Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8997 has eliminated the need for containment.
Description: SCP-8997 is everything you ever wanted. It's everything you worked for. It's everything you deserve. It's winning the lottery. It's being the first person to never die. It's your piece of artwork that renders you immortal. It's sharing a secret about yourself and no one laughs. It's your expertly cultivated, revered, and unbreakable reputation. It's the one thing you've ever needed to die happy. It's being told you are worthy of love. It's you believing them. It's being the person you always knew you could be. It's painless, effortless, joyous existence. It's life without mistakes. It's you without imperfections. It's every promise kept. It forgives you
Item #: SCP-8997
Object Class: too much
Special Containment Procedures: working on it
Description: come back to this
Development: SCP-8997 was considered the most successful result generated by the 2035 Foundation Finite Initiative (FFI). Since the beginning of the Foundation, there have been uncountable theories as to how anomalies are generated, yet no consensus has ever been established on their originator. Given the rate of anomaly generation and the facilities available to the Foundation for containment, in 2033 it was discovered the unsecured anomaly population had outstripped the Foundation's ability for effective containment for the past five years. Throughout the course of 2034, the O5 Council created and commissioned the Supervisory Committee for Preservation to conduct an exhaustive organization-wide study with Site Directors, Containment Specialists, and whatever. blahblahbhlabhalbahlalbhalhb
When the results were released in early 2035, an intensive review by the O5 council decisively concluded that the mission to secure, contain, and protect was not and had not been the best method of maintaining normalcy for some time. By a 10-3 vote of the O5 Council, it was declared that the Foundation's mission to secure, contain, and protect was untenable given the inexplicable and ceaseless generation of anomalies. The Foundation's mission would immediately change to stopping anomaly origination and propagation. Hence the 2035 Foundation Finite Initiative, FFI.
The FFI authorized the use of copious amounts of Foundation funding to be diverted from containment procedures and into the research and development of promising methods to curtail anomaly generation and to fund whatever two bit shit idea any fuckface with dollar signs for eyes looking for a quick cashout
Hello world.
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This phrase ends with a comma, this phrase ends with a period. Good evening, my darling.
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Transcription number one for 2/13/2037
Objective: Reverse the effects of SCP-8997.
Results of attempt seventy one: While the goal of increasing resilience to SCP-8997's influence using what I learned in attempt number four, sixteen, twenty one, and… no, just those three, should have worked given the adjustments I made as the result of attempts… god, fifty five through sixty three, there was unexpected feedback that reduces resilience rather than increasing it. I'm taking this as a sign of progress, and a good omen for tomorrow. I'm planning on using what I learned in this attempt and the almost lethal reduction in resilience in attempt twenty one to see if I can reconstruct the CGM to
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I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out.
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I uh… didn't go outside today.
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I didn't want to see… more things I couldn't do anything about.
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Fuck.
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I hope every attempt hurts. I hope every attempt fucking hurts. That brilliant Doctor Cheswick spinning in his shallow grave. Fuck.
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Special Containment Procedures: By design, SCP-8997 is already constantly consumed by all organisms with the capacity for self-awareness. It is effective. It will never run out.
Description: SCP-8997 is perfect. It lives up to its name. It was delivered on time and under budget. It works beautifully. It's an ideal union of function and form. It's the ultimate payoff of your agonized labor. It's the culmination of lifelong passions. It's the realization of your dream. It's hypothesis, theorem, and proof in one. It saved your life. It saved the life of everyone you love. It created a world where everything is beautiful and there's nothing to fear. It justifies your existence. It forgives yo
Item #: SCP-8997
Object Class: I am not a morning person.
Special Containment Procedures: Yesterday's work didn't save. It was here when I broke out of the delusion, but then I clicked "Edit" and it vanished. Whatever. I'm just going to start where I left off.
Description: The Foundation's mission would immediately change to stopping anomaly origination and propagation. Hence the 2035 Foundation Finite Initiative, FFI.
The FFI authorized the use of copious amounts of Foundation funding to be diverted from containment procedures and into the research and development of promising methods to curtail anomaly generation. Any team that developed a working solution would receive the following reward from the Foundation: anything.
Unconfirmed reports stated that over 25,000 projects were approved for development in the first month. Less than fifty had been completed by the time SCP-8997 was declared feasible, developed by Dr George Cheswick, the famous Dr Cheswick. He and his research team, comprised of me and a bunch of smarter people, submitted the project to the FFI. Within 48 hours the Foundation declared the project a success and began widespread adoption.
