"Just a dream," they thought. "Just a very bad dream."
Was it so very bad? Considering the work they did, the things they had seen, the things to which they had been exposed, things easily could have come to a far worse pass than this.
They opened their eyes and stretched. It was, as it always was, most disorienting. Three limbs elongated to their full extent, and one was simply absent. One, two, three…
…and then four, and five. It had not been a dream after all. What strange new fascination was this?
On taking to their bed the previous night they had possessed, of this they were quite terribly certain, two legs and one arm. The present count of limbs was certainly novel.
They chanced a nervous glance at the hump of their body beneath the vast, weighted blanket enveloping the bed. It described an arc, distended, alien. Bunched up like a discarded sock, or a dead pill-bug, or a vast, human-sized beetle.
"I'm a beetle," they thought. "Oh, shit."
Jay Everwood made no habit of sleeping on-Site, but last night they nevertheless had done so. Sunlight now filtered through dark velvet curtains, dappling the heaving blanket and the dormitory's thick shag carpet, reflecting off personal mementos adorning otherwise blank walls and functional furniture. There was a labcoat, freshly-pressed, on a hangar on the bathroom door. It wouldn't fit now, of course, even if they could wriggle out of bed and dislodge it from its perch. There was a telephone on the bedside table which they would under no circumstances be able to dial, not in this condition. There were stacks of paper on the desk, mostly white, some bright yellow with purple livery. There was an ugly, dull-golden card in a frame on the small desk they sometimes used for late-night work. They felt a sudden rush of sentiment for what it represented, and then shame.
"I'm so sick of this," they thought. The sun was rising, and the ambient light was increasing, and the signals from their eyes became blurrier and blurrier with the refraction. "Every day it's something new, something worse. Otherworldly doppelgangers. Literally endless office hallways. Multiversal body-swapping. Now I'm a god-damn bug." It was the worst way to begin a Monday they could imagine.
They sighed. It came out high and hoarse, an unnatural cross between insectile squeal and guttural groan. They would, of course, be obligated to announce this change of situation to the authorities before long. It was protocol. This was a containment breach of some variety.
But the blanket was very heavy, and still exerted its calming effect. They could go back to sleep. Was it really even the blanket? Lately they felt tired without much in the way of external influence. They could drift away with no effort at all, sleep through the day and wake up tomorrow and see if they were still a beetle then.
But there was research, and team leading, and endless scrolling through a list of possibilities for their next disastrous date to be done, and it certainly wouldn't do itself, and certainly someone would notice if they never came out of their dorm room again. It was known that they never slept in. Someone would recognize the discrepancy, would understand that they had ceased to perform their duty and would notify their superiors, someone would want for instructions or advice or something signed and come looking, and how could anyone sleep knowing disasters like these loomed on the near horizon?
There came a rough double-tap on the door to the outside world. "Jay?"
Everwood sank down deeper on the boxspring, and the blanket slid down over their head. The voice belonged to Dr. Michael Elson, Assistant Director of Site-55. Certainly someone had to come and see why they weren't up and about, but could it not have been someone they could simply shoo away?
"Jay," the voice repeated. "Are you alright? You missed our morning meeting."
"I did?" they marvelled. Could it be so late in the day already? They couldn't imagine how they might have slept so soundly, a matter so vital unhandled. They opened their mouth to call out something satisfactory, explanatory, enough to end the conversation and let them slip back into agitated slumber, but what came out instead was "I'm fine. Go away," their voice scratchy and tinny and every bit as obviously wrong as the rest of them.
Well, so be it. Elson could go away. Everwood wasn't sure if they really wanted him to, but they were certain it would be for the best.
"You don't sound fine." They could hear Elson trying the door handle. In vain; Everwood was a senior researcher, and security protocol demanded that nobody save the Site Director or Chief of Security could penetrate into their domain unwelcome. "You sound sick. Let me in."
"I could try to get up," they thought. This could be considered research. Perhaps they would be allowed a consulting role on their own SCP file, once the truth of their condition became known. Everwood set their muscles a task: rise. Sit up in bed. Bend at the middle, and…
No. No, it wouldn't work. They were a beetle, and their body didn't bend that way anymore.
"Go away," they repeated. "I'm not feeling well."
A new voice, this one female, responded. "I can call medical, if you want." This belonged to Dr. Nikita Popov, Director of Containment. It struck Everwood that this was a really unfair amount of attention to lavish on one researcher's unannounced sick day, even if said researcher really ought to have been contained.
