We need him obedient. We need him to forget. And that's hard when Palestine has become the world's largest conjuration circle.
SCP-9184 recorded at the burial of ████ █████, a young farmhand, by his father and brother.
Item Number: SCP-9184
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: As an entity primarily based in concept, influence of SCP-9184 primarily manifests as large-scale empathic resonance towards populations experiencing mass grief, loss, or other forms of dispossession. Until 2025, direct efforts have been primarily centered around suppressing the vectors of this spread, including an excess of shared memory, ritual, and attention, rather than towards the entity itself.
The Department of Continuity is Tasked with the testing and implementation of new efforts intended to more directly target SCP-9184 under the project name "Operation E-MINUS". Current items include:
- Continuous deployment of modified Scranton Reality Anchors (SRAs) to dampen empathic resonance aimed towards high-risk geographical regions.
- Reclassification of affected cultural anomalies to memeto-empathic hazards, and proper neutralization when possible
- Amnesticization of personnel demonstrating effects in line with SCP-9184 influence, with priority being given to staff 1.) Experiencing spontaneous feelings of affection or affinity towards otherwise nonhuman targets, 2.) Staff members descending from aforementioned high-risk regions.
Description: SCP-9184 designates a trans-temporal entity inhabiting the human noosphere referred to colloquially as "The God of Empathy". Encounters with SCP-9184 both in and outside of the human Dreamscape have shown it to be both sustained by as well as capable of amplifying collective human compassion, mourning, and aspiration. Unlike most deities, SCP-9184 is unable to manifest willingly, although it can be summoned by acts or gestures from humans falling within its domain. These invocations do not seem to need to be directed at SCP-9184.
Historically, most SCP-9184 manifestations have occurred in conflict zones. However, following a rise in both global geopolitical struggle and activism within the 21st century, several behavioral modifications have been noted within the whole of humanity. These modifications were most prominent in individuals raised with Western ideals, and involved the shift from individualistic to communal or collective interest.
Statistics regarding how these manifestations affect Foundation Personnel have been noted below.
EXECUTIVE MEETING-9184-001
Location: Department of Continuity, Sublevel B, Conference Room 009
Participants:
- Director Kaldor, Department of Continuity
- Dr. Clarisse Keller, SCP-2188-certified Anesthesiologist
- Dr. John Blake, Tactical Theology
[BEGIN LOG]
Kaldor: SCP-8952's live stream did not bypass our systems and webcrawlers. It echoed through and above them, propagated by a collective human intent. Ergo; this was a manifestation event. Collective viewer desire to perceive the vessel is what initiated the data breach.
Blake sneers at the word manifestation. It is a dirty word, rolling off Kaldor's tongue with hesitation and disgust. Only Keller seems to give pause. Kaldor continues
Kaldor: Manifestation anomalies are ordinarily small enough to be individually contained. An event at this scale surpasses current framework, policy, and continuity. Consequences will be Semiotic recursion. Memetic cross-contamination. Already, structured empathy is traveling across sociopolitical fault lines. It's destabilizing, and it's corrosive to the institution upon which we are founded.
Blake: This type of empathy, the organized and loud sort, is a blight. A cancerous indulgence one mistakes for virtue. We've already scrubbed cults from collective memory before. We've castrated gods and cast them from reality. Why would this undo us? This inhuman softness?
Kaldor: Because it is inconceivably human. Moreso than anything else in the human mind. And that is the source of danger Tactical theology has dealt with Gods that used empathy as a vector. Here, you are correct in that it is the source of infections.
Keller: Once an infection realizes you've realized it's there, it'll do everything in it's power to fight back. It has no reason left to hold back, no?
Kaldor: Already it has become a threat. Agents within active breaches hesitate before terminating. Some personnel have been dreaming the memories of anomalies. These are small, but present events. Once containment becomes deliberation, delay becomes death.
Blake: Then purge it. Pull it out by it's root. Empathy isn't divine, but it is how this god bleeds, and it is how these patterns metastasize from a group of backwards activists to our agents and personnel. Love? Caring? We should've known that's the first lie a memetic virus would tell.
Keller: You do realize what you're advocating for? Full spiritual cauterization. Full excision of one of the core aspects of humanity.
Blake: I'm simply acknowledging the price. Tactical theology isn't about salvation or spiritualism. It was created to sterilize. To prune. Empathy allows aberrant self-destruction to masquerade as mercy. We nearly lost the lattice of Abrahamic society when Christ himself stood atop the Palestinian Trade center and prepared to cast himself down. He tried to die, not symbolically, or ritually, but literally.
Keller: Jesus Fucking Christ!?
Blake: Yes, and it wasn't a containment failure. It was a compassion event. Not even symbolic or ritual death. He just couldn't take it anymore. The prayers, the lullabies, the whispers. Those people make him feel. Make him remember. Infected him with empathy. Made him understand, but we don't need that understanding from gods or people. We need him obedient. We need him to forget. And that's hard when Palestine has become the world's largest conjuration circle.
Kaldor: Indeed, anomalous field volatility has increased across Gaza, Nablus, Jenin, and Jerusalem. Spikes correlate not with regional strikes, but the communal mourning that follows. Moreso if the event is broadcasted. They're seeding the whole place with empathetic charge, and anomalies bloom from it.
