Ever since she was in high school, Faith had
dreamed of moving out and finally getting a place of her own. It wasn't that she didn't love her parents,
she did, but they were always around, always coming into her room without knocking,
telling her when to go to bed, when to wake up, not to eat dinner in front of the TV. In college, she had some welcome independence,
but she had to live with roommates. Again, they were perfectly nice people, some
of them she even considered good friends, but she hated having to share her space, having
to come home from a long day of classes and see someone else's dishes piled up in
the sink, to have someone else's music keeping her awake
at night, to delay her morning shower because someone
else had gotten there first. So, she was thrilled when, a few years after
graduating, she got a new job at a marketing company
that would hopefully let her afford a place by herself. She anticipated having some peace, some quiet,
and most importantly, some privacy. Faith spent all day moving furniture and unpacking
boxes, turning the little apartment into a real home. It wasn't much, just a main room she used
as a bedroom and living room, a bathroom, and a basic little kitchen, but
it was all hers. And all of the little personal touches she'd
put together really made it feel like the place was meant for her. There was the orange couch she'd picked up
at the vintage store downtown, the coffee table she'd gotten for free from her previous
roommate, framed pictures of her family and friends,
a bed with linens in her favorite color, light blue,
and lots and lots of potted plants. Over time, she would find even more things,
more little personal touches to liven up the space. Now, how to celebrate her new home? Her gas wasn't on yet, so she couldn't cook
anything, but that was the perfect excuse to order in! Thirty minutes or less later, she was kicking
back on her couch with a large cheese pizza, watching a scary movie on her TV. No one would ask to switch it over to The
Bachelor, no one would take the last slice while she
was in the bathroom. It was perfect. A little piece of heaven, an introvert's paradise. As she excitedly devouring her first meal
in the new place, she began to feel her eyes grow heavy,
the day of strenuous unpacking catching up with her body. Just as she was thinking about calling it
a night, a pale-faced monster appeared out of nowhere
onscreen, terrifying the movie's main character, and making Faith jump, spilling her soda all
over the coffee table. "Dammit!" She groaned. Already, she'd made a mess. But hey, she tried to look on the bright side. It was yet another first
to break in the apartment. She grabbed a kitchen towel to mop up the
soda, and when she returned to the main room, she froze. There was something in the window, standing
out against the darkness outside. At first, she thought it was a reflection,
a trick of the light, but as she slowly approached the window, eyes
wide and hands trembling, she got a better look. There was a face there, a little difficult
to make out, as if it were peering out of the shadows, but unmistakable nonetheless. It was pale, human, vaguely resembling a strange
man with dark circles under his eyes, and he was looking right at her. She didn't scream, she was too terrified to
make a sound. She stared at the face for a long moment,
waiting for it to do something, anything. After several moments of the tensest staring
contest of her life, she blinked. The face didn't budge. "You need to leave," she eventually spoke,
surprising herself as she did. "If you don't get out of here, I'm calling
the cops." Again, the face did nothing. "Do you hear me?!" her voice climbed in pitch, her heart pounding
against the inside of her chest. Who was he? What did he want? She became vaguely aware of the fact that
she couldn't see the rest of the man's body. Just his face, looking at her with a neutral
expression, a look of vague curiosity like someone watching
a caged animal at the zoo might have. It was then that she remembered something
that made her blood run cold, made the towel drop from her hands as her
stomach sank: she lived on the third floor. Her apartment had no balcony, no fire escape
he could have climbed up. Whatever was looking at her through her window,
it was no ordinary peeping tom. She couldn't say how long she stared at the
face, its unblinking eyes, its inscrutable expression. She moved closer to the window, step by step,
until she was almost nose to nose with the thing. She couldn't think of it as a person, though
it looked like one. Mostly. She should run screaming out the door, looking
for some kind of help, but what would she say? That there was a floating face looking at
her through the window? What if it was somehow all in her head? Some sort of hallucination
brought on by exhaustion and the stress of the move? She raised a fist and, following a passing