It was also a problem. To be sure, having transformed into a beetle was a problem of its own, but this was a threat to their very employment. If Popov was involved, there would be a review, disciplinary action perhaps. Their career might already be over. They attempted to become upset at this. Perhaps shedding a few tears would clear their vision, wake them up, stop them breathing so low and so scratchily.
"Jay?" Popov continued. "Just tell us what you need, and we'll get it for you."
"I don't need anything," Everwood croaked. "Just leave me alone."
Popov and Elson were talking about them in the hallway, now. Everwood couldn't hear anything, but it was obviously happening nevertheless. Each would no doubt be wondering why someone formerly so dependable was now making so much fuss for everyone else, complaining about all the things which needed doing today which this disruption was standing in the way of. Perhaps reconstructing a pattern of events which could explain it. Seeing all the times they'd fallen short, reframing this as the logical extremity of that sequence.
"So, here's the thing," Elson called through the door. "We don't have biometrics on you, and we need to be sure you're not injured or anything. Someone needs to come in there and check on you."
"No," they growled. It barely sounded like human speech. "I don't need anything. I'll be fine. I'll be back at work when I'm ready. I'll get up soon." It wasn't true. "Just give me a few minutes."
"We can give you a few minutes," Elson agreed. "We can give you all the time you need. But first we need you to say that you're not having any sort of crisis right now."
"But only if it's true," said Popov.
A third voice joined the throng. "Jay?" This was Rex Alces, their long-suffering and long-suffered research assistant. "Is something weird happening in there?"
They felt suddenly frustrated. What was the point of all this fuss? Did they have no right to privacy? Did every little change in their routine require public commentary? If Rex wanted to know what was going on, well, then, he would know. Everwood would tell him. Everwood told him: "I've turned into a beetle."
And Everwood waited.
There was a moment of silence as this information slowly registered. Rex would be considering whether the declaration was meant metaphorically or not, in a way entirely foreign to anyone employed at a more mundane research firm. Finally, he said: "McCartney, or scarab?"
"Scarab." They sighed. There was a sort of chittering click behind it that made them annoyed, even though it had come out of themself. Because it had come out of themself. "Probably not actually a scarab. Probably a dung beetle. That's my kind of luck." Did it sound bitter? Did it carry any emotion at all? Emotion was exhausting.
"Uh huh," said Rex, in a voice that told them he was speaking just to confirm his continued presence.
They waited for him to continue. They didn't have the energy, lying there on their back, thick carapace weighing them down against the boxsprings, to force out any unnecessary squeaks. They did essay rocking back and forth in bed, trying to force their muscles to respond again, but the simple act of stretching had apparently sapped all their energy. They were an immobile bug, snug in their rug. They weren't going anywhere under their own power.
"Okay," Rex finally said, apropos of nothing.
There were several things Everwood might have told the trio at the door at this juncture, if only speech had not been such a tiring proposition. Suggestions they could have made. Why not leave the beetle to examine itself, and come back when the transformation was better understood and outside expertise had more to work with? Why not quarantine the dorm room, fashion it into a containment chamber, and dream up procedures for keeping the beetle safely ensconced within, away from polite society? Why not — and Everwood liked this idea best — simply go away, and come back tomorrow, and see if the beetle had turned back into an SCP Foundation senior researcher.
The others chose instead an option Everwood had not considered, and would not have offered up in suggestion. A fourth and hierarchically final voice rang out. "Jay. It's Emily." Dr. Emily Alder was the Director of Site-55, and answered to no-one but the O5 Council. "We're a little worried about you, out here. Could you let us in?"
This was too much. Far too much. Everwood was not the most important person at the facility, not by a long shot. They were sluggish, melancholy, sometimes even dull. They were prone to unsolicited monologue. They suffered from uncertainty and self-doubt, because they saw things as things really were. They were not the best at what they did, and they knew it. Their instincts were often faulty, their loyalties suspect, their motives murky. No wonder they had turned into a beetle, they reflected. It was no more or less than what they deserved.
"You missed your annual review," Alder was saying. "So we had to say nice things about you behind your back. Your team blew past every milestone on every metric in 2023. We're thinking of putting you in for leadership recognition. I've even been talking to O5-5 about maybe getting you involved with GOI handling globally."
