SCP-3999 - I Am At The Center of Everything That Happens To Me

Ask yourself a simple question: is the world around you real? It seems like the answer should be pretty obvious, of course the world as you know it is real, how else would you be able to interact with it? Perhaps a better question would be this: how much do you trust that the world you know is real? How much do you believe that reality, as you experience it, is constant and cannot be changed by external forces? Now imagine, if you can, an entity to which the very fabric of reality is like clay, able to be shaped and moulded at will.

Then imagine that this entity, this malicious, twisted, and unknowable horror, has taken a special interest in you. If you can picture such a scenario, then you may as well be standing in the shoes of James Talloran, a Foundation Researcher assigned to SCP-3999.

Talloran could only have imagined what the Foundation kept contained in an airtight cell all the way at the bottom of a kilometer-long shaft; and never expected that it was where his lifeless body would be found.

Despite having the entity contained, The Foundation's only knowledge of SCP-3999 came from a text document discovered on Talloran's phone after his demise. Even their own records indicated no such creature ever existed.

Why? What could possibly shape reality in such a way that it could hide its own existence from the Foundation and where was it now? The document on Talloran's phone yielded some evidence, seeming to be a long, rambling and confused account of some sort of battle between a reality-shaping entity and the ill-fated researcher sent to examine it. Unlike many of the Foundation's documents, the entry for SCP-3999 is riddled with contradictions and strikethroughs, a confusing mess of information that makes piecing together the mystery of Talloran's fate all the more difficult.

Beneath the strange formatting and uncertainty surrounding SCP-3999, lies a tale of one man's torture for the amusement of an impossibly powerful, and eternally sadistic creature. Based on the information available, it appears that SCP-3999 was fixated on Talloran. Upon his arrival to the entity's cell, the researcher had no idea how long he would spend in the company of SCP-3999, or that he would never emerge alive.

Many SCPs contained by the Foundation require their own, specially made prisons in order to hold them, and maintain the safety of Foundation staff as well as the outside world. But imagine if an SCP could turn the tables, bending the world around a single member of the Foundation, using all of reality as their own personalized torture chamber.

The list of horrors endured by Talloran is both exhaustive and incomplete, given the length of time he spent with the creature. Shortly after James Talloran was assigned to Site 118, where SCP-3999 was contained, the entity was somehow able to breach containment, and began to twist the world around it in the name of a singular, cruel objective: the torture of James Talloran.

The creature, while having no physical description, possessed the capability to cause either a CK-Class reality-restructuring event or a ZK-Class end-of-reality event. SCP-3999 was somehow able to both destroy reality itself, while simultaneously rebuilding it around its prisoner, Researcher Talloran.

Every creature, person and machination that SCP-3999 created was done so with the express intention of making Talloran suffer horribly, over the course of millions of years, according to the researcher's own writings. The exact details of how SCP-3999 tortured Talloran are littered throughout the document he was found with, but it is apparent that the entity was able to use its reality-altering abilities to continually revive the man after killing him as a way to prolong his pain.

SCP-3999 seemed to be able to use its powers however it pleased, but focused all its attention and actions on causing misery for one man. It simply enjoyed inflicting suffering. One of the examples of the atrocities James Talloran suffered at the mercy of a cold, remorseless creature, was witnessing the deaths of others.

Although they were constructed and controlled by SCP-3999, Talloran saw trained Foundation security personnel drag three people into the cell. He recognized them instantly as his own family. Talloran was made to watch as his mother, father and sister were executed with a single gunshot to the head by members of the same organization that he was a part of.

All of Talloran's professional colleagues were also killed in front of him, followed by anyone and everyone that had ever come into contact with James Talloran – including the O5 Council. He was made to watch as they were systematically murdered one by one, all for the enjoyment of SCP-3999.

At some point during the creature's torture of Talloran, there appears to have been some attempt to contain SCP-3999 within another SCP. SCP-2432, a room within a hotel now owned by the Foundation that appears to compel its guests to write exaggerated positive reviews after staying there. When introduced to SCP-2432, SCP-3999's ability to alter reality seemed to have the effect of creating a dimensional anomaly within the hotel.

A crawl space opened up in SCP-2432, leading to an almost-identical room. The front door of this new room, designated SCP-2432-1, led to an alternate dimension that resembled the hotel housing SCP-2432. The rooms of this new version of the SCP-2432 hotel were a seemingly infinite, endless loop of rooms.

This dimension also played host to a number of strange creatures, as uncovered by Foundation research teams that ventured there. Most notably, a creature resembling a male homo sapien calling itself 'Researcher Talloran'. This being was dressed in clothing similar to Foundation researchers, and appeared nervous and confused when approached by personnel, only to be executed when asking to be told the location of SCP-3999.

