The Foundation regularly deals with anomalies
of a more sinister nature. The most frightening among these, of course,
are the ones that stalk and kill Foundation operatives. For no clear rhyme or reason, sometimes the
Foundation’s agents and researchers become subject to things that seek to entrap and
utterly consume them. Doctor Elizabeth Graham is one such poor soul. Nowadays her name is whispered through mess
halls and cubicles, since no one really seems to know what happened to her. One moment she was carrying a stack of files
between two offices. The next, completely gone. The Foundation’s security teams couldn’t
figure out what happened to her. The CCTV cameras just showed her blinking
out of existence and the files falling to the floor. Her biometric scanners simply returned a dead
signal. It seemed that one day, Dr. Graham simply
ceased to exist. Of course, the Foundation isn’t above keeping
secrets from its own personnel. Perhaps they did find something. A series of SCP documents, covered in sand,
suddenly appearing in Graham’s office one day neatly stacked and paperclipped. All signed by her in her own handwriting,
and detailing her days spent in a pocket reality of some sort. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened
- the infamous Red Reality incident with Doctor Robert Scranton had already upset researchers,
and there was no reason to alarm them further about something they couldn’t change. So Dr. Graham’s papers were covered up and
relegated to long term storage, where they would likely never be thought of again. But don’t you wonder? What happened to Dr. Graham? The first thing Doctor Graham felt when she
woke up was confusion. She didn’t remember falling asleep - in
fact, she didn’t remember much at all. She had been moving files between two offices
at Site-22 on a normal workday. She’d said hello to some of her coworkers
and had a late lunch before returning to work. And then… nothing. The second thing she felt was fear. She looked around and realized she was in
some kind of desert. A bright blue sky was overhead and there seemed
to be a sun. But all around her was sand. Massive sand dunes, flowing sand plains and
even what looked like a sand storm in the distance. But all there was, was sand. Doctor Graham then noticed she was still holding
some things. A small folder, filled with paperclipped documents. Pulling one out, she realized what it was
- a template document for an SCP file, complete with sections for object class, containment
procedures, and descriptions. This place was obviously not normal - but
she had been anomalously transported to it. It needed to be documented. There was nothing else to do, so she sat down,
and began to write. She guessed at a number - who knows what SCP
the Foundation was on now, might as well pick something from the middle. She scrawled SCP-3890 at the top and bubbled
in Keter for the object class. The containment procedures were spartan, but
effective - no effective measures of containment were possible, and she would focus on simply
exploring and finding out what was going on. Then came the description. No point in sticking to the Foundation’s
signature clinical tone, given the circumstances. It was more important to get the information
down, and so she began to transcribe her thoughts. “SCP-3890 is a potentially extradimensional
or extraterrestrial space which I, Doctor Elizabeth Graham, was somehow transported
to from Site-22 on 02/17/16. I am uncertain as to whether I was transported
here due to my involvement with the Foundation.” After finishing the paragraph, she picked
herself up off the sand dune she had landed on and started to walk in the direction of
the sun. She didn’t have much information, and exploring
would be necessary if she were to accurately document the anomaly. It didn’t take long before she came across
something in the distance. An old collapsed temple - completely ruined
from the outside, the structure sagging in on itself. It had the columns and facades of a Roman
building, she noticed. Peering inside, it was completely empty except
for more sand. In the distance, more ruins were present - some
older, and some more modern looking office buildings. “In terms of geography, SCP-3890 takes the
form of a seemingly infinite desert plain, with ruins of differing architectural design
poking out through the sand. I have noted the presence of buildings of
modern design, along with what appear to be ruins of Ancient Roman and Erikeshan structures.” She only noticed the first figure when the
sun started to set. As the sky shifted to twilight, she saw a
person walking, casting a long shadow. Excitedly, she yelled out - to no response. When she approached, she saw a man in an older
suit, with completely lifeless eyes, stumbling along. “SCP-3890-1 is my collective designation
for the humanoid entities that wander through SCP-3890. They do not respond to any stimuli and, as
far as I have been able to tell, simply walk around without a specific destination. SCP-3980 are either entities that have been
created to resemble humans but imperfect, or they are humans who have been mentally
altered in some way to rob them of their faculties.” There did seem to be some kind of a day night
cycle - and she didn’t feel hungry or thirsty at all, though she did feel sleepy. After her first day in the desert, Dr. Graham
settled in one of the collapsed ruins, drifting off to sleep. The second document opens much differently. This appears to be a document for something
designated SCP-3980-2, Keter. The containment procedures are simply to always,