None of this, not a single word, made any sense to Everwood. The Director might as well have turned into a different variety of vermin. Everwood hadn't done anything any low-level manager couldn't do. They hadn't achieved anything deserving of recognition. They only thing they had really achieved in the past year that was undeniably noteworthy was acquiring a segmented thorax. They said, "You don't need me. Board up the door and find someone else."
Alder clicked her tongue. "I'd be sorry to have to do this, Jay, but I'm going to force my way in there if you don't open up. Please don't make me do that."
Everwood clicked back. The insectile sound felt right. "Do what you have to, I guess. I don't see how it's worth your time, though." They had to dredge the words up from deep, deep inside themselves, and the sounds came out only reluctantly. Beetles weren't meant to speak.
"Could you speak your passcode for us?" Alder pressed. "It'll be easier if we don't have to break the lock."
This was true nonsense. Alder possessed a key card which would open any door in the facility.
"I can't remember," Everwood croaked. It was true. They were losing themself, and the passcode had gone early.
"I'm sure you can," Elson said.
"You've got a terrific memory," Rex agreed. "All those stories you told me."
"You can do it," Popov concluded, as though remembering one's own passcode were some Herculean feat.
Everwood closed their eyes tight and ignored the encouragement. "You don't know," they thought in weak frustration. "You don't know me. I forget things all the time. I don't even know very many things." This much expenditure of time and effort was perverse and unwarranted. All of these people had much, much better things to be doing right now, and Everwood couldn't do anything that couldn't be done at least as well by someone else.
"Jay?" Alder called one more time. When no response came, she sighed, and there was an audible click and beep from the door. The Director had used her key card. "We're coming in."
One by one the others entered the darkened dorm room, light now spilling in from both the hallway, fluorescent, and the window, hibernal, to render everything in shades of grey. Everwood bunched up their monstrous body beneath the blankets and peered out fearfully, awaiting the judgement of their peers and betters.
"I don't know why I'm a beetle," they pleaded as the four took up positions around the bed. "But it's probably my fault."
Alder smiled at them sympathetically. "Hey, these things happen."
"To the best of us," Elson agreed.
Popov tucked one corner of the blanket under the mattress as Rex picked up the framed note from Señor Fluff, carried it over, and placed it on the bedside table were Everwood could read it.
"You're going to fire me," Everwood said. It wasn't a question.
Alder adjusted the shades, and the room brightened almost imperceptibly. "Nonsense," she said. "You're on sick leave, remember? We already cleared it with HR."
"Stop making it easier," they thought as sleep stole over them again. "That only makes it more difficult."
II
Everwood slept until it ought to have been dark, but their room was bathed in a soft warm glow when they opened their eyes. Someone had turned the lamps on.
They were still a beetle.
Rex was sitting at the side of the bed in an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair, reading something on a clipboard. When he saw that they were awake, he smiled at them and said "Hungry?"
Everwood tried to say that yes, they were in fact famished, but when they opened their mouth, nothing came out but a dry rasp. Rex's smile faltered, and he reached down to open a cooler sitting between his feet. He took out a small tub of cookie dough ice cream, and cocked a brow at them quizzically. Everwood salivated, and nodded. "Beetles love sugar." They thought so, anyway. It was the next best thing to garbage.
Rex tried to hand them the tub, and a spoon. However, reality asserted itself. Everwood had no hands with which to feed themselves. Rex considered their bulk beneath the blanket for a moment, shrugged, and began spooning out the ice cream himself. Everwood consented to be fed, like a toddler, like an animal. Even bugs could do better, but they no longer had it in them to care.
When the ice cream was gone, Everwood slipped into something of a delirium. They imagined they floated up above their bloated, prone form on the bed, soared past Rex, who had returned to his clipboard, sailed out the open door and down the corridors and into the labs and offices where they had worked before the unfortunate occurrence. They watched the GOI Research Group go about its business no less effectively for their absence, and noted with approval that no mention of that absence was being made. They were gone, and forgotten, as it ought to have been.
Their reverie was interrupted by a wet, hacking cough from deep within their insectile belly. Their throat, once dry, was now wet and clear. They could almost have spoken, except of course that they had forgotten how to, because they were a beetle and had been for far too long now to ever go back. Rex was still in the chair. His labcoat was off, and a small humidifier buzzed in the corner. He saw them looking at it, and said "Beetles like moist spaces. Yeah?"
They felt a rush of affection so strong that they could only survive it by shutting their eyes tight again and, once more, drifting away.