He was a funny guy. I remember the look on his face when the approval came through. He said "King Canute knew the tide would catch him." He hoped the approval was a joke. He knew the device didn't work. I didn't know. No one else knew either. Whoops.
whoops
I'm going to open my eyes, and I'm going to see this sentence printed on paper, because I fucking fixed you. Because I can fucking fix something. Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Thank god. Thank god you work. Oh my god. You beautiful little tether to reality. I'm sorry I threw you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'll never hurt you again. I won't. I won't. I'll keep my temper. It's not your fault. God.
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Sound detected. Auto-Transcriber identifies it as: Crying
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I've turned off the settings that make it try to transcribe sounds. I don't need to waste ink and paper like that. I mean, down here there's more ink, paper, food, water, enough supplies to save humanity. But still, I shouldn't waste.
After my work on SCP-8997's log yesterday morning, I looked through my notes. Got some more reference volumes from the site's library. I hate how quiet it is. I wander through the site when I'm putting off going outside. You forget how much life you live at work. I recently noticed I've been avoiding office 677. And the rest of the east wing. But the library. There's not many basic books there, it's all high level reference books. It's okay though, I'll get there. I've got all the time and food and water in the world. Leave it to a foundation site to be almost prepared for anything. And I did find one of my beautiful little transcribers there yesterday.
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Oh I forgot to date this.
Transcription two for 2/14/2037
I have no idea what day it actually is. The computer lies about everything. Anyway.
Objective: Reverse the effects of SCP-8997.
Plans for attempt seventy three: I spent most of yesterday looking through my notes to see if I missed anything. I think I did, I think the underlying principle of attempt fifty one could have some potential when combined with the result of attempt thirty nine. Maybe that'll undo whatever cracked my resistance to SCP-8997 when I wake up. Every attempt has new combinations, and there has to be, there, there fucking has to be one combination that works.
I went outside again today. To find inspiration and to remind myself why I need to keep going. It was bad. It's always bad, but this was bad.
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Listen. I saw… a big crowd of people. I don't know how they've been alive so long. There were maybe eighty or ninety of them. Men, women, children, all in tatters, all skin and bone, trudging through the scorched muddy earth to nowhere but all still with full, genuine smiles. An anomaly I didn't recognize… had to be one of the ones that escaped when… the thing was immense, almost the size of the crowd, a massive ball of raw pink flesh, made of too many eyes, and mouths, and, and teeth, everything in the wrong place… scuttled towards them on way, way too many human arms. It opened a mouth the size of half its body. Every single person used their last moments of life to turn towards the horror, smile, and raise their arms high above their heads in unison, like it was bathing them in warm sunlight.
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It turned them into chunks.
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Some of them had time to scream for a moment before they were churned.
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When… there were no more people and the thing was munching the sand for scraps, fifty or sixty of the eyes on its back whipped around to stare at me when I threw up. I tried to be quiet. It froze like an insect, watching me. I'd rather die any other way, any other way than be eaten by that thing. I can't die screaming.
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But it just stared at me. Then it scuttled away.
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What am I doing.
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What can I do?
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I'll write the description tomorrow.
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8997 secures itself, and has contained all other anomalies. No further protection will ever be required.
Description: SCP-8997 secures. It contains. It protects. It keeps you safe. It lets you sleep at night. It empties your mind of worry. It clears your head of stress. It removed all danger from your world. It's the ultimate weapon. It's ultimate control. It can do anything for anyone. It forgi
Item #: SCP-8997
Object Class: whoops
Special Containment Procedures: Good morning. What's good about it. I said I'd write the description today and I don't want to be a liar.
Description: SCP-8997 denotes both The Cheswick Gadget (TCG) and the area of influence it generates. When any anomaly of any description is exposed to the area of influence, the anomaly would be permanently neutralized. This had a 100% success rate.
Immediately after the first test on SCP-682 proved the field's efficacy, the Foundation's primary focus shifted from culling anomaly generation to submitting as many anomalies to SCP-8997 as quickly as possible. As the success rate continued to be proven by every single test, all skepticism or resistance to widespread implementation vanished. The device's design was just as miraculous. Cheap to manufacture, fits in a pocket. It became standard issue for all personnel. There's thousands of them all over the world.
The world was so beautiful. All the laughs came easy. The air was so thick with relief you could get drunk off it. Everyone wore full, genuine smiles. You wouldn't believe the sun could shine so bright. I've never seen such beautiful sunsets, not even in a dream.
We all had dreams.
