Scp - 004 "The 12 Rusty key and the Door"
Object Class- Euclid
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Dr. Mara Ellison stared at the old wooden barn door-SCP-004-1-in the dim light of Site-62's containment wing. The twelve rusted keys, SCP-004-2 through SCP-004-13, lay on a steel tray, each tagged and catalogued. She glanced at her colleague, Agent Ruiz, who checked his sidearm nervously.
"Ready?" Mara asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Ruiz nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be. Let's just stick to protocol."
"Level 4 clearance?" the security officer at the door prompted.
Mara flashed her badge. "Level 4. We're authorized for testing with SCP-004-7 only." She glanced at the keys, recalling the reports: only two keys had ever allowed subjects to return alive, and even then, not always unharmed.
Inside the abandoned factory, Mara inserted SCP-004-7 into the lock. The door swung open, revealing a room impossibly vast for the building's size-darkness stretching endlessly. She stepped through, Ruiz close behind, the door frame the only thing illuminated by their flashlights.
"Stay close," Mara whispered. "Don't lose sight of the door."
Ruiz shivered. "It's like the room's swallowing the light."
They advanced a few meters. Suddenly, Mara's watch beeped. "We've only been in here five minutes, but my log says an hour's passed." She felt a strange vertigo, as if time itself was warping around them.
A low, guttural sound echoed. Ruiz froze. "Did you hear that?"
A massive shadow shifted in the darkness, green and hulking, so large its form was impossible to comprehend. Mara's mind reeled with fear-memories not her own flashing before her eyes. Ruiz dropped his flashlight, clutching his head. "It's in my mind-memories-can't-"
"Back to the door, now!" Mara dragged Ruiz, who stumbled, eyes wide with terror.
They burst through the frame and slammed the door shut. Ruiz collapsed, trembling, whispering about a green creature and lost time.
Back in containment, Mara reported their findings. "Spatial and temporal anomalies confirmed. Ruiz is… not well." She eyed SCP-004-14, the wooden box found in the manager's office. "Let's test the box."
She unlocked it with SCP-004-7. The interior was five times larger than the exterior. She placed a recorder inside, closed the lid, and locked it. The recorder vanished-no trace, no weight change.
"Anything put inside is gone for good," Mara noted, her voice uneasy. "But why does it affect dreams?" She shivered, recalling the reports of personnel haunted by nightmares after losing colleagues to the box.
On August 14, 2003, a power outage plunged Site-62 into darkness. Mara and the others huddled together, feeling unseen presences brush past them in the pitch-black. When the lights returned, everyone was accounted for-but shaken.
"Something's in there with us," Mara whispered to the Site Director. "We need to keep the keys secure, always."
Years passed. Mara became Site-62's director. She enforced strict procedures: the keys never left the site without two Level 4 personnel, and under no circumstances was anything other than the keys permitted through SCP-004-1.
One day, alarms blared-containment breach. Mara grabbed the keys, rushing into the vast room beyond the door. As the warhead countdown began, she closed the door behind her, sealing the keys-and herself-inside.
She faced the endless darkness, the green creature looming at the edge of perception. But she felt no fear. She had fulfilled her duty. The Foundation-and the world-were safe, for now.
"We are the line between the known and the unknown," Mara whispered into the void, "and I will hold it."