Rex stayed with them all night, napping occasionally on his chair, and accepting little styrofoam packets of food from some nameless service person who smiled and said hello to Everwood every time she came. Everwood cowered under their blanket and pretended not to see or hear, not even to be. They thought how funny it was that Rex would dote on them so faithfully; they certainly hadn't done anything to earn it. For years they'd dumped personal traumas and rambling reminiscences on the man, as though rather than their research assistant he was actually their therapist. They'd failed to correct his bad professional habits, and he'd been given a permanent black mark on his record for it. He should have been supervising a lab of his own by now, not stuck here playing nurse-maid. They wanted to tell him these things, but even in the pleasant humidity, their throat closed up when they tried.
The early morning passed uneventfully. Alder, Elson and Popov came to visit alone or in pairs, asking after them, asking if anything had changed, asking pointless little questions about Everwood's pointless research and treating their noncommittal hisses and grunts as invaluable input. Rex put on a movie — they hadn't noticed him wheeling in the television — and they watched it on and off while musing that this was probably their life now, the end of all choices and opportunities, the pass that would not pass. Soon they would be responsible for nothing, and no-one. Beetles don't live very long.
But it was difficult to focus on these maudlin things, because a steady stream of visitors came and went through the little dorm room. First was May Waters and Chidi Gueye from the Dungeons & Dragons game they used to DM, who tidied up the room a little and changed Everwood's blanket — a tricky procedure, as they would not allow their buggy bulk to be even a little exposed at any time. Then there was Mr. Fish, who sat with them for a few hours and gently pried out the few complaints they were willing to part with regarding their new and permanent condition. The flounder-faced Little Mister warbled empathetic condolences, and Everwood waited with petulant impatience for him to begin negatively comparing their troubles to his own. He never did, and this made them feel both much better and much worse.
After that, on the third day, a veritable workgroup arrived to take up residence in the room. Nhung Ngo, Ethel Kursh and Karen Elstrom, three acquaintances who lived and worked absolutely nowhere near Site-55 in Boston, Massachusetts, set up little workstations at posts around the room and began a flurry of administrative activity by no means natural to this setting. They were doing their usual jobs in a very unusual place, and acting as though there was nothing at all unusual about this. They arranged themselves in such a way that their conversations passed over Everwood's blanketed hump, so that the beetle in the room was implicitly involved in every single turn of phrase. When Everwood chanced the occasional peek out at this strange party, it never failed that Rex or Elson would ask after their needs, or Alder would seek to be apprised of any changes, or the occasional newcomer would have solicitous inquiries or approving comments to make whilst helping the throng with whatever they were doing. Elstrom found a Certificate of Appreciation with Everwood's face on it, from back before they'd been a beetle, and hung it up on the far wall, off centre so Everwood could look at it without having to strain to see over themself. Kursh brought scented candles. Ngo simply hummed; there was something preternaturally calming about the way she hummed.
In the evening, Everwood awoke to find a soft, sweet-smelling blanket draped over their deflating abdomen. They hadn't set eyes on it in years, and then it had been filthy. They'd never mentioned it to anyone but Rex, had socked it away where they were sure it could not be found, and yet… there it was. Clean and fresh. Their assistant looked away with an embarrassed, but obviously pleased smile as they dragged it under the covers and held it close to their heaving body.
The following morning, there was mail: best wishes for a swift recovery from both Dr. Wondertainment and, to general shock and bewilderment, Professor Funtastic; a signed Get Well Soon card from Site-34, with Everwood's own signature already paradoxically present; an information sheet detailing the present status, whereabouts and disposition of an old friend long since left Foundation employ with an amnesticize-and-resituate package. A weight they hadn't realized they'd been carrying for years became just the slightest bit lighter, the big blanket sank down a few centimetres lower, and as they pored over the details and the chatter around them ebbed and flowed, they addressed the room at large for the very first time.
"Got any work I could do?"
III
It had been a week since Everwood had found themself changed on the cusp of a new day. They were sitting now in an enclosure at Wilson's Wildlife Solutions in Oregon, soaking up sunshine and watching the anomalous creatures at play. Faeowynn Wilson waved at them cheerfully in the distance. Everwood waved back, forgetting to be tired, forgetting to be sad, forgetting for the moment and at least a little while after even to be a beetle.
They watched as a familiar hippopotamus laboured unsuccessfully to haul its rippling ball of fat up onto an otherwise promising sunning rock. A dozen uncharitable assessments and unkind epithets flowed into and out of Everwood's mind, but they held on to none of them. Chuck wasn't so bad. Really, he was doing his best.