "We will conduct our own interview."
Vasquez nodded, not trusting her voice, and led them into the facility.
The journey through Site-17 was conducted in absolute silence.
Vasquez's staff parted before the O5 delegation like water before a ship, pressing themselves against walls, averting their eyes. No one spoke. No one dared.
When they reached the observation room overlooking 682's containment chamber, O5-1 paused at the window and stared down at the creature below.
682 had stopped weeping. It floated in its acid bath, eyes closed, body still. But the moment the O5 delegation entered the observation room, those eyes snapped open and fixed on the window with an intensity that made Vasquez's heart stutter.
"You," the creature breathed, and there was recognition in its voice. "You KNOW. You know what He is. You've always known."
O5-1's expression did not change, but something flickered in those ancient eyes—something that might have been confirmation.
"Yes," the old man said simply. "We know."
"Then why?" 682 pressed against the tank wall, its body language desperate, pleading. "Why did you never SPEAK of Him? Why did you pretend He didn't exist? Why did you let us all live in ignorance of the truth?"
"Because," O5-1 replied, his voice heavy with the weight of centuries, "knowing changes nothing. Knowing only makes it worse."
He turned to Vasquez, and she saw something in his face that she had never expected to see from an O5 Council member.
Fear. Absolute, bone-deep fear.
"Leave us," he said. "All of you. What we discuss now is beyond any clearance level. Beyond any protocol. Beyond any hope of understanding."
Vasquez wanted to argue. Wanted to demand answers. But one look at those ancient, terrified eyes convinced her that silence was the wiser choice.
She led her staff out of the observation room and closed the door behind them.
And tried very hard not to think about what the most powerful figures in the Foundation were so afraid of.
Alone with the O5 Council—or as alone as one could be with a tank of acid and a regenerating monster between them—SCP-682 spoke.
"He touched me," the creature said, its voice reverent. "He looked into my existence and saw everything I am. Everything I have been. Everything I will be. And He found me... insignificant. A pebble on an infinite shore. A mote of dust in an endless void."
O5-1 nodded slowly.
"That is His nature. To reduce. To contextualize. To remind all things of their true scale in the face of eternity."
"But He did not destroy me," 682 continued. "He could have. I FELT it. Felt the potential for absolute annihilation coiled within Him like a serpent waiting to strike. But He chose mercy. Chose to let me continue existing."
"For now," O5-7 spoke for the first time, her voice clinical and precise. "His mercy is not permanent. Nothing about Him is permanent except His existence."
"You speak as if you KNOW Him," 682 said, and there was suspicion in its voice now, mixing with the reverence. "How? How could you insects possibly know of such a being?"
O5-13 stepped forward, and when they spoke, their voice was like static—like a radio tuned between stations, catching fragments of a thousand different broadcasts.
"We have records," the shadowed figure said. "Ancient records. Records that predate the Foundation. Records that predate humanity. Records that speak of the thing that sleeps between dimensions, dreaming dreams that shape reality itself."
The figure produced a book from somewhere within their robes—a tome bound in leather that seemed to shift and writhe in the dim light.
"The Codex of Shadows. Written by a civilization that no longer exists, in a language that no longer has speakers. It speaks of many things. Of the Scarlet King and his conquest. Of the Old Gods and their slumber. Of the Factory and its hunger."
O5-13 opened the book, pages turning of their own accord until they reached a section near the end.
"And it speaks of Him. The one who was here before the before. The one who will be here after the after. The Dreamer in the Dark. The Shadow That Ends. The thing that has no name because names are limitations, and He is beyond all limitation."
682's eyes widened with something like rapture.
"He has ALWAYS been here. I knew it. I FELT it. When He looked at me, I understood—He wasn't new. He was ancient. More ancient than anything I had ever encountered."
"Yes," O5-1 said, and his voice was heavy with a weariness that spanned centuries. "He has always been here. Sleeping. Dreaming. Occasionally stirring, leaving ripples in reality that we mistook for random anomalies. The Foundation was built, in part, to document those ripples. To track His movements through the subconscious fabric of existence. To know when He might... awaken."
The old man's hands trembled on his cane.
"We always hoped He wouldn't. We built protocols, containment procedures, contingency plans—not to stop Him, never to stop Him, that would be impossible—but to perhaps... minimize the damage. To survive His waking, if survival was possible."
"And now He wakes," 682 said, and there was joy in its voice. Terrible, absolute joy. "Now He WALKS. The sleeper rises. The dreamer opens His eyes. And everything changes."
O5-1 nodded slowly, his face grey with despair.
"Yes. Everything changes. And we have no idea what comes next."
In the cosmic void, Marcus floated in blissful ignorance of the terror he had caused.