instinct, rapped on the glass. \She didn't know what she expected, for it
to blink, to move, to knock back? To say something? But nothing happened. It just stayed there, as if it were part of
the window itself. Faith pulled the curtains closed, hiding the
strange face from view. With any luck, it would be gone in the morning. She had worked hard to get this apartment,
and she would be damned if she let some strange thing, whatever it was, drive her out of her
new home. But as she climbed into bed and pulled the
covers up to her chin, she could still feel its gaze on her,
as if it could see through the thick fabric of the curtains. She rolled over onto her side, her back to
the window, and tried her best to forget about it,
to shake that horrible feeling of being observed. She lay there for hours, eyes open, heart
racing. But finally, the exhaustion won and she slipped
away into sleep. She didn't dream at all that night, it was
as if she closed her eyes, and seconds later, it was morning. She woke to the beep of her alarm, feeling
as if she hadn't rested at all. The first thing she did was climb out of bed,
and go to the window. Carefully, tentatively, she opened the curtains. She let out a sigh of deep relief. The face was gone. She must have imagined it after all. A bit concerning, but as long as it didn't
happen again, she wouldn't have anything to worry about. Lack of sleep does strange things to the mind,
after all. No longer plagued by the fear of the strange
face, Faith hopped into the shower and let the worries of the previous night wash away,
disappearing down the drain. She brushed her teeth, dried her hair, did
her makeup, and dressed for work. After a banana and a quick cup of coffee,
she was out the door. Work was exceptionally busy that day, and
it pushed any memory of the oddity in the window out of her mind entirely. She was even feeling good enough to accept
her friend's offer to grab a drink after work. They met up at a bar down the street from
her new place, sharing cocktails, memories, and a plate of onion rings. It was a perfect, lovely evening. By the time she got home, savoring the click
of the key in the lock as she let herself into her quiet little sanctuary,
she had completely forgotten about the unusual apparition. She swung the door open and rushed to dump
herself onto the couch for a bit of TV before bed. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw
it. The face, back in its previous place, staring
at her from the darkness outside. She gasped at the sight, her scream catching
in her throat. It was just as she remembered it- wait, no,
something was different. What was it...? She clapped a hand over her mouth in horror
as she identified the change: its expression was different. Gone was the vaguely
interested, neutral expression. Now it was smiling at her. Not a pleasant smile, not a warm, friendly
smile. A wicked smile, twisted and cruel. It knew she was afraid, that she'd been hoping
it was gone forever, and it was enjoying itself. Her hands were shaking, nervous sweat beading
on her brow. "What do you want from me?" She whispered, staring into its eyes. They didn't move, but they glittered with
malicious glee just the same. "What do you want from me?!" She repeated, her voice rising to a shout. "Shut up!" Her next-door neighbor yelled, banging on
the wall. "It's after midnight!" She couldn't bring herself to respond, she
had more important things to attend to. Her stomach turned, bile rising in her throat. Would the face be gone again in the morning? Would it come back again at night? Was the apartment haunted, possessed by a
specter doomed to reside in her window forever? Was that why the rent had been so affordable? Or maybe it was her, maybe this thing had
been drawn to her? Or maybe she was losing her mind, unaccustomed
to living alone, and her sanity was slipping away. She shivered at the thought. What was worse: if the face was all in her
head...or if it wasn't? Rather than attempt to answer the question
gnawing at her, she closed the curtains. Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. She would just have to keep the curtains closed,
possibly forever. It was better than seeing that damned face
grinning that horrible grin. But as she tried again to settle in for another
restless night, she could feel its eyes boring into her, burning into her skull. She had never felt so uneasy before. She'd prepared for cockroaches, for black
mold, for burglars, but not for this. This was something outside of her understanding,
outside of reality itself. "Just don't look." She whispered to herself. "Just don't look at it." It became part of her daily routine: wake
up, ignore the window, go to work, try to forget about the window,
get home, try desperately not to think about the window. She could always feel it, though. As soon as the sun went down, though she kept