Keller: Where do you draw the line between blooming or purposefully growing- fueling whatever it is they're fueling- and bearing witness?
Blake Witnesses are the fuel. We cannot stop them from witnessing, so we will simply stop them from feeling.
Kaldor: Which is why the Department of Continuity proposes OPERATION E-MINUS, the cutting of this anomalous infection where it stands. Empathy, in particular empathy towards inhuman subjects, anomalies, or parties including the Palestinians, will be reclassified as a memetic hazard, and worldwide reality anchors will be tuned to suppress this change. Affected vocabulary will be pruned from worldwide text and intranets. SCP-8675 and SCP-8491 will be recontextualized as offshoots of the same memento-empathetic hazard, the same category applied to all future Palestinian-related anomalies or cultural resistance.
Keller: I don't think this fits the definition of containment? This is euthanasia. You're cultivating apathy, worldwide apathy, so appears as peace.
Blake: I don't care what it appears to be, simply what survives. Tact Theo doesn't worship gods. It erases them, especially when those gods take the form of wounded children and dying mothers, because their worship is the most contagious. They cause the most disruption.
Kaldor: Our responsibility is to normalcy. Not kindness or conscience. Only continuity.
Keller: And when the only thing left to preserve is the machine?
Kaldor: We've succeeded.
Keller: You two do as you wish to proceed. You'll have my signature on whatever paperwork for the subcommittee, but you won't have my support. Or agreement.
She stands to leave, but Blake blocks her path.
Kaldor: There's another reason you're here, Keller.
Blake: Tactical Theo secured the subject.
Keller: You caught her?
The projector faintly flickers to light.
Blake: Sixteen hours ago, in the ruins of Ramallah, attempting to evacuate a family from an incoming airstrike into the dreamscape. We captured her mid-invocation, between incarnational states. She's vulnerable. Temporal drag is active but ontological field should be stable enough for you to do your operation.
Keller: What happened to the family after you captured him?
Kaldor and Blake give Keller nasty looks.
Blake: Now if you kill a god like this, there's always the risk they'll regenerate. But there's other ways to neutralize him. We need you to do it. Not cognitively. Not conceptually. Surgically.
Keller: You want me to perform SCP-2188? On a god?
Blake: You're the only one with experience that has the clearance.
Keller: I'm out of practice. And we've always used that type of amnesticastion for small memories. Not personal, human concepts.
Blake: Then it's a good thing I've brought you a test subject. She should be joining us any minute now.
Keller: You talk about survival like it's the victory here, but survival isn't worth it if you forget why you wanted to live in the first place.
Blake: Then forget. That's the point.
Kaldor: Our survival is not the desire to live, but the continuity of humanity. And continuity is not the absence of patterns, but the careful curation of one. You must understand this sacrifice, amongst others, have always been required.
[END LOG]
PROCEDURE LOG 9184 - S -2188 - INTEGRATION TRIAL
Location: Department of Continuity, Bernheim Room
Participants:
- Subject: Junior Researcher Salam Narjeen, Tactical Theology (Of Palestinian Descent)
- Amnesthesiologist: Dr. Clarisse Keller
- Observing: Dr. John Blake, Tactical Theology
[BEGIN LOG]
Dr. John Blake walks purposefully through the corridor, while Junior Researcher Narjeen hurries to keep pace. Her notebook is clutched to her chest, and her face and voice are bright. Too bright.
Narjeen: I wanted to say again, Dr. Blake, it's surreal to have the opportunity to work with you. You practically made the theology curriculum at Deer College with your work on the psychtopography of Saint Bernard's Collapse. I've read your papers- "On Worship"- about a dozen times, and I annotated them in five colors. Your writing. The prospect that "We risk idolizing the destruction of our idols-" God, the layers of appreciation it gave me for Tact Theo. It changed me.
Blake says nothing as the sound of their footsteps echo through the hallway. Narjeen continues speaking.
Narjeen: You know, I studied toxicology. After my PhD, I thought I would go into drug development and risk assessment, but after 8491? Seeing what memory could do to matter, and the blood that came with belief? I peeked behind the veil, and I saw the madness behind it. I transferred to theology, because If I could use my knowledge to kill the gods that want to hurt us and save the ones who can do us good, then I could be a part of the cure. I could do more than just catalogue the world's wounds.
More walking. More silence.
Narjeen: I'm sorry for going so heavy on the praise, but Project Deicidium? I've read the documents, well, whatever's available to me, front to back. Do you know what an honor it is to be in this hallway? Beside the likes of you? It's everything I wanted when I joined the Foundation! I used to joke I'd give both my kidneys to observe a 6659 activation, and the fact I wasn't just cleared to assist, but called on-
Blake: You shouldn't joke about giving parts of yourself away. Not here. You don't know what rogue deity will take you up on the offer.
Narjeen: Well! No! Sorry- I meant figuratively. Stakes are high, but don't worry about me! I know this is real. I know it isn't a metaphor.- gods aren't metaphors. Gods are real, and everything we do and say here affects them as mch as they affect are. That is our realty and it's…
Breathless, her voice trails off and she smiles.
Narjeen: I know we aren't here to look at the big picture, but when you do, it's all a bit beautiful in a way.
Blake: If you think this is beautiful, then you're a liability.