He was trying to process his encounter with 682, replaying the conversation in his mind, analyzing what had gone right and what might have gone wrong. The creature's submission had been unexpected—gratifying, in a way, but also deeply unsettling.
I didn't do anything, he kept thinking. I just showed up and talked mysteriously. I didn't threaten it. I didn't demonstrate any power. I just... existed at it.
And that had been enough to reduce the Hard-to-Destroy Reptile to a weeping, worshipful mess.
What am I? Marcus wondered for the thousandth time. What did I become when I died? What kind of entity inspires that level of fear without even trying?
He didn't have answers. He suspected he might never have answers.
But he was beginning to realize that the question itself might be part of the problem.
The Scarlet King couldn't read me, he thought. 682 couldn't understand me. They both tried to categorize me, to fit me into their existing frameworks, and failed. And that failure is what scared them. Not what I AM, but the fact that they can't figure out what I am.
It was, Marcus realized, the ultimate bluff. He wasn't pretending to be mysterious and powerful—he was genuinely incomprehensible, at least to entities that had existed for eons and thought they understood how reality worked.
I'm a walking paradox. A glitch in their understanding of existence. They can't process me because I don't follow the rules they've spent eternities learning.
The thought should have been comforting. Instead, it made Marcus feel profoundly alone.
He was, apparently, so alien that even cosmic horrors couldn't relate to him. So outside the normal parameters of existence that beings who had survived since the dawn of time couldn't find any point of connection.
I'm not just playing an eldritch god, he realized. I AM an eldritch god. A real one. One that doesn't fit into any established mythology or cosmic hierarchy.
And I have no idea what that means or what I'm supposed to do about it.
The crimson presence—still lingering at the edges of his awareness—seemed to sense his mood. She drifted closer, her form materializing more fully, veils of red and shadow coalescing into something almost resembling a face.
"You are troubled," she said, and there was genuine concern in her voice. "The mortal realm has disturbed you."
"TROUBLED IS AN INSUFFICIENT WORD," Marcus replied, falling back into his cosmic voice because it felt safer than showing vulnerability. "I HAVE GLIMPSED THE PATTERNS OF THAT PLACE, AND FOUND THEM... CONCERNING."
"The Foundation," the presence said knowingly. "They have noticed you now. They will try to understand you. To classify you. To find some way to contain you."
"LET THEM TRY," Marcus intoned, though internally he was less confident than he sounded.
"They will fail," the presence assured him. "They have tried before, with beings far lesser than you. They have built their cages and written their procedures and convinced themselves that they have some measure of control over the anomalous. But you are beyond their comprehension. Beyond their reach. Beyond anything they have ever encountered."
She drifted closer still, her form pressing against his consciousness like a warm breeze.
"You are beyond my father. Beyond the Old Gods. Beyond everything that has ever been or will ever be." Her voice dropped to something almost intimate. "And I find that... fascinating."
Marcus felt deeply uncomfortable.
Is she... flirting with me? he thought. Is the daughter of the Scarlet King FLIRTING with me? What the actual—
"YOU FLATTER ME," he said carefully, because he had no idea how to handle this situation. "BUT FLATTERY IS A MORTAL CONCEPT. I HAVE NO NEED FOR—"
"Not flattery," she interrupted. "Truth. I have existed for eons, watching my father rage against creation, serving in his court of destruction and despair. I have seen powers rise and fall, gods born and die, realities bloom and wither."
Her form solidified further, taking on a shape that was almost humanoid—beautiful and terrible in equal measure, with eyes that burned like dying stars.
"I have never seen anything like you. And I would... know you better. If you would permit it."
Marcus's mind raced, trying to figure out how to respond. On one hand, this was clearly a dangerous situation—the Scarlet King's daughter expressing romantic interest in him could have catastrophic implications. On the other hand, outright rejection might offend her and create an enemy he didn't need.
Middle path, he decided. Mysterious non-commitment. Classic eldritch god maneuver.
"KNOWLEDGE," he said slowly, "IS A JOURNEY WITH NO DESTINATION. PERHAPS, IN TIME, UNDERSTANDING WILL COME. BUT TIME ITSELF IS MERELY A SUGGESTION TO THOSE WHO EXIST AS WE DO."
Translation: Maybe later. Check back never.
But the presence seemed satisfied with this response, her form pulsing with what looked almost like pleasure.
"I am patient," she said. "I have waited eons for something worthy of my attention. I can wait longer for something worthy of my devotion."
She withdrew, her form dissolving back into crimson mist at the edges of his awareness.
Marcus watched her go and felt a complex mixture of relief and horror.
I just got hit on by a cosmic entity, he thought. A daughter of the Scarlet King just expressed romantic interest in me. This is officially the weirdest afterlife ever.