the curtains closed, she knew it was there. She thought about checking to see what face
it was making this time, but she couldn't bring herself to look. Gradually, her condition worsened. She woke to a tightness in her chest, panic
attacks that wracked her body, and felt like her heart might stop beating. Her stomach would ache, she struggled to keep
food down. One morning she rushed to the bathroom, and
spat up blood. The effect began to follow her out of the
apartment, too, far away from the face's dwelling. She would sit at her desk, struggling to focus
on marketing campaigns and pitches, and she would feel a sudden pain in her stomach,
forcing her to double over and groan with agony. She would see flickers of the pale face in
her peripheral vision, turning to look, only to find that there was nothing there. When she walked down the hall to the elevator,
or down the street outside her building, she would feel as if someone was following
her. She never saw anyone, never heard any footsteps
coming up behind her, but she could never shake off the sensation. Soon, even her formerly dreamless nights of
sleep, as fitful as they had been, became unsafe. She would toss and turn, sweating through
her sheets, as her subconscious was tormented by chilling
visions and terrible nightmares. She would dream of walking down a long, dark
hallway that seemed to go on forever, and something coming up behind her, trying
to grab her and drag her away. It would chase her, wide dark eyes and long,
long limbs grasping at her, as she ran and ran but never escaped. Other times she would dream of being locked
in a damp basement, chained to a wall as the pale creature sat
in a chair across from her, just watching. Waiting for something, though she didn't know
what. Every night, another nightmare that made her
wake up screaming, fighting off invisible attackers. After two weeks of living in hell, she decided
to look out the window again. She had to see, had to know. That night, when she opened the curtains,
it was there. Mouth wide open, eyes glinting. It was laughing at her. Screw the deposit, enough was enough. She wanted her home back. She picked up the heavy lamp on her bedside
table, wound up, and threw it at the window with all her might. The glass shattered, little crystalline shards
spraying in every direction as the lamp flew through the air, out the window, and down
to the street below. And just like that, the face was gone. She checked every other window in the place,
the little one in the bathroom, the peephole on her door, but it was nowhere
to be found. She was free. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed to the
floor, her face in her hands, and wept from sheer relief. Tomorrow she would clean up the broken glass
and spin her landlord a story about a freak accident. Someone would come to fix the window, and
it would be the best money she had ever spent. Eventually, the whole ordeal would fade from
her memory like a bad dream, but somewhere out there, someone else was
living the nightmare all over again, looking out a darkened window to see an unwelcome
guest: the entity known as SCP-965. SCP-965 is a phenomenon affecting framed windows. When it appears, it manifests in the shape
of a shadowy face, belonging to a pale man staring in through the window. The details of the man's face vary from person
to person, as well as his apparent age and the direction
he is facing. However, all reports point to the same figure
at various ages, ranging from 10 to 55. The Foundation has attempted to use facial
recognition software to identify a citizen matching the description of this figure,
but so far, no one has been found. SCP-965 will not appear in just any window. It will only manifest when the lighting on
the outside of the window drops below a lumination of five candelas. The lighting on the inside of the window does
not have any measurable effect. The face will only appear in the confines
of a completely assembled window frame, though the window does not necessarily need
to be installed anywhere. It will only move from one glass pane to another
if its original point of manifestation is destroyed. The face can be seen from an outside vantage
point, though it has been described by observers as "looking away, into the room." When SCP-965 first appears to someone, it
produces feelings of unease, anxiety, and low-grade paranoia. Anyone within the visual range of the affected
window will experience these feelings, even if the window is covered by curtains
or any other means. Any individual that sleeps in an area visible
to SCP-965's manifestation point will begin to experience difficulty sleeping,
suffering from upsetting and disturbing dreams. However, this is not the endpoint of the entity's
impact on those it appears to. At a point between three and ten nights of