I was on the team that developed the thing, and I didn't get how it worked. By any metric, it was too good to be true, but there was so much proof it was infinitely efficacious. The brilliant Dr Cheswick had discovered a way for the device to be powered off gamma brain waves with remarkable efficiency. No wires needed, simply place the device near a living human and poof, no more anomalies. Then Dr Cheswick let me in on the little secret. It couldn't bend reality. It couldn't bend a paperclip. All it did was show anyone within the field the world as they want it to be. This extended to any organism with the capacity for self-awareness. Down in this site's basement, I've seen rats starve. They chew the air for days.
Its field of influence grew the more people believed it. I know he didn't expect that. Every scientist conducting a test looked at their instruments and saw exactly the reading they wanted to see, and the field caught people for miles around, then dozens of miles and then hundreds. Adherence to containment procedures evaporated. Everyone horrifically killed by a containment breach was perceived to have retired from the Foundation to pursue their dreams as the Foundation gradually and contentedly became obsolete. There were a lot of retirements really fast.
Like everyone else, I was walking through my days in my perfect little world where everything was exactly what we hoped it would be, now that we'd gotten rid of all those pesky anomalies that were causing all the problems. The sun shining bright forever.
Maybe it was because Dr Cheswick told me it didn't work, and I couldn't totally convince myself otherwise. Maybe there was only so much I could believe. Maybe it was Emily retiring and several dots couldn't help but be connected. My whole facade fell apart and reality rushed in. It's just as well. I kept wondering why in the delusion people I didn't know kept coming up to me and promising me forgiveness.
I like this little transcriber a lot. You have no idea how hard it was to get some of these things working. Getting this to tell the difference between commas and periods was brutal. I gave up on getting it to always know the difference between names and words like Smith the job and smith the name and programmed it to take cues from the speaker. I can print a new line if I say
like that, which tells the transcriber that wasn't dialogue and to print a new line. And it doesn't leave a mark. It does a similar thing with colons, if I say: it prints a colon. Since I do have technically finite supplies down here, I adjusted it so it only prints a fresh line if it's left on for a full twenty four hours, instead of thirty seconds like it was. It still prints that fucking dot if it doesn't record anything for that set period, but whatever. I couldn't make this thing perfect, even if a delusion told me I did. But I got close, and had fun making it. And then it was adopted all around the Foundation and I was so proud of that and got a promotion and added to a research team… I still have to turn it off and on again for the settings to save, but it helps. It helps me. Printing a dot if there's twenty four hours of silence instead of thirty seconds. That'll save the world.
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I'm putting off talking about what I saw today. Because it went like this.
Woke up. Lived through SCP-8997 a bit. Worked on its description. Then I crawled out of the site basement turned bunker to the outside. I like the balcony above the main site entrance. I can see it all and nothing cares enough to try and come up here. Got a pair of binoculars. I can't see any greenery through them. There's not even corpses anymore, and there were a lot of corpses early on. There's still meat and rot and… blood and… didn't see the thing with the eyes. I know I haven't talked about it on the transcriber, but there was so much shit out here. I don't know how the Foundation kept everything contained for so long. It's all out there. Mostly somewhere else. Like there's a portion of the sky missing. Don't look at it.
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You would not believe the quiet.
I saw some signs of life, nothing I wanted to get close to or think about. Then sometime around noon I saw two people, alive and well, holding hands, smiling like young lovers. They approached for a long time, casually strolling forward, through shit and blood and mud, bones cracking under bleeding feet. They watched the deadlocked door to the bunker for a bit, and sighed in unison. I tried to get their attention, waving, yelling, throwing down rocks, but I wasn't in their world. One of them had some broken fingers.
They turned and looked at each other, holding and caressing each other's faces like they were going to kiss each other for a long time. A really long time. Hours. Until the sun started to set. Once it hit the horizon, they turned and watched it set. Stared directly into the sun until it was gone. It was a nice sunset.
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Then one of them laid on the ground. The other straddled them. Without changing those pure expressions of love they wore, without blinking, they put their hands on each other's throats and squeezed. Their faces turned blue, then purple, then black. The one on the ground lying in dried blood, I saw the leg kick, kick, twitch. The one on top didn't move. Just smiled.
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I really tried to save them. I ran down, tried to break through the entrance I'd fortified. I could hear one of them gurgling. Broke through and I really tried to pull them off each other. I really fucking tried. I tried. I keep trying. I keep trying every day to fix everything. Every day. I don't know what to do. I can't fix this all. I can't bring the dead back. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
Special Containment Procedures: There is no SCP-8997, as there are no anomalies.