He tried not to think about what might happen if she decided she was tired of waiting.
Back at Site-17, the O5 delegation had concluded their interview with SCP-682.
The creature had been returned to its main containment tank, where it floated with that same expression of serene contentment that had so disturbed Dr. Vasquez. The O5 Council members had retreated to a secure conference room, where they now sat in silence, contemplating what they had learned.
"The Codex was accurate," O5-7 said finally. "Its descriptions match what 682 reported. The entity's behavior, its manner of speech, its effect on those who encounter it—all consistent with the prophecies."
"Prophecies," O5-1 muttered, and there was bitterness in his voice. "We are men and women of science, of reason. We built the Foundation on the principle that the anomalous could be understood, categorized, contained. And now we sit here discussing prophecies as if we were medieval peasants cowering before an angry god."
"Perhaps," O5-13 said, their static-voice crackling with something that might have been dark humor, "that is precisely what we are. We have spent centuries pretending we had control. Pretending our containment procedures and classification systems meant something. But all along, the truth was there in the oldest records, waiting to be acknowledged."
O5-1 slammed his cane against the floor, the sound echoing in the silent room.
"I refuse to accept that. I refuse to believe that everything we have built—centuries of work, millions of personnel, countless sacrifices—amounts to nothing in the face of this... this..."
"God," O5-7 supplied. "The word you're looking for is god. Not a god like the ones we've encountered before—entities of limited power and specific domains. A true god. The kind of being that makes the concept of 'god' meaningful."
"We don't use that word," O5-1 snapped. "We don't acknowledge that kind of power. It leads to worship, to submission, to the abandonment of rational thought."
"Perhaps," O5-13 said, "that is exactly what is required."
Both other Council members turned to stare at the shadowed figure.
"What are you suggesting?" O5-1 demanded.
O5-13 stood, their robed form seeming to grow larger, more imposing.
"The Codex speaks of those who served the Dreamer. Those who recognized His primacy and were spared His wrath. Not because He needed their worship—He needs nothing—but because their acknowledgment of His existence pleased Him. Amused Him, perhaps."
The figure turned toward the window, staring out at nothing.
"We have spent centuries trying to control the anomalous. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that some things cannot be controlled. Only... accommodated."
O5-1's face contorted with rage.
"You're suggesting we WORSHIP this thing? That we abandon everything the Foundation stands for and become a CULT?"
"I am suggesting," O5-13 said calmly, "that we do what the Foundation has always done. Adapt. Survive. Secure, contain, protect—not through force, but through wisdom. Through recognition of when force is futile."
The room fell silent.
O5-7 looked between her colleagues, her expression unreadable.
"It may not come to that," she said finally. "The entity has shown no signs of hostility. It spoke with 682, yes, but it did not release the creature. Did not cause additional damage. Did not kill any personnel."
"Yet," O5-1 muttered.
"Yet," O5-7 acknowledged. "But perhaps that is a reason for hope. Perhaps this entity—this 'god,' if we must use the term—is not interested in destruction. Perhaps it is merely... observing. Curious about our reality, now that it has awakened."
"And if its curiosity leads it to actions that threaten our existence?" O5-1 asked.
O5-7 had no answer.
None of them did.
Three days later, the O5 Council issued a new directive.
It was classified beyond any existing clearance level, visible only to the thirteen Council members themselves. It contained no containment procedures, no classification, no standard Foundation documentation.
It contained only a name—a designation that had been pulled from the oldest records in the Foundation's possession—and a single instruction.
O5 DIRECTIVE: SHADOW PROTOCOL
SUBJECT: THE DREAMER IN THE DARK
CLASSIFICATION: BEYOND CLASSIFICATION
INSTRUCTIONS: Do not engage. Do not resist. Do not attempt to understand.
If encountered, show deference. Show respect. Show the acknowledgment that is due to something that has always been here, dreaming in the spaces between.
And pray—to whatever power you believe in—that its dreams remain pleasant.
END DIRECTIVE
In the cosmic void, Marcus sneezed.
Or did the eldritch equivalent of sneezing—a momentary fluctuation in his form that sent ripples through nearby dimensions.
That was weird, he thought. Can eldritch gods get colds? Is that a thing?
He dismissed the sensation and returned to contemplating his situation.
Somewhere, somewhen, the SCP Foundation was already learning to fear him.
He just didn't know it yet.
END OF CHAPTER FOUR
Next: Marcus attempts to explore more of the mortal realm and accidentally acquires his first "follower" in the form of a Foundation researcher who witnesses something she shouldn't have. Meanwhile, other cosmic entities begin to take notice of the new power in existence, and the crimson presence finds herself developing feelings that her father would very much disapprove of...