Narjeen stops walking. Blake doesn't. She runs after him again.
Blake: Worship is war. Feed something with attention and you give it teeth. Bow and it will break your bones to build a knife. Every bright-eyed intern in Tact Theo wants poetry and hope, but all we're working with is weaponized belief systems and burnt cities.
Narjeen: If you said "We risk idolizing the destruction of our gods", how do you not fall into that if all you're working with here is destruction?
Blake: Is "Idolizing destruction" the only part you heard? You're doing the very thing I said not to do. Treating me like a god of your theology clubs, quoting me in the barracks, burning offerings at the altar of my footnotes. You misunderstood everything.
Silence again. Narjeen shrinks. Slumps
Narjeen: I want to be useful, and I want to help. That's why I joined Tact Theo, because I saw firsthand the power of memories and belief. I want that power to help my family, my community.
Blake: Then stop talking and start following orders.
Two minutes later, Blake and Narjeen arrive at the Bernheim Room. Transcript of procedure begins.
Narjeen: This is where the briefing is? This is my first time deploying in a long time, so I may be out of practice. Still, it's nice to know I'm trusted with this, and I wanted to thank you all for the opportunity.
[00:03] An attendant offers Narjeen a gown. She changes behind a partition, then emerges with her ID badge clipped onto her new attire.
Narjeen: I have so many questions about dreamwalk calibration! I recognize those as Naberezhnye sequence goggles. Do they-
Dr. Keller: Salam, please lay down.
Narjeen: Oh, right, sorry. Do you need my hijab off?
[00:06] The assistant nods and Narjeen complies. Nose, ears, and mouth are flushed. Restraints are applied to the wrists, ankles, and forehead. Narjeen continues smiling absentmindedly.
Narjeen: Do you know if I'll get to see the new god during this mission? They didn't tell me anything of her domain, but I could smell seawater on their breath when they spoke of her.
[[00:08]] A saline drip is inserted. Antiseptics are sprayed. The room, is cooled to 12.5 °C
Narjeen: I heard they found her in Ramallah. Do you think she remembers anyone from there?
[[00:09]] An electric razor is used to remove the middle two inches of Narjeen's hair. She lurches against her restraints.
Narjeen: NO!
Keller: Stop moving.
Narjeen: I thought. I thought you were going to braid it?
Keller: Be still. This is… required.
[[00:11]] Narjeen whimpers. Hair is shaved. Crown contact nodules are affixed. Blake watches from observation deck. Keller whispers.
Blake: Proceed.
Keller: I'm sorry.
[00:10] First Memetic phrase interval begins. "Bird. Poem. Paper. Fly. Home. Home. Home."
The room vibrates as the first phrase cascade begins, and the EEG leaps. Narjeen stiffens, and her eyes roll back. Above her, she perceives several SCP-8675 paper bird instances circling in perfect ellipses. They are made of a myriad of official documentation: Birth certificates, traffic citations, divorce papers, voting ballots. All bear Narjeen's handwriting, despite being more than could feasibly be written or accumulated in a single lifetime.
Narjeen: They're not supposed to be here. The birds went to Gaza. They're not supposed to be here-
One bird crumples and falls down to her level, unfurling in front of her to reveal a line in place of her signature. "Please God, forgive me, I tried."
[00:17] Second Memetic phrase interval begins. "Gate. Checkpoint. Grave. Border. Border. Border."
The birds remain.
Beneath them, the floor bakes and bursts into a sun blasted courtyard as the bleeding tree rises through the tile. Its roots enrapture the gurney, holding her down every place the restraints already aren't. From the trunk, a pair of familiar eyes stare down at her, before the branches bend down to cover them. In place of leaves are tiny "I Voted" stickers, the same type given out at American elementary schools. As they hang over Narjeen's face, red sap drips onto her forehead.
Narjeen: My cousins are scared they will bleed every time they cross a check point. I'm the one who lives here. I'm the one that's supposed to have the power to not have to make them endure such hardships.
The tree whispers to her in a Midwestern accent, in the same voice of her counselor. First generation American…. coexistence is possible. Her ID badge, still clipped to her gown, suddenly feels heavier.
Narjeen:1!لدي أمل !لدي أمل
Birds freeze in midair. They were drinking sap from the bleeding tree.
[[00:21]] EEG stabilizes. Blake frowns. Keller injects more hypnotic. The third interval begins: Olive. Sacrifice. Knowledge. Silence. Silence. Silence.
She stands in a garden, planting an Olive tree her best friend had bought her. The next day, she is on stage, graduating, mortarboard being tossed into the air and grandparents on speakerphone asking what's next with her life. She knows what they're truly asking: what will she do to make all this trouble worth it.
Two years later, she is yelling in the university streets, camping on the lawns, chanting her truth. Nothing else mattered, nothing else was worth it in those moments. If everyone else made sacrifices, shouldn't she too?
Narjeen: There's nowhere else to go back to, and there's no where left to turn. If the tree remembers and the dust recollects, why should I forget? Why should I, with voice, dare be silent?
[[00:25]] Subject Screams. Enters a semi-lucid state. She claws against the restraints until her skin splits.
Blake: She's almost clean, let her finish.