constantly be on guard for it, whatever it is. If Doctor Graham feels something she is approaching
is not as it appears, she is to immediately retreat. The description is a little clearer. “SCP-3890-2 is a living entity of varying
shape and size which resides in SCP-3890. I am uncertain as to whether SCP-3890-2 originates
here or if it was transported here at some point in the same way I was. From what I have observed of its behaviour,
it appears to be some form of predator. SCP-3890-2 is currently hunting me.” “I first encountered the entity shortly
after writing down my initial observations of SCP-3890. It snuck up behind me while I was resting
and got me while I wasn't paying attention. I was knocked unconscious by its attack and
woke up several hours later, during the night. It has attacked me several times since that
first encounter, with several hours between each attack.” She was caught off-guard by it last night. She hadn’t noticed its presence - it seemed
to be just another building in the far-off horizon when she sat down and pulled out her
pencil and paper again. She had started to fill in some more information
about the humanoids: they seemed to continually walk in circles around some of the ruins,
though it was unclear to her why, or even whether they were aware of what they were
doing. But when she pulled her pencil out - she heard
the buzzing in her head. It was like TV static - initially soft and
low, but then ramping up and quickly becoming deafening, stifling her ability to think. She looked up, and she saw it. For a moment it retained its form as the building
in the horizon, but that quickly changed. It began to unfold on itself, completely black
on the inside. Like a dark paper crane continually folding
and unfolding, stretching and compressing in on itself. By the time Doctor Graham got to her feet
and ran away, she began to realize what it had done and quickly scrawled it onto the
paper. “SCP-3890-2 uses amnesticization as a form
of attack. While it has not injured me physically thus
far, I have lost all memory of significant chunks of my childhood and early adulthood. I can no longer recall which high school I
went to, or what my first job was. My current hypothesis is that, as an entity,
it feeds upon memory.” At first, Doctor Graham avoided buildings
and stayed to the empty parts of the desert while walking. But when the creature appeared again, unfolding
out of what seemed to be a piece of paper, it became clear what it was: a mimic. In the coming hours it would pretend to be
a star, a human, a fly, even a patch of dirt while trying to make Graham come close enough
to consume her mind. The next document opens in even more dire
circumstances. The containment procedures have shifted drastically
- “containment” now focuses on making sure that the Mimic does not consume any memories
that Doctor Graham can’t afford to lose. She is to write down all vital memories so
she can recall them if they do get destroyed, and watch for its presence in all situations
and at all times. She writes the document while huddled in a
vault in a bank dropped into SCP-3980, since it offers a little security from the creature. But the corpses of a family in the bank imply
something less hopeful. They chose to die by their own hand rather
than let the Mimic get to them. Graham plans to kill anything that tries to
enter the vault to ensure the Mimic doesn’t get in, but has bigger problems. “I have lost all memories regarding how
I came to be employed by the Foundation. I know that I am a Foundation researcher with
Level 3 clearance, but I simply cannot recall how I came to be in this position. Many of the SCP objects I worked with are
also missing from my memory. I can tell there is a hole there, but I just
don't know what was there before.” Her memories of her own identity have been
obliterated. Who she is, where she’s from, what the Foundation
even is - they have all been taken by the Mimic. Without fail, it manages to surprise her and
consume an important memory, then dashing away as she tries to figure out what got stolen
from her. Something small, like her favorite food or
her childhood bedroom? Or something foundational and fundamental,
like her name and her sense of self? And avoiding it isn’t an option - it can
pretend to be any of the single grains of sand in the boundless desert. And Graham came to that conclusion: this is
an infinite dimension of sand, serving as a hunting grounds for the Mimic. Of course, it could be anything else, too. A brick, a window, any of the buildings, any
of the mindless wandering people or the clothes on Doctor Graham’s back. Any of them could be the Mimic, and Graham
thought of that too. It’s why she hasn’t let go of her knife
in days, even though it’s dripping blood from examining the corpses of the former victims
of SCP-3980-2. Even though she doesn’t need to eat or drink,
there is another concern - sleep. The moment she falls asleep, the Mimic will
no doubt be upon her. She hastily scribbled down a little bit more
onto the paper before trying to rest. “The sun's going down. I can't allow myself to fall asleep - 3890-2
will come in without a doubt if I do. I don't have to eat, I don't have to drink,
but I still have to sleep. This place is designed for the mimics benefit. It can hunt its prey to its heart's content
without them dying of thirst and starvation. Is this an enclosure, maybe? Some kind of sick game? My name is Elizabeth Graham. My name is Elizabeth Graham. My name is Elizabeth Graham. I can't forget that now. This page is my memory.” The next words she writes on that paper show