Description: SCP-8997 missed you. It's glad to see you. It let you sleep in late. It's called out of work for you. It's going to take the day off with you. It's cooked you breakfast. It's checked the weather. It's made the weather perfect. It will keep you warm. It will reassure you. It doesn't want you to talk about it if you're not ready. It will keep its promises. It won't make you feel scared. It will call you when you're feeling alone. It will notice when you're gone. It will make you feel meaningful. It forgives you. It
Fuck the description. Every fucking morning, I wake up in SCP-8997, under its influence. Every fucking morning I wake up, I open my eyes, I'm in my bed. I start the exact routine I kept for years. Emily is next to me. I check that I didn't wake her and I didn't. I never do, I'm careful. I make myself a cup of coffee, fingers shaking from the horrible, fucked up, terrifying nightmare world I dreamed I lived in yesterday. Where everything was the worst version of itself. Where I was the only one that saw the world as it was. Where I couldn't do shit. I couldn't save shit. I open my laptop and check my work email. There's a new email telling me to review and approve the recent edits to SCP-8997's file. I click over to it and for a few seconds I read it and believe that yes, SCP-8997 is perfect, it's effective, it's everything we wanted it to be. Then, because it's my fantasy, because I want it more than anything else, it reminds me what it can't do. Then I snap back to my bunker, staring at this screen, at the truth I wrote of what it actually is.
Let me pretend. Take me back.
I didn't go outside today.
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I didn't go outside today either.
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Guess what I didn't do today?
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Leave me alone.
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Special Containment Procedures: You don't need to worry about it anymore.
Description: SCP-8997 understands. It will give you space. It's here when you feel like talking. It knows what you've been through. It can handle the rest of your life while you take a break. It'll turn on the light when it gets dark. It can be your shoulder to cry on. It knows you don't need a shoulder to cry on. It knows it doesn't need to be around all the time. It will make space for you. It will make space in its heart for you. It will give you the love you need, however you need it. It can do this for you. It will always do this for you. It will always unfailingly be what you need it to be, for you and for everyone. It forgives you
The power's out. I turned it off. I don't need electricity, I don't need a computer, I don't need to see what I've written. And if I get lost in the dream, so what? There I can do something. There I can fix the world. I'm going to go to office 677 tomorrow. Maybe I'll figure out if there's anything left to be done in this world.
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Didn't go today. I'll go tomorrow, though.
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Tomorrow.
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I went. I found Dr Cheswick.
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8997 wasn't your fault.
Description: SCP-8997 knows it wasn't your fault. It can forgive you
Power's back. Flipped a switch. Easy fix.
He's dead. Died weeks ago. I don't know what I thought happened to him, I figured he… either escaped somehow or died first. But he was in that office the whole time. Had his own proper little bunker in there. And notes. So many notes, stacked in beautiful little piles all over the room. Plastered over the walls. Even a little clearing in the center of the room where there was a sort of altar of burned or bloodied rat corpses and melted plastic around multiple copies of the Cheswick Gadget.
I cleaned up a bit. Based on how it looks, we were alive at the same time. There's signs of life and food and water consumed up until about the time I found the transcriber. Funny little coincidences. If I… If he waited to opt out a little longer, then maybe together we might've… helped.
I don't think I'm very smart. I looked through his notes when I was packing up everything of any worth and moved them box by box into my own bunker. I can't even read his handwriting, except for the header. They all read "Attempt" and then a two, three, or four digit number. I don't trust that office. I cleared everything off the walls, tidied the office spick and span, until the only things untouched and out of place in that office was the corpse of Dr Cheswick and the gadgets. I'm not sure how I feel letting him rot there, but today I'm okay with it. Then I checked his hands.
He had a little picture still squeezed between his fingers, crisp and unmarred, of a really beautiful sunset. I got it out of the fingers and stared at it a while before I flipped it over and saw three words on it. That's all. Written in immaculate handwriting. The only thing he said that I believe he meant, and the only real impact he had on the world, summed up. "Please forgive me."
As soon as I read that, the absolute first thing that came to mind was "For what?"
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8997 forgives. It forgives yourself.
Hello. Good evening.
I started using this transcriber because I thought it would help me come up with ideas for saving the world and a place to record research notes and other stuff to figure out, but I've basically only used it to vent. Whatever, it's not like anyone can judge me for it. Apart from myself. It's not like anyone who matters can judge me for it.
Uh… I was going through Dr Cheswick's notes before bed last night. And I fell asleep without any ideas. I woke up with one though. I had a dream again. A new one. Listen.