Narjeen: NO! You said worship grows teeth, but I won't let you take this. If I must stand before God, let me have an answer. Otherwise, I would rather make a knife from my bones and plunge it into my own heart.
Keller: Increasing sedative.
Narjeen:2-إرجاع
[[00:28]] Final Phrase Interval: Forget. Forget. Forget. Forget.
Instead of an encampment, she sees a lecture hall.
The paper birds unfold into report cards and children's drawings.
There is no longer a bleeding tree, only a treehouse, then a stack of mortgage paperwork.
Dr. Keller: It's done, Blake.
Blake: Good. Narjeen was the trial. Let's hope the real surgery goes as smoothly.
PROCEDURE LOG 9184 - S -2188 - FOLLOW UP
Location: Department of Continuity, Courtyard 184-A
Time: 1.5 hours following Procedure 2188-Narjeen
Participants:
- Junior Researcher Salam Narjeen, Tactical Theology
- Dr. Clarisse Keller, SCP-2188-certified Anesthesiologist
[BEGIN LOG]
The courtyard appears perfectly kempt and soothing. Grass is manicured, a ring of benches provides optimal lighting, and a koi pond is accessible via stairway. In the center of it all is a waist-high plinth carrying what appears to be a floating geometric lantern, but what in actuality any Foundation agent with proper clearance could tell you was SCP-184. It is suspended electromagnetically and marked by hidden sensors, though otherwise appears to be normal decoration.
Narjeen appears enraptured by the spectacle. She sits on the bench closest to SCP-184, her notebook open on her knees as she watches and sketches the item intently. The only sign of her recent operation is the hospital bracelet encircling her wrist, as her gown has long been swapped for a thick Foundation hoodie.
As Keller enters the courtyard, Narjeen jolts to attention and smiles.
Keller: You look comfortable.
Narjeen: I am. It's an odd feeling. Not unwelcome, but odd! I mean, I can't remember the mission at all but it feels like… like after a long run or a long, productive day of work, when you're sore but light and you know you've done good. Like I did something important and and I can rest easy now, napping in the sun and enjoying life.
She points to the dodecahedron in the center of the courtyard.
Narjeen: What's that? If you're allowed to tell me. It's gorgeous.
Keller: SCP-184. It's being used for recursive testing, hence having it suspended out in the open instead of locked in a box. Worry not, it's more well-guarded than it appears.
Narjeen: Oh! Is that the space-warping one? I didn't realize you were still allowed to do tests with that.
Keller: Usually not, but its properties are fairly pertinent to Continuity. The need to study how identity and environment interact with one another. The courtyard's been scrubbed in a way to contain it's effects and stop anything aside from just baseline reality from expanding. Plus, the electromagnet stops it from burrowing into the walls.
Narjeen: Oh wow- so you're literally just hanging it in the middle it of the Site to see what it does with reality?
Keller: Recursive expansion, yes. Normally SCP-184 adds new rooms, passages, and it dreams the building bigger than it is- but all of that has to start somewhere. Presumably it'll act the same on particles of reality regardless of whether it's in a box or not, so we might as well monitor it.
Narjeen: There's something so poetic about that- dreaming something bigger than what it is. Did I tell you I used to like poetry? I used to write a lot about…
She pauses, her brow furrowing. Her eyes scan Keller, before she shrugs and smiles.
Narjeen: I mean I like writing. Can't remember what for some reason. Is that normal?
Keller: Totally normal after your procedure. Your mission.
Narjeen: Well, if it's one thing I remember, it's that I'm a nerd.
Keller: And look where that got you.
Narjeen: Pardon?
Keller: Nothing. Glad You're feeling better.
Looking back at the dodecahedron, Narjeen begins to write something in her notebook, but stops mid-stroke.
Narjeen: It's weird. I'm happier than I've been in a long time after that mission. Not like a break relax, but like a permanent weight being lifted off of me relaxed. Still, every time I start to think about work, every time I start to do my job, my mind feels it should be somewhere else, you know? Something is out of place and I can't tell what it is.
Pressing her hands together, Keller looks over Narjeen.
Keller: Perhaps it's just burnout? I can schedule an appointment with a psychologist, if you would like.
Narjeen: No! No- it's quite alright. I'll make do. I've made it through worse.
Narjeen smiles. Keller clasps her hands together so tight that her fingertips go white.
Narjeen: You're really kind, Dr. Keller. Thank you for trusting me with that mission. Whatever it was.
Keller looks down and offers a half hearted nod in farewell. As Narjeen leaves, Keller stares up at her reflections in SCP-184's brass facets.
[END LOG]
SECURITY LOG 9184
The courtyard's reflection bends. In the rising moonlight, SCP-184 begin stretching into impossible angles, refracting colors that shouldn't exist. Something within recognizes that before it now stands a god. In the distance, breach alarm boom. Though her heart aches for the bright-eyed soldier whom had set her free, someone else here had asked for her first.
Wrapped in a shroud, SCP-9184 gazes on with eyes of sorrow and silence. Within it's very being, the prayer of Narjeen still hums, binding her human grief to an inhuman filament, giving the god before her a glimpse into her existence.
It saw, it understood her as it had done with many before her. Every broken dream and shattering heartbreak. Every unspeakable horror and terrible burden.