sleep after its initial appearance, the entity's facial expression will begin
to shift into a noticeable smile. After this shift, the victim's symptoms will
become physical as well as mental, including ulcers and intestinal bleeding,
heartburn, abdominal pain, and even vomiting blood. This has been attributed to the entity's influence
on the human body's reaction to heightened levels of stress and fear. The subjects that reach this stage of exposure
to SCP-965 begin to see its face in windows in their dreams,
as well as spotting it in their peripheral vision while going about their waking life. They begin to see the face out of the corner
of their eye even when the affected window is nowhere in sight. These additional sightings are accompanied
by lingering feelings of paranoia and the sensation that something is following or watching
them. Though the entity has never made a sound,
and does not move while it is visible, it can disappear and reappear in different
poses. It has also displayed notable signs of sentience,
appearing disappointed when it manifests in an empty room,
and angry if it sees someone who broke its previous window. When presented with one of the agents who
first brought it into custody, the entity appeared frightened for the first
time. Testing involving SCP-965
involving the destruction of its host window confirmed that a multi-paned window might
act as multiple holding zones, but significant damage to its overall structure
keeps it from being a viable replacement. In this particular case, the entity manifested
in a nearby experimentation chamber's observation window,
which was promptly destroyed in order to prevent any potential breaches. For the month following this incident, the
entity manifested with noticeably hostile facial expressions,
clearly resentful of its treatment. Only one other notable incident has occurred
so far during the course of SCP-965's containment by the SCP Foundation. Dr. L - the rest of her name has been redacted
from the official file - was the head researcher assigned to SCP-965
for several months before she filed an official request for transfer
to a different test subject. She was beginning to experience intrusive
visions of SCP-965 and lingering feelings of paranoia, lasting long after she left the Foundation
Site. Her symptoms were consistent with those of
someone who had slept in the presence of the entity,
though she swore up and down she had never napped or slept at all in the vicinity of
the affected window. She was temporarily relieved of her duties
and provided with psychological care. So far, no other instances of SCP-965 impacting
staff who have not slept in its presence have been reported,
but this case set an unsettling precedent. The mental health of anyone assigned to SCP-965
is to be strictly monitored, in case it expands its influence again. SCP-965 is contained within a framed ready-to-install
window, made up of six panes of clear glass, or other
comparable material, at a size of at least 15cmx30cm. The window must be kept in an environmentally
controlled storage facility capable of withstanding earthquakes and other
seismic activity. The window must be inspected at least once
a week in order to check the integrity of the material. Additionally, at least two identical framed
windows must be stored in the same facility, in separate chambers with additional insulation. Any lighting in the containment chamber should
be kept at a minimum of 130 candelas at any time personnel are inside, with the exception of
research and experimentation. Though SCP-965 is currently contained, the
Foundation is unable to control its movement should its current window be destroyed. Therefore, SCP-965 is classified as "Euclid." Scopophobia is the fear of being watched or
looked at by others. Those suffering from this fear will often
avoid windows, terrified of who might be standing on the
other side, staring in, and keeping track of everything
they do. Even those of us without scopophobia might
find ourselves feeling a prickle of dread while looking out the window at night,
watching for a shadowy figure or a ghastly face pressed to the glass. Most of the time, of course, there is no one
there. It's just an overactive imagination,
the lingering effect of watching one too many scary movies. But eventually, your luck might just run out. One night, when the world falls quiet, and
you go to close the curtains before you go to sleep, just in case…
you might just find that someone is right there,
on the other side of that thin pane of glass, staring at you with wide, unblinking eyes. It won't ever come inside, but it isn't going
anywhere, and as long as you are where it can see you? You will never know peace again. Now go check out “SCP-1471 - MalO Version
1.0.0” and “SCP-966 - Sleep Killer” for more relentless anomalies that’ll seriously
interfere with your sleep schedule…