I was lying on my back on some gentle green grass, in a backyard with an immaculate wooden fence. It was the kind of place I'm so sure I knew and loved and formed my fondest memories at, that there's no way it ever existed. It had a feeling of family, like a place I would've known when I was a kid and felt safe. And there was… the most glorious sunset. The kind where there's just the right amount of clouds streaked across the sky, and layered just so, you can see the colors fade from blue to purple to a magnificent bold violet pink. I watched the colors swirl and shift, and I knew there was nothing I needed to worry about, nothing in the world I needed to do but experience that and love the feelings it gave me. I feel the most beautiful peace I've ever known coursing through me, like thrumming music in my bones.
Suddenly my face pops up above me. I don't say anything but it punches me out of the moment. I have to get up and chase myself away. He walks slower than I do but moves away faster and he doesn't leave me alone. Me trying to chase me away, back and forth, just out of my reach, until my copy exits through a break in the fence and I finally shout after me, "WHO CARES IF IT'S A DREAM, THE FEELINGS ARE REAL."
My self vanishes and I look back at the sunset. It's still there, but it's not what it was. Before I decide how to feel, I wake up.
Figure that one out.
The sunset was like the one in Dr Cheswick's picture. I'll tape it here. If I look at the back of it, I see what he wrote but I can't see the sunset. I look at the sunset and for a moment I don't care about forgiveness. I don't care that I helped develop SCP-8997 and I helped, in my own small way, to kill the world.
Then I remember it's a picture of a dead sunset.
I just stared at this picture for half an hour, and what's written on the other side of it floats up now and again. If I erase the back I won't forget what was there. I don't know what to do. If he couldn't reverse the effects of the gadget, I know I can't. I've known that since the first attempt but keep trying out of spite, and that's… only kept me inside. And then I only went outside to remind myself why I should stay inside. This picture's tainted. This dream is tainted. Whenever I think of it I'll remember the ungrantable plea scrawled on the other side.
There must be better ways to die than in the dark.
Special Containment Procedures: Listen.
Description: SCP-8997 never meant to hurt you. It never meant to hurt anyone. All it wanted was to keep people happy and make the world a little more beautiful. All it wanted was to give the people what they needed. It tried. It did what it could. It did its best. It believed in itself, too. It let itself down. But it knows you. It knows how hard you try. It understands what you're trying to do. It watches you with tears of pride in its eyes. It wants to help. It doesn't know how to. It wants better for you. It's your beautiful dreams. It's your wonderful ideas. It's your magnificent feelings. It's yours. It can't share itself. It's fiction. It can't bend a paperclip. It's not going to save the world. Nothing is. It's not going to save a single person. You can. It can't forgive you. You forgive yourself. It hopes to see you again someday. It understands if you don't come back. It will remember you. It loves you. It will miss you.
Development: SCP-8997 exists because of you, and there's no changing that.
Final Addendum:
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It did take a while but I've decided to start trying. I could die a comfortable death down here. No screams or fear. That would be nice. And that would be my life. If Dr Cheswick wandered outside of that tiny office at almost any point, he would have ran into me, and then maybe things would've been better. But he's dead now, by his own hand. There's no changing that. I wonder if… him being so close to the gadget kept it powered. He wrecked the world but he didn't mean to. I know that's no comfort to the dead but it's a comfort to me. I buried him yesterday, in a proper grave.
I went outside to remind myself why I should stay inside. We all had dreams. So I'm leaving. Going to walk until I die, if I have to. See if there's somewhere on the world that's unaffected. And if not and the whole world is covered, maybe I can, I don't know, snap someone else out of it somehow. I don't know. I wasn't as smart as I needed to be. I wasn't as brave as I should've been. And now… that's all unchangeable. I’d like to come back… if I come back that has to be a good sign, it means… I feel like the people in my family are always promising they'll come back, and it was, like, only once in a generation do they actually keep that promise. Figure that one out.
But I'll die either way. Outside I can get some air. Maybe I'll see a nice sunset. Try to help someone somewhere. I know there's the thing with the eyes out there, but I don't care. I think I'd rather die screaming than not trying.
SCP-8997, in the last iteration, ended with "Final Addendum". I don't know what that means, but I'll write it here before I go. I'm not ready, but who is? I don't want to die, but who does? I can see the world as it is now, horrors and beauty and all.
If I die out there, then all that will happen is you'll print for months and paper will pile up on the floor. Or you'll run out of ink. It's not like that's a problem. It will be nice to know that something I did is still doing what I want it to do.
Thank you for listening to me. You are my greatest accomplishment. I love you.
Everything is perfect.
Stay inside.