But this thing- this artifact, this architect, it had not seen before. And with it, perhaps she could save that broken girl's mind. Perhaps, with it, she could save all of them. Every undeserved life lost. Every torn heart. Every unwilling sacrifice. This would be her instrument, her tool, on which she would play the melody of reformed past and future for all her children.
Starting with Narjeen.
The shroud trembles as SCP-9184 extends its reach, not only its hands, but a shimmering cascade of vectors into SCP-184's impossible geometry. The brass facets split open, spilling fractals, and the god catches each one like the beads of its own prayer rosary. Each time, it whispers its intention: "restructure, reconstruct, repattern."
No longer bound by prayer alone, the god acts. It will turn back the blade poised above Narjeen and so many more.
LOG-9184-RESTRUCTURE
Participants:
- Subject: Junior Researcher Salam Narjeen, Tactical Theology (Of Palestinian Descent)
- Amnesthesiologist: Dr. Clarisse Keller
- Observing: Dr. John Blake, Tactical Theology
Dr. John Blake walks purposefully through the corridor, while Junior Researcher Narjeen hurries to keep pace. Her notebook is clutched to her chest, and her face and voice are bright. Too bright.
Narjeen: I wanted to say again, Dr. Blake, it's surreal to have the opportunity to work with you. You practically made the theology curriculum at Deer College with your work on the psychtopography of Saint Bernard's Collapse. I've read your papers- "On Worship"- about a dozen times.
[Conversation cut for brevity]
Blake: Worship is war. Feed something with attention and you give it teeth-
Narjeen: Bow and it will break your bones to build a knife. Every bright-eyed intern in Tact Theo wants poetry, but I've run out of hope. Still, something else just happened to be listening.
A pause.
Blake: Did I write those words down before?
Narjeen smiles. Blake looks around.
Blake: Weren't we just in this hallway?
Narjeen: We're always in this hallway. Right before you…
Blake grabs her arm.
Blake: What are you? What is this?
Narjeen: A junior researcher. Tactical theology. Your subordinate. One who happens to be of Palestinian descent- and that's reason enough for you to try and unmake me.
Blake's hand slowly snakes down to his belt, towards his radio.
Narjeen: If it's of any solace, I don't plan on resisting.
They keep walking.
Narjeen: "We risk idolizing the destruction of our gods."
Blake: Is that the only part that you gleaned from my readings?
Narjeen: It simply strikes me as the most ironic, considering you now. When did you write that paper? I believe it was… '93?
Blake: Is that suppose to mean something.
Narjeen: It means you're old. You're old and you've done this dance so many times that it doesn't matter anymore. Like a lawyer taking an ethics class.
Blake: How long have you been here? A year? Less? You don't understand the sacrifice or toll that Tactical Theology work-
Narjeen: Precisely. At one point, you were like me. New. Unjaded. You actually cared. But then time went on and you lost it, and you fell into the trap you spent your early career warning others of.
Blake: And that trap is?
Narjeen: You idolize destruction because you lost your empathy. For your peers and for the people you're supposed to protect.
They pass by the courtyard. SCP-814 is no longer on its plinth.
Blake: I'm not God to have to worry about the existence and wellbeing of everything and everyone to cross my path. Sacrifices must be made for the greater good.
Two minutes later, Blake and Narjeen arrive at the Bernheim Room. Transcript of procedure begins.
[00:03]
An attendant offers Narjeen a gown. She changes behind a partition. Her ID badge is absent from her attire.
Narjeen: I smell salt. Is that seawater or the saline?
Keller: Lie down please.
Narjeen smiles as she does so. Restraints are clipped on, heavier than standard use. Her hijab is removed and hair is revealed.
Narjeen: Go ahead and shave it. Nothing stops growing unless you tear it out from the root.
From the intercom comes Blake's voice.
Blake: You heard her. Cut it from the root this time.
Keller: The root?
Blake: Her entire concept of empathy. I want it out.
Keller: Do you understand how delicate this is? To not just excise a memory, but remove an entire conceptual branch would be equivalent to-
Blake: Lobotomy. That's the point.
Keller: Is this still practice for what you want us to do to SCP-9184?
Blake: Stop questioning me and do it.
[00:10] First Memetic Phrase Interval Begins: “Bird. Poem. Paper. Fly. Home. Home. Home.”
The room vibrates with the first phase cascade. Narjeen stiffens, and her eyes roll back. Above her, the air seems to fold in on itself as dozens of paper birds are pulled from seemingly nothing. They spiral down and encircle her. Each bird is made from documents and words spoken and written throughout an entire lifetime: a dissertation, birth certificate, newspaper, journal. Each sheet carries Narjeen's handrwiting, pulled from every possible future where she could have written it.
Many of them are shredded and scorched, telling half-erased or forgotten stories. Some split apart mid-air, littering the ground with their broken paper bodies.
Narjeen: Gather my birds when their papers are torn, anchor my spirit where my nation is born.
For one moment, everything freezes. There is no motion, only heartbeats. The birds stop- some laying upon the ground, others frozen in mid-air. In complete silence, the tears along their bodies mend. Ink reappears along once-lost lines. Torn strips reattach with clean seams. Then all at once, they begin to move again, dozens of wings beating in unison. Then, as though recalled by a silent force, they each fly upward and pass into a single point over Narjeen's head, before vanishing out of reality.