something ominous: She can hear crying outside her makeshift shelter. The next document, things have changed. Someone named Tony is mentioned in the containment
procedures, someone Graham trusts to take watch while she sleeps and watch for the Mimic. The descriptions explain: Tony is a child,
only ten years old, who fell into this dimension - the same as Graham - when walking home from
the playground. The Mimic can imitate objects, but it can’t
speak. The boy is real. They’ve worked out a rudimentary password
system to confirm each others identities regardless. Graham feels almost hopeful - their chances
of survival have doubled, even though they’re being hunted. Not for their lives, but for the previous
memories inside their heads. But she’s still worried about other things. If people don’t starve or thirst to death
in SCP-3890, do they age? How long have the mindless humanoids been
wandering around? How long has she been wandering around? Though she reminds herself of her training,
she also faces the fact that she might have been exclusively picked for a past reason:
“I have this memory from my childhood, still. Everything around it is gone, but it's sort
of floating free, devoid of context. I'm visiting a woman in a hospital, I think
it's a hospital, and I think it's a woman I know. A close relative? My mother or my grandmother, I think. And I go to visit her, I'm just a kid, twelve
I think, and she doesn't know who I am. At all. I don't remember what happened before that
or after.” Perhaps the Mimic brought her here because
it knew she would hate having her mind consumed like this. But that would mean it wasn’t just intelligent
- that it was sadistic and cruel. She noted down she’d ask Tony if he had
a similar experience, and they’d be a little closer to working it out. The document is hopeful - Doctor Graham now
has something to believe in. The next document is a complete mess - scribblings
and scrawlings in the margins, and the text doesn’t even begin to make any kind of sense. It’s all word salad, the ravings of someone
gone utterly insane. She mentions herself, her own name repeatedly
and constantly. But in between are mentions of Tony, the Foundation,
the Mimic, and everything in between. Doctor Graham has lost her grip on reality
- that, or whatever wrote this wasn’t Doctor Elizabeth Graham. The document after that has very simple containment
procedures: she is to kill SCP-3980-2, the Mimic. “Description: I woke up this morning. Tony was gone. He was the Mimic. It was smarter than I thought, I guess. I was stupid. I should have seen this coming, but I was
desperate and it knew it. All it left was some scrawled document and
a hole in my head the shape of my name.” The Mimic, disguising itself as a child, has
stolen the last thing she had left: her name. All Graham’s precautions were useless - even
though her name was written down a dozen times in the last documentation, she cannot remember
it. In fact, when she reads it, it immediately
removes itself from her mind again. Not only has it taken her memory, its taken
her ability to reform them. And the document it left behind is one of
her own - an SCP template, though of course she doesn’t know what the Foundation is
anymore. The same document we have seen previously
in the pile. Yes, the Mimic is learning to imitate Graham,
and getting better at it. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t been killed
yet - it’s yet to pin down her thought process and is waiting until it has her perfectly
memorized. Not that she would know, given that she’s
forgotten how she even came here or when. But the Mimic made a mistake - it took everything
from her, even her hope. Which has left Doctor Elizabeth Graham a woman
with nothing left to lose. She resolves: she will not get out of SCP-3980. The documents will probably wind up back in
the Foundation’s possession from some testing with an unrelated anomaly, but she will be
a mindless husk or worse. She plans to kill the Mimic. It’s a cowardly, fearful stalker creature,
and only hunts by pretending to be other things. She knows she can take it in a fight, and
she still has her knife. The next document is sober. The object class: Neutralized. Doctor Graham walked boundlessly through the
desert until the Mimic jumped for her. It unfolded from a cloud, turning it into
a mass of black origami and lunging for her. It didn’t expect her to turn around and
slash outward with her knife, piercing its strange black flesh. It let out a scream, shrank, and Doctor Graham
realized that it could feel pain. So when it lunged again, she drove her knife
deep into it before pulling back. And she repeated the process until it was
a tiny black mite in the sand, and then she crushed it under her heel. It was that easy, that simple. But of course, every time it had come close
to her it had taken another bite out of her mind just as she took another slash at its
form. “We opened each other up. I filled its body with holes, and it filled
my mind with them. There's not much left of me.” She curses herself for not having done it
earlier, but maybe there was a reason - she can’t remember it anymore. In any case, the Mimic’s dying bites from
her were particularly damaging - the straw that broke the camel’s back. What’s left of Doctor Elizabeth Graham is
falling apart. She scribbles things down on the paper while
her mind realizes that she can’t even understand what she’s writing anymore. The next document is empty. Not every story with the Foundation’s agents
fighting a monster has a happy ending. Now go check out “SCP-3001 - Red Reality”
and “SCP-3838 - Nomads of the 4th Dimensional Steppe” for more other-worldly dimension-related
SCPs!