Later during SCP-3999's three-million-year torture session, James Talloran was interviewed with another doctor working for the Foundation. The interviewing doctor had no recollection of Talloran's assignment to SCP-3999, and both James' involvement with the Foundation and the very existence of SCP-3999 were expunged from the Foundation's database.

As Talloran desperately tried to rationalize what was happening to him, he told the interviewer: "I have trouble focusing on things now. I just feel a lot of unease. It's like reality has started to feel less…real…if that makes sense." Shortly after, he attempted to ask the doctor for his name, and for him to identify which of the Foundation's sites they were at.

In response, the doctor emitted a strange noise from his mouth, confusing Talloran. "That's not a name, you just made a noise with your mouth," the researcher replied. "Why am I thinking of redactions? How can a word be redacted like that in normal conversation?" Following this, the floor beneath James Talloran's feet disappeared and he was swallowed by darkness, as SCP-3999 continued bending reality to make him suffer. What followed were multiple failed attempts from Talloran to either escape from the entity or nullify its abilities to warp reality.

SCP-3999 had, at a later point, trapped Talloran in a stage play version of its cell. As James frantically tried to escape out of a nearby door, where he hoped to find reality, he was met with a solid wall. "I'm trapped in whatever this place is with this thing, and there's no outside reality anymore," he realized. Researcher Talloran tried to understand the entity, but SCP-3999 defied description, it was simply chaos. In his desperation, Talloran was able to dig a tiny hole in the floor, through which he could see a light.

Filled with thoughts of his beloved family, his colleagues and the rest of the world that had once existed, he opened the hole wider. It is unclear what happened after this, but it is apparent that James Talloran was still unable to escape SCP-3999. However, as the situations he found himself in grew increasingly strange, James Talloran was able to take greater control of his predicament.

This is evidenced in the Foundation's document regarding SCP-3999: "Researcher Talloran cannot be contained by this. Researcher Talloran will fight his way back. Researcher Talloran will recontain SCP-3999." This torture had gone on long enough, and Researcher James Talloran was determined to be free of the creature that had taken such sick pleasure in his pain. Talloran at one point was able to subdue SCP-3999, although it is initially unclear how he accomplished this.

There were several attempts made to contain the entity, using a recursive joke, a melon, the graves of American crime novelist Robert B. Parker or an O5 Council member, and a roach motel. It is believed that every single one of these attempts failed. Attempting to beat the creature at its own game, Talloran tried to turn SCP-3999's reality-altering powers against it by imagining the entity as something easier to subdue.

These included several mouldy blankets, a murderous penguin, and a pillow. Eventually, Talloran was able to contain SCP-3999 with the aid of forty-eight trained containment personnel, all of whom were also Researcher Talloran. During this time, a conversation between the two was partially recorded, although any dialogue from SCP-3999 suffered from data corruption. Claiming to finally be in charge and in control of the situation, Talloran interrogated SCP-3999, berating the creature for keeping him prisoner: "You can't frighten me anymore.

For the first million years of nonsensical containment procedures and tortures and dream logic, it was the worst pain I had ever felt, but I survived. For the second million years…it was still the hardest thing I had ever done, but I survived. By the third million years, I was growing numb." The researcher tried to ascertain the exact nature and origin of SCP-3999, but to no avail.

Vowing to fight the entity, Talloran told it: "Here's the thing about horror and weirdness: the more you reveal of it, the less effect it has. I am sick of your horror. I am sick of you." Afterwards, he was melted into goo for five years. It appears that, shortly after this, Researcher Talloran managed to understand how to destroy SCP-3999. While the entity was immortal and virtually unstoppable, he realized its weakness: that it had to bond to another being in order to survive.

Upon discovering this, Talloran took his own life, causing all that SCP-3999 had done to disappear. After Foundation Researcher James Talloran committed suicide, reality reverted to its original state before SCP-3999 had heavily altered it, his death freeing reality from the evil entity once and for all.

The Foundation remains unaware of what SCP-3999 was, or indeed is, and one can only guess as to why the entity subjugated Talloran to such torture and horror. What made this powerful reality-bender hold such a perverse fixation on one man? Some have likened the creature to a horror writer, continually subjecting a character to all manner of nightmares before deciding to redraft and try something new. Whatever it was, SCP-3999 carries with it a warning that reality isn't always as it seems. Check out "SCP – 5000 – The Suit" and "SCP – 106 – The Old Man" for more horrifying tales from the SCP Foundation.