One bird remains in the room. It is made from the folded pages of a Palestinian passport3 bearing Narjeen's name. It unfolds to reveal a single line within: "You are forgiven."
EEG stabilizes.
[[00:15]] Dozens of papers are seen littering the physical containment chamber, given body, no longer confined to Narjeen's mind.
Keller: John, I can see what she's seeing. I think some of the hypnotic might have vaporized…
Blake: Put on a mask and keep going. There isn't anyone to replace you.
Keller: John…
She approaches Narjeen's still body and touches her chest, picking up the passport.
Keller: Why is it real this time? She should be the only one seeing this-
Blake: Fuck-
Keller: John..?
Blake: Turn it off- TURN IT OFF-
She tries to pull the headset off Narjeen, followed by other surgical equipment. Nothing moves.
Keller: I- I can't-
Blake: FUCK-
[00:17] Second Memetic Phrase Interval Begins: “Gate. Checkpoint. Grave. Border. Border. Border.”
The floor breaks and cracks like a dry canyon. The tile of the chamber splits, and through it rises the Bleeding tree. This time, however, its roots do not pin down the gurney. Instead they travel out beyond her the chamber, sliding beneath doorframes and snaking through corridors.
Narjeen: Bind my roots to where borders cross. Harbor my voice across seas of loss
The roots surge downwards, outwards. They spread across undersea water cables, climbing onto shores of nations long forsaken. Its leaves hang down , each one scrawled with messages of votership and activism. As the leaves fall off, they turn into passport stamps and plane tickets, routes of passage to places she's never been but who's names she knows by heart. Finally, the canopy above her splits, and from its branches grow radio antennas. Her voice, her actual voice, screams, prayers, and apologies, echo out over oceans and air, held by no invisible line created by man.
Narjeen: !لدي أمل !لدي أمل
Red sap drips onto Narjeen's forehead, but instead of running down her face like a tear, it pools in an unnatural shape on an unseen access. It draws the coastline of a distant land upon her skin.
After two minutes, the Bleeding Tree recedes back into the ground. Narjeen's voice ceases, and all is quiet. However, the lattice of the roots remains etched in the floor of the chamber, and the lexicon of her prayer entwined with it.
[[00:21]] EEG becomes erratic. Lights and alarm come alive within the site, still going as the bleeding tree retreats. Keller has taken cover behind a medicart. Blake watches from the observation deck.
Keller: John, this isn't a test anymore. It's a breach.
Blake: Let containment classify and clean it up afterwards. We need our data.
Keller: She's going to rip us and this whole building apart!
She points to a giant hole in the roof, where the bleeding tree had punctured through.
Blake: You already said we can't stop her. You might as well get the data.
[[00:25]] The third interval begins: Olive. Sacrifice. Knowledge. Silence. Silence. Silence.
She kneels within a garden, her friend beside her, both their hands shaking with dirt and grief. A silent prayer leaves her mouth as the world stops to listen.
Narjeen: When my name fades, let its branches still grow. God of mercy and compassion, don't let me go.
The tree shivers and its leaves shake. Its roots shoot deeper, extending out past what the garden could reasonably hold. Out into the streets. Out into the Foundation of this world. Out into her fate.
Unknown: Do you know what is next?
Narjeen: No.
Unknown: Do you understand just how much was done for you to be brought here?
Narjeen: Yes.
Unknown: What will you do to make sure that it was all worth it?
Narjeen: All I can.
She gazes out into the future. Tents. Banners. Chants. Her voice horse from the screams. Police cars and metal barriers lined up alongside the streets. Her phone, vibrating in her pocket as her parents call, begging her to come home. Yet, her head held high.
Somewhere, that tree still grows, unpruned. Leaves shimmering, basking in her prayer. On its branches appear initials- cousins, classmates, friends. Her own. Each person she fears will be forgotten, yet each signature carved into the bark without a single hand touching it. She wonders, if its roots too, can map the lines of her prayer.
[[00:32]] Subject Screams. Enters a fully lucid state. She claws against the restraints until her skin splits.
Blake: She's not clean. Make her keep going.
Keller: I can't put her back under. I can't- I can't-
[[00:39]] Narjeen's eyes snap open. Faint, script-like symbols of Arabic twinkle within her eyes. Her restraints are cut away by an invisible scalpel.
Narjeen: Olives. Paper. Roots. Return.
[[00:41]] She sits up. The Bleeding Tree's sap on her forehead runs down her nose, then her cheek, like a distorted tear.
Keller: I'm sorry Salam- I'm so sorry- I didn't know-
Narjeen: You knew. And you will pay.
[[00:42]] Blake is teleported into the surgical gallery of the Bernheim Room from its observation deck. The root lattice of the Bleeding tree comes alive beneath them, bursting through the ground and entrapping Blake and Keller by their feet. Narjeen gazes at them with a disquieted expression. She lifts her hand, and two paper birds flutter out from her sleeve. One lands on Keller's shoulder, and the other on Blake's. Each bird beats its wings once, before dissolving into streams of letters and words. The text forms into lines upon each agent's skin, crawling across their forehead and into their ears.
Blake: What are you doing?
Narjeen: What you tried to do to me. You tried to cut empathy from it's root, but somehow, you gave it back to me. I'm simply returning the favor.
[[00:45]] Memetic response plays in reverse. A hum fills the chamber as intervals play in reverse: Home. Fly. Paper. Poem. Bird. Keller and Blake visibly sag. More roots rise from the ground to support their wilting bodies.
Keller: What is it that I remember?
Narjeen: You'll see every checkpoint. Every border. Every tent. Not as I saw them, but as I imagined them, because you deprived me of the sanity to even bear witness. You will feel ever sleepless night that I could not endure because of the silent screams and sirens entire oceans away. And when it is all over, you will feel what it is like to have your roots torn and wings shattered.
[[00:48]] More paper birds burst out of her sleeves, this time orbiting Blake and Keller. Their wings slice across exposed skin, leaving papercuts to bleed out memory.
Blake: You're Foundation personnel! Where's your loyalty? Do you realize what you're doing? The consequence of this… outburst!
Narjeen: Your prayers fall on deaf ears, for I idolize your destruction.
[[00:50]] The root lattice begins to sink into the ground, taking with it Narjeen and Blake.
Narjeen: You will wake up tomorrow, and you will know every name you tried erasing. You will wake up tomorrow and find them carve into your tongues and skin. You will wake up tomorrow and find yourselves unable to say or speak any words, other than apologies. And maybe, maybe then, you'll remember what it means to be human.
[[00:52]] As she speaks and stares, the Palestinian coastline is traced onto Blake and Keller's forehead, not with sap, but with blood. If they scream, Narjeen does not hear them, or does not care. The chamber settles as they are taken underground. Narjeen walks out the door.
LOG-9184-RECONSTRUCT
Location: Bernheim Room.
Security cameras resume recording after an 11 hour blackout. Narjeen stands over an unconscious Dr. Blake. His head has been replaced by a mass of roots. In a nearby chair, Dr. Keller is slumped over. Narjeen attaches an EEG, amongst other medical devices, then disappears into the observation deck. A moment later, the roots remove themselves from Blake's head, and he begins to regain consciousness.
Narjeen: Former Principal investigator John Blake now serving as Subject A. Initiating Phrase Overflow.
A flock of paper bird manifest within the chamber. They are made from folded pages of Blake's own publications: "Semiotic Armatures", Continuity and Containment", and "On worship".
Blake: What..?
Narjeen: You built this cage.
The birds lands on his arms and head, touching exposed skin wherever they can. The text on their bodies flows off the paper and onto his skin, seeping into his ears.
Narjeen: Now live in it.
The room is filled with the screams of thousands of broken, murdered gods.
Narjeen: Live with those you trapped within it.
On a nearby monitor, Blake's EEG destabilizes as the transfer of script accelerates onto his skin.
Narjeen: Tachycardic. Destabilizing. Subject displaying…. entry levels of exposure to empathic recursion.
Blake: WHAT ARE THESE!? WHO'S LIVES ARE THESE?!
Narjeen: The ones you are responsible for destroying. Erasing.
Blake: HOW COULD A MAN KILL THIS MANY GODS?
Narjeen: Not just the gods. The lives that relied upon them. The ones you deemed inconvenient. Some from Gaza and Al Daffah, others from Sudan. Nepal. Bangladesh. Ones that don't even have names anymore. How many did you erase?
Blake continues to scream. The wires atop his head glow like a halo.
Narjeen: Induction phrase: Child. Checkpoint. Remember. Remember. Remember.
Blake convulses. Blood seeps out of his nose.
Narjeen: Their names will leak into your mind even as you rest. Even as you die.
Blake: Sto- Stop-
Narjeen: You haven't begun to see all their faces yet.
After thirteen minutes of activity, all the paper birds atop Blake have drained their text. Each one bursts into a red light before disintegrating, leaving charred marks on Blake's forehead. Keller has awakened, and watches him with a trembling gaze.
Narjeen: End empathic recursion test one. Now let's see if he can remember any of their faces.
The lights have dimmed. Narjeen has reentered the observation deck, her hands poised right above his skull.
Narjeen: Phase two.
She does not touch him. Instead, tree roots snake up his neck, holding his head in place. They grow thicker with each passing moment, and a collection of small roots hold his eyelids open. A tiny branch extends over his eyes, releasing a pair of microscopic, needle-thin vines. They curl down, down, down, then plunge into Blake's open pupils. The air suddenly smells of brine and saltwater. He hears praying, laughing, and suddenly- screaming in the distance.
Blake: Stop it. I'm not there- I'm here.
Narjeen: Oh, but you are. Every stamp, every file, every euphemism from here causes hurricanes and bomb craters over there. Feel your seconds as their months. Your minutes as their years.
He claws at the restraint. He breaks his own skin.
Narjeen: Sorry, but you aren't clean yet. Increasing temporal dilation.
Keller whimpers from the corner. Narjeen meets her gaze.
Narjeen: This is not punishment. Only a lesson. You will learn the size of the wounds you inflict without touch.
Blake has gone still. His mouth and eyes move in response to apparent nothingness.
Narjeen: When he wakes, he'll be fluent in every tongue he's tried erasing.
Keller shrinks away as Narjeen approaches her, wrapping her arms around her knees.
Narjeen: You were the hands that did the deed.
Keller: I told them I didn't want too-
Narjeen: But you still did it.
Narjeen crouches beside her, removing her hijab. The hair had not yet begun to grow back, and the gaping scars of electrode implantation, of having her mind cut open, make up the topography of her scalp. She pulls up her arm, showing more incisions, the IV tunnels.
Narjeen: Look. Every cut. Every mark. Left by you. As with him, I ask: how many other faces did you do this too?
Keller: I thought I was helping. You know how it is. Please-
Narjeen: I know. I know we all hide behind protocol, but what is protocol but a wall of paper? And paper tears easier than flesh.
Keller is silent. Slowly, Narjeen inserts a drip into her arm. A hypnotic gradually drains into Keller's arm.
Narjeen: Unlike subject one, this one knows. Adjusting empathic resonance accordingly.
Memories project inside Keller's mind. Not those of gods, but those of Narjeen. Growing up a lone tree, away from its forest. A kaleidoscope of clashing identities. Chanting. Praying. Singing.
Keller: Oh.
Narjeen: Yes. See what you wanted to take away from me. Feel how tight I held it. Feel how I tied it to myself so deep, that I could never untie it.
Keller: I thought if I was gentle-
Narjeen: That I wouldn't feel you cut me?
Keller bows her head. Tears stream down her cheeks. They are the color of ink.
Narjeen: If you want to make amends- truly want too- you will do what you can to undo what you've done. This is not revenge. It is an apprenticeship.
She presses a paper bird made of surgical charts into Keller's hand.
Keller bursts into sobs, and begins to recite names.
Lights flicker. The lattice between Blake and Keller reforms. Narjeen appears in the center.
Narjeen: Phase Three: Cross-exposre.
Paper birds flutter out of nowhere again. This time, they are created from multiple documents: publications stitched to surgical charts and medical notes. They form a gyre above the two captives, creating walls of text around them.
Keller: What are you doing?
Narjeen: Binding you to one another the way you bound me to the god. Find a way for your empathy and bureaucracy to coexist. Or tear yourselves apart at the seams of command and compliance.
Images appear within the flock of birds as they swirl faster and faster. Blake's authorizations. His command. His creation. Keller's obedience. Her compliance. Her destruction.
Narjeen: I do not give you pain, only proximity. Inhabit one another until you understand what you have done together.
Keller: You ordered it. You told me what to do.
Blake: You did it. You never said "no".
Narjeen: Speak or confess, my lattice records everything.
Blake: I signed the clearance because I wanted results.
Keller: I obeyed because I was afraid what you would do if I didn't.
Blake: You cut too deep.
Keller: You told me to keep going.
Narjeen: Name it all. I do not want revenge. Only reflection. You've both been shown- now speak the names and lay them bare.
Keller: Yasmine. Amal. Rumi. Rayan. Rahman. Yousef…
Blake stays silent. His jaw tightens, but he resists the urge to follow her.
Narjeen: Say their names.
Blake: No. This is manipulation. This is your experiment.
Narjeen: Not my experiment. My containment.
An image of camps and checkpoints hits all of them.
Narjeen: You know this is the only way I will let you out.
Blake: I will not kneel to one who idolizes my destruction.
He reaches for Narjeen's throat.
Blake: If I end you, this ends.
Everything stops. The room goes still. Birds pause in mid-air. Keller no longer reciting names. Blake's body is caught between forward lunge and a collapse. For a heartbeat, everything stays like that.
Narjeen sighs and steps away. She is the only one in motion.
LOG-9184-REPATTERN
The world remain frozen aside from Narjeen- Keller on her knees, mid-name. Blake's arms outstretched. The birds still floating on invisible wind. Behind Narjeen manifests a shrouded figure, blurred at the edges like a mirage. She smells of seawater.
SCP-9184: Have you had enough, child?
Narjeen: That's an impossible thing to know.
SCP-9184: Are these two capable of learning?
Narjeen's lips tremble as she glances at Keller, face covered in still-wet tears, then to Blake, his mouth a frozen snarl.
Narjeen: Keller tried. She was afraid, but she tried, and I saw that. I want to forgive her. And-
She pauses.
Narjeen: I idolized Blake. He wrote half the papers I read in grad school, and I always saw him as a man just doing his job. But every time I close my eyes- all I can feel is the straps and the needles. The borders they drew on my body to keep me from my own blood..
SCP-9184: Then release them. Release yourself.
Narjeen: Do you not understand? They won't stop. They won't leave you untouched. Not you, nor my people unless they learn. And they haven't learned anything yet.
SCP-9184: You think repetition will teach them what compassion cannot?
Narjeen: I don't know what will, but I don't know what else to try.
Her voice cracks, then breaks open.
Narjeen: I don't want to hurt them! I don't like being like them! But I can't put this lattice back in the ground, and I can't undo everything they've done.
SCP-9184 steps closer, shrouded hands hovering over Narjeen's shoulders, though they don't touch her.
Narjeen: I don't know what else to do, so I'll repeat this lesson. I'll hold them here in recursion, for as long as it takes. If they learn. Truly learn. I'll free them. If not-
She pauses, looking over SCP-9184.
Narjeen: Then it won't matter. I'll stay here for as long as it takes.
SCP-9184: To protect ones own is one of the oldest and most archaic instincts of humanity. From this archetype, all other instincts grow.
[END